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. jsMay 8, 2020 at 9:50 AM

    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. Left JabberMay 8, 2020 at 9:58 AM

      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. Andrea BuchmanMay 8, 2020 at 1:38 PM

      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

A Few F-Bombs, Which Seem Appropriate to the Current Situation

   As I’m not writing this week, I’m re-running my most profane piece, an exploration of FAFO, a term that has grown ever more pointed as time goes by. The piece goes back to February 2025, before the tariffs, before the Epstein scandal went nuclear, before the Iran War. Back then, things were looking quite bad indeed, especially for large parts of the MAGA base. And while, as the title says, these F-bombs were entirely appropriate then, they’ve only grown more so since.   I try not to write the word ‘fuck’ too often. This is not from any prudishness or discomfort — I use it regularly in everyday speech — but seeing it in writing quickly gets old and tired. I do use it occasionally for effect, but the effect is usually minimal. In this post, however, I can’t get around it. This one is about the ironic, unintended meanings of the redneck t-shirt slogan “Fuck Around and Find Out.” A masterpiece of trashy thought, trashily expressed, I can’t talk about...
Post a Comment
Read more

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes — And Your Nose, Throat, and Lungs, As Well

   Here in Michigan, we are a bit smug when it comes to climate change. We think of ourselves as unusually well positioned for the increasingly dire future we can see for the planet. Geography favors us. Hurricanes, droughts, and wildfires feel reassuringly remote. True, ice storms and other severe weather events are more frequent than they used to be, but compared to other parts of the country the climate here is relatively benign. Our confidence stems, first, from our northern location, where global warming has made our cold winters generally more comfortable than they once were, and where the summers only occasionally get higher than the mid-80s. But the real source of our confidence, or smugness if you like, comes from the four Great Lakes that surround us. We have, as a state, access to a full one-fifth of the world’s fresh water. In that sense, there’s no place like it in the world. And make no mistake, water is already a crisis in many parts of th...
1 comment
Read more

Move to the Center, My Ass

   This piece isn’t that old, but it bears repeating. It was written in the immediate aftermath of last year’s off-year elections, when Democrats made an unusually strong showing, which according to the legacy media was a sign of weakness. Now, as we enter the silly season leading up to November, that same media can be counted on to make the midterms seem like a contest between two legitimate entities. Already the stories feature Democrats hopelessly, and haplessly, locked in ideological struggles that threaten their ability to walk and chew gum, mostly because the Trumpian apocalypse story is getting old. If it seems like we’ve heard all this too many times before, I’m with you. And as you’ll see, I’ve even written about it.   In the run-up to last Tuesday’s election, it was hard to avoid the overpaid pundits repeating the oldest and laziest clichés in the pundit handbook: “Democrats need to move to the center.” “Democrats are out of touch with voters....
Post a Comment
Read more