Our moral outrage seems to be tied to our partisan attachments.
I don’t have the time or room on the cloud to presently pen all that has been disappointing, illuminating, or eye-opening about the 2016 presidential-election cycle. In the days or weeks that follow Election Day there will be plenty of time for autopsy, and I am fairly sure I only mean that as a metaphor. But as we absorb a weekend of response to the bombshell video release of Donald Trump’s horrific and candid expressions of vulgarity, sexual braggadocio, adultery aspirations, adultery realizations, and not to mention bizarre sexual grammar, the reality is that we should have learned a much more important lesson than the one about Trump being a disgusting pervert (if, indeed, we didn’t already know that one, it says much more about our intellect than our moral compass). The takeaway from this weekend cuts through both parties and both sides of the ideological divide like a knife, and it is, put simply: One’s moral outrage at sexual deviancy is directly correlated to their partisan loyalties, no more, and no less.
When French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy took to the Daily Beast to defend Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then head of the International Monetary Fund, for sexually assaulting a hotel maid in New York City, his defense did not center around a declaration of his innocence; rather, he could not believe Strauss-Kahn was being “taken for a subject of justice like any other.” The French press, so enamored with Strauss-Kahn’s socialism, as it were, didn’t see a man who had been embroiled in an affair with an economist co-worker, or accused of raping a hotel maid (his claim was not that the incident didn’t happen; rather, that it was consensual), or eventually of being arrested in a prostitution ring. Rather, he was a “champion of the fragile and vulnerable,” a description that not only inadequately gives cover to sexual perversion, but also strikes me as wholly unfitting a man having sex with a hotel maid. But I digress.
The American tolerance for deviant behavior is also wholly dependent on what we believe the deviant person stands for politically, or worse, just simply how they identify from a partisan perspective. The sanctimony from many on the left this weekend over Trump’s disgusting comments would be more credible if there had been any such condemnation of Bill Clinton during Gennifer-gate, Paula-gate, Monica-gate, or I-am-sure-there-were-others-gate. We have enjoyed a nearly two-decade marathon of disgust and horror from the Left, from their major pundits in media, from the top elected officials, from the Democratic brass, and from the rank-and-file Democrats who vote and work and live in this country — not disgust and horror at the acts of a serial adulterer or intern-violator — heavens no! Rather, shock and horror at the “sex-obsessed Ken Starr,” as Clinton aide, Paul Begala, so deliciously put it. The sexual obsession was with the man investigating the perjury about the sex, not the man having all of the sex. And why the crazy gymnastics to defend a serial sexual-harasser disbarred for his iniquities? Well, because he was a center-left liberal Democrat, of course. Ergo, “His personal life has nothing to do with anything.” Has the response from these exact same people (not same type of people, but I mean actual same people) been similar with the Trumpian personal conduct? Not quite. Reading their Twitter feeds has felt like my own personal devotion. If I didn’t know better I would guess that overnight every one of these people converted to a strict form of Christianity — and then took a vow of celibacy the next day. The horror at what Trump said and did is not really the issue, as much as the strain on believability their posture now creates. Cigars and interns should be enough to generate a little moral outrage for those who now find Trump’s behavior so lewd and appalling.
Most on the right rejected the moral bankruptcy that vindicated Bill Clinton — until Friday night, that is.
And of course, most on the right rejected the moral bankruptcy that vindicated Bill Clinton — until Friday night, that is. It is important to note, all moral justification and minimization notwithstanding around “locker-room banter,” this was no locker-room banter. Trump did not say, “That chick is hot,” a comment that would understandably offend people, but at least would be well within the realm of what we all know many guys (even married guys) often say in private man-to-man conversation. Trump’s talk went beyond that in a very important and particular way — he specifically describes, not just with words, but with words about actions his attempt to “**ck a married woman” (eight months after he himself entered his third marriage). He wasn’t saying what he dreams about doing (which would be disgusting, too) — he was saying what he does (“I walk up and just kiss them; I can’t help myself”). And, I might add, he wasn’t saying this to his best bud from college — an old friend with whom he used to bar hop and pick up hotties. No, this was Billy Bush, an anchor for Access Hollywood, on a tour bus.
And what was the response of the Clinton-impeaching Right, the Moral Majority, the beacons of virtue and decency in an era of moral relativism? Well, one particular Trump-advocate took to the airwaves to point out that King David had 500 concubines, a line that actually left me aghast at Sean Hannity’s intelligence and decency, when I thought expectations couldn’t dip any lower. Tucker Carlson explained that, while what Trump said disturbed him, he didn’t understand why everyone was playing dumb. We all know that everyone does it and everyone says it, right? The break-your-Twitter-feed cop-out for this latest embarrassment from this wretched candidate? “Come on, we all know that Clinton is worse; I care more about Hillary’s e-mails than what Trump said just joking around.”
#related#And there you have it. Expressions of ethical standards when condemning Bill Clinton are good and right, but they will be impossible to come by unless one differs with the politics of Bill Clinton. And being appalled at Donald Trump’s vulgarity is intuitive and righteous, but apparently all too rare unless one is mortified by Hillary Clinton, or is not a nativist-nationalist. The fact of the matter is that selective moral outrage is nothing new in politics, or anywhere else, but it is highly problematic for those whose aim is a flourishing society. The aspirations conservatives have for our republic are undermined far more by this type of moral hypocrisy and selectivity than by a bad trade bill or a bad judicial appointment. The reality is that both sides of the political aisle will do much better to pick a lane, and stick in it. If personal decision-making is not pertinent to leadership and qualifications, then the Left should say so, and let Anthony Weiner run for office, and let Strauss-Kahn chair key economic committees in between frequent “breaks.” And if one’s fidelity to marriage vows, personal character, and sexual ethics do matter, the Right ought to hold firm, and stay wed to the idea that the greatest enactment of the greatest ideas comes from the greatest of courage and conviction. The pitiful correlation between outrage and politics in matters of moral failure is a public embarrassment.
But why do I have a feeling that the only ones who will agree with me are those who find my politics to be palatable?