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There are a lot of people who are not interested in waiting for the results of formal investigations in situations like this one, and on some level I think that results from the intuition that formal processes like investigations can't be trusted to get at the truth of what happened, that there are too many false negatives. It's obviously problematic, because calling on people to resign without an investigation sounds unfair.
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It doesn't sound unfair. It is unfair. A story told from one person's perspective is only a piece of what happened. And an accuser's perspective is always biased. (The person's obviously angered enough to have accused another.)
I've sued people and received large recoveries for things I could convincingly present as negligence but which were really more a confluence of random events that led to someone being harmed or fired. My narrative was accepted because juries like to hear stories, and our claims could be packaged into stories. The defense did not have such a great story because telling a jury of common people that a mix of random events led to a circumstance that looked like negligence but wasn't does two things:
1. It robs the audience (the jury) of the ability to use their primordial pattern-finding mind (which works against their instinct); and,
2. If they find its more random than negligent, the plaintiff does not get paid, which feels unfulfilling to a lot of common folk.
The argument that process gets in the way on claims of harassment too easily leads to "buying a subjective narrative." We certainly don't need to investigate Franken's transgressions like serious crimes, but the accused should have an opportunity to put out his version of events and present exculpatory evidence and witnesses. You don't convict on a memoir.
