When did moral character stop being vital to leadership in our democracy?

Smoke, meet fire. Same damn circumstance today, unfortunately, and even magnified some.

 

I don't think there is any one reason, but certainly a shift toward technocratic governance since WWII played a part.

Watching the numbers go up/down > Civic virtue.

 

The difference between now and then is the vast, right wing disinformation media. If it existed in the early 70s, Nixon never leaves office.

 

Even if you consider it a philosophy, this explanation completely absolves all democrats actions. Their “lawfare” is simply just the Republicans reaping what they sowed. And when Trump “pays back the bill”, they will simply be brining more on themselves. There is still no room for agency, and therefore reason to complain about either side, as neither are actually conscious agents. Instead, they are just atoms being put into motion by collisions with other atoms.

Either neither side can be blamed for their actions, OR lawfare actually is bad, and therefore when the Republicans pay back the bill, the republicans will be bad. I see no third option.

 

Interesting that you think it was policy fueled. What policy specifically? ACA? The bill of Republican healthcare reform ideas (passed by Romney when he was governor and proposed by Senate Republicans when Clinton was President)? The bill that they now are forced to say they won't overturn, after a decade of claiming that they would, as they have no other ideas?

And it is funny how you think that Republicans really thought that it was possible that an American woman, while highly pregnant in 1961, flew half way around the world to have her baby in Kenya, then, just after giving birth, flew half way around the world again and faked a bunch of records, all so that her child of a marriage that was illegal in many states at the time due to racism, could be President. It is almost like this wasn't some sort of cold, analytical position but rather a way of explaining feelings that people had but weren't comfortable expressing in public.

 

They can't both be blamed for their actions vis a vis [X] ....AND [X] still be bad???

Either way, it is what is.

[X] will beget [-X+interest] which will in turn beget [Y], which will in its own turn beget [-Y + interest] ... on and on...

See Israelis v Hamas, Hezbollah, etc, among countless other examples we could site.

Recognizing the phenomena doesn't mean endorsing it.

That's what made Ghandi, Jesus Christ way before him, and surely a few in between, so revolutionary.

An eye for an eye is natural; turn the cheek... revolutionary.

C'est la vie.

 

Re: all of the equivocation on this thread, where is the line? Is there one for YOUR person when you are presented with a binary choice?

 

You’re right exactly. They either both need to be blamed, or neither. But we can’t just pass off all of the Republicans on the Democrats without also doing the reverse. And once we’re willing to pass off both group’s problems onto the other, there’s no basis for complaining about either of them. Explaining this retaliatory behavior as an irrefutable law necessarily does mean excusing it. Only if we admit that that turn the other cheek is a possibility can we justify criticizing either group. This restores agency to both parties, and once accomplished, we can’t wash away the sins of Trump by appealing to Clinton, or justify Clinton by appealing to Nixon, etc. Each side must wear their own decisions.

 

Yeah, I mean, if the OP was insinuating Kamala has unquestionable moral character, that's a come on man if there ever was one and I generally appreciate the OP's post. If you think Kamala is virtuous, you need to read more.

And your point is correct. The truth is, we really don't know what is in the hearts of most of our presidents. We can only judge by what we see on the outside. But how much is hidden? And how can we read hearts when they are filtered by the person, by their inner circle, by their staff members, by the media and then our own biases? The answer is we can only formulate a scant idea of a person's morals through that many filters.

I will say that stopping endless wars which don't move the needle, yet involve hundreds of thousands of people dying, speaks volume about moral character. It is not as if Trump can snap his fingers and make the war in Ukraine end. It would be a monumental feat, no doubt. But also, a virtuous one for humanity. It is not as if Trump can hand Putin everything he wants without receiving a ton of repercussion from our European allies. In truth, he prepped them better for any Russian threat by chiding them to up their spend on military defense and to cease dependence upon Russian oil and natural gas. He also put an end to the Nordstream 2. What would have been a very valuable economic lifeline for Russia.

Also, I will point out that a lack of moral character is apparent when a party actively pushes an elderly man through a process he is clearly not able to handle due to mental deterioration. We call it elder abuse. Remember, this was after Biden had already promised to pass the torch. They didn't want to pass the torch, because they knew Kamala was so unpopular. Things like endless wars that don't move needles and elder abuse speak volumes. I could keep going, but I think most here don't need my help to recollect it all.

 

The Republicans threw a fit when Obama wore a tan suit in the Oval Office but have no problem electing trump who is about as “presidential” as a carnival barker.

 

I wasn’t anywhere near Nixon. I responded to a post about Clinton innuendo. I was suggesting that there was fire to go with the smoke, Lewinski and others. Same circumstance today is innuendo about Harris and even worse, apparently proven allegations about Trump. Where’s there smoke, there’s fire.

 

Barry rode a Bush fatigue blow back wave in the wake of the Iraq War, and the allegations about fudging the facts to sell it.

Barry was the first FU candy. Trump, it's response in kind.

 

When they decided owning the left was more important, and they needed populism to have a fighting chance..

 

Owning the left became important once the libbies lost their brains on things like gender dysphoria.

 

Lol! So from your little libby insulated world, the pubs just willy nilly (no pun intended) ventured on a subpoena laden day trip, when they casually stumbled across Monica, the cee-gar, and her famed dress....

Righto mate!

Pass the bong when your done, yeh?

 

Can't say I care much about any of Trump's sexual conduct which was actually consensual. Even putting the sexual assault/abuse issues aside, Trump's unethical conduct and his propensity for lying extend far beyond the bedroom.

 

What I meant was from the Rose Law Firm to Vince Foster's death, the GOP accused the Clintons of almost every crime they could think of including the Son of Sam murders.

When they stumbled in on all the sexual stuff, they had been locked in the "pay it no never mind" closet at that point.

 

I don’t know. Ask all those women who loved Bill Clinton.

 

How about carrying the world to the brink of WWIII and supporting genocide, etc. ?