Skip to main content

Hypocrisy Fatigue

Berkley MI
Friday

Hypocrisy is a funny thing. We are all hypocrites in our own way, and part of being a grownup is coming to terms with how we fail to measure up to our own best image of ourselves. Few of us are as good as we’d like to be (some are, but they tend to be insufferable), and understanding our own inner hypocrite can be a healthy thing.
But out in the public forum, where its repercussions can be brutal, where professing one thing and doing another can hurt people, often intentionally, hypocrisy is not healthy at all. And if hypocrisy can be measured by the direness of its consequences, then today’s Republican party has ushered in its golden age.
None of the traditional pillars of Republican orthodoxy have survived the Trump era. Small government, free trade, strong alliances, containment of Russia, low deficits, balanced budgets, the list goes on. All have fallen with a thud, accompanied by jaw-dropping hypocrisy. Yes, their worship of tax cuts and deregulation remains fervid, but only because Trump likes those things too. Beyond that, their actions have been diametrically opposed to their supposed beliefs.
So now it’s all hypocrisy, all the time. To the point where the word itself has lost its power to piss us off.
We watch the pompous posturing of a Mitch McConnell or a Lindsey Graham or anyone on Fox News, and the nonstop barrage of hypocrisy just wears us down. It’s so in-your-face, we’ve become desensitized to it. There’s only so much outrage a person can muster in a day.
Call it “hypocrisy fatigue.” The feeling that every word out of their mouths is hypocritical, and that’s not even the worst thing about them. What’s the use of calling them out for hypocrisy, when there’s lethal criminality in plain sight?
So against this backdrop, how are we to consider Joe Biden’s current problem? A 27-year-old incident of alleged sexual misconduct that could conceivably take him down. Leaving us where? I don’t even want to think about it.
To be sure, the allegations are factually murky. As of this writing, the story seems to be fading, but that could change by the time you read this. Or something else equally stomach-churning could surface.
So it’s not so much about whether Biden did it. It’s about what if he did? Can we come to terms with our own hypocrisy in the face of the existential threat of a Trump re-election?
The questions slap us around. Would a 27-year-old incident of sexual misconduct be an automatic disqualifier for the presidency? Would it be mitigated at all by Biden’s performance on women’s issues in the 27 years since? Would it be mitigated by the fact that a known sexual predator currently occupies the White House, doing damage that makes sexual predation seem almost an afterthought? Would it be mitigated by a cataclysmic pandemic that’s being criminally mismanaged in real time?
Wait, there’s more. Do the new #MeToo standards apply only to Democrats? Must we lose an Al Franken but accept a Brett Kavanaugh, just because our moral compass works better than theirs? Do Republicans currently enjoy a license to molest, unencumbered by either moral or legal strictures?
I don’t have the answers. But the questions themselves leave a bad smell. As Ruth Marcus put it last week in the Washington Post, “Ensuring that Trump does not enjoy another four years in office may be enough to justify egregious hypocrisy, but it would be hypocrisy, nonetheless.”
Can we live with that? Personally, I’m inclined to give Biden a pass. But only because — and it pains me to say it — the ends justify the hypocrisy.
Or, as one podcast host said recently, “Joe Biden could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and I’d still vote for him.”

Comments

  1. I'm not sure (since my hypocrisy meter blew a fuse) if it's different in Biden's case that there's no "narrative" of harassment issues lurking in the shadows. We need to be full-throated behind Biden. (Though will always be a bit bruised - or more - over Anita Hill.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm still pissed off about Anita Hill. Then I weigh that against all things Jared Kushner, for example. I end up thinking Biden might be a better idea.

      Delete
    2. No "mights" about it in my book . . . . unquestionably Biden is a better deal, despite all flaws and weaknesses . . .

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Sort of Pro Bono Work is Big Law Signing Up For?

  B ig Law is on the hot seat. Major firms have unexpectedly been thrust into the front lines of the war against Trump, and all their options are bad. I wrote about this two weeks ago, and since then a slew of big firms have either made a deal with the devil or joined the side of the angels. On the minus side, all but one of the top twenty firms have either taken the “deal” or stayed silent. I personally think they’re playing a bad hand badly. On the plus side — beyond those top twenty behemoths — there are hundreds of very large firms who have taken a stand, of sorts, against the junta. If you’re interested in keeping score , you can do so, but the whole thing keeps getting weirder. As we watch these “deals” being made, the one common denominator — and the most publicized aspect — is the “pro bono” work these firms are committing to. About a billion dollars’ worth of lawyering is available to be used in “conservative” causes. What does this mean? What ...

First They Come for the Law Firms, Then They Come for the Law

  I n classic fascist fashion, the Trump-Musk junta has launched a war on independent voices. They are actively engaged in suppressing free thought, and they’re putting serious pressure on the institutions that value it. The pressure so far has fallen on the mainstream media, who have largely cowered in the face of it, and on universities, who are still trying to figure out how to deal with it. But the most pressure — and the most immediate threat to the very concept of independent thinking — is being put on the legal sector. Lawyers, law students, law professors, and judges everywhere are feeling it. Large law firms especially are alarmed, ever since Trump started issuing executive orders that threaten to sink them, whether they comply or not. For some reason, I can’t stop writing about this. In the past month, some of the biggest firms have capitulated, reaching agreements with the junta to contribute pro bono work to “conservative” causes. These agreement...

DEI-Bashing and the Battle for the Soul of Big Law

  T here was a time, not long ago, when a major corporate law firm would look to burnish its “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” credentials in the marketplace. At which point that firm might hire a writer like, say, me. It was a given that Big Law firms needed to become more diverse, at least if they wanted to stay relevant in a work environment that was no longer male, white, straight, and old. Firms everywhere invested real money in the recruitment, training, and promotion of lawyers from widely varied backgrounds, and they paid people like me to brag about it to the world. Every firm needed a DEI page on its website. Some wanted printed brochures. Some wanted advertising. Most wanted the legal community, especially law schools, to know about their diversity efforts. Law schools were by then rating firms by their DEI “scores,” and the firms with the best scores were getting the pick of the litter from the graduating classes. What I liked about the work was...