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Recent American Political Scandals Are Different – and Terrifying
In a recent post, I tried to make the case that these are not serious times, at least not in Western Civilization. We are not taking serious problems seriously, thus simple problems are turning into enormous messes. I think one symptom of this environment is that political scandals are getting more ambitious and brazen. I haven’t figured out a cause and effect yet, but I think that they are linked somehow.
There were a lot of scandals during the Clinton years, but you’ll recall some of the bigger ones:
- The Waco raid
- Having sex with an intern in the Oval Office
- Whitewater
- Cattle futures
- Presidential pardons
- Use of Lincoln Bedroom for fundraising
- Travel office firings
The Waco raid resulted in the killing of people that Janet Reno found distasteful. That’s pretty serious. Although, if Bill Clinton had any idea that the Branch Davidians would have responded the way they did, I would bet my house that he would have stopped that raid before it even started. He didn’t want a major mess like that. Which helps make my point about the rest of the Clinton scandals: They really were just the Clintons trying to get rich, get sex, or to feel powerful.
Don’t get me wrong – horrible behavior for anyone, despicable behavior for a president. But they weren’t history-changing events and they weren’t intended to be. They were just the Clintons doing whatever they wanted.
But more recent scandals seem more brazen, more significant, and more widespread (involving more people and more layers of government).
- Fast and Furious
- Benghazi
- Clinton Foundation – selling influence for personal gain
- FBI (Comey) finding that Clinton had broken laws, but deciding not to prosecute during campaign
- DOJ and FBI attempting to keep a Republican out of the White House
These scandals seem to me to be fundamentally different than the Clinton scandals. These are intentional efforts to influence policy (Fast and Furious) or even attempts to change the nature of our government and thus the course of history (Comey’s decision not to prosecute obviously illegal behavior and our current headlines of the DOJ and FBI trying to influence an election). If the last two items on that list are anything remotely similar to what they appear to be, I think they might be the most incredible political scandals in US history. Perhaps I’m missing something here, but they are huge. Why is this happening now?
Of the five branches of government in our current system, I think that the media is the most powerful branch. The second most powerful branch is the administrative state. (After that, I would say Judicial, Executive, and Legislative, although those are of similar influence, and so far behind the other two that it probably doesn’t matter much which is on top of the other.) What concerns me about these more recent scandals is that they involve not just some small-time shyster who wants to be serviced in the Oval Office but rather are cooperative efforts (although not necessarily carefully coordinated efforts – they have similar goals and detailed coordination is not generally necessary) of our two most powerful branches of government – the media and the administrative state. This is extremely concerning.
So, three questions:
- Do you agree with my premise that American political scandals are rapidly becoming more ambitious, brazen, and widespread (involving more people of influence)?
- Why is this happening now? Is it due to the non-serious nature of our current society, or is there some other factor?
- What can be done about this? Because if we don’t fix this, the “statists” or leftists will have such an enormous advantage that elections are likely to become a mere formality.
Mark Twain said something like, “If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.” If these scandals continue, he may be right. These modern scandals are influential, powerful, and always on the cause of the left. This is serious stuff. And we are not taking it seriously. This is a serious problem.
Please tell me I’m wrong.
Published in General
Oh how I wish you were wrong. It’s all my family and friends talk about at gatherings. Many are preppers.
As a comment on Docjay’s post, Mike-K reminds me of another doozy of a scandal: “the 1960 election, which Johnson helped Kennedy steal. If you doubt that, I suggest Caro’s four volume biography of Johnson. It is in volume four. Kennedy chose him because he knew he needed Texas. Johnson knew how to steal Texas. He had done so in the 1948 Senate election.”
That’s a great example of the type of scandal that scares me. So maybe this isn’t new. Or maybe JFK was just ahead of his time…
I don’t think the Clinton years were better.
In fact, as you have so well documented, they were much worse.
Waco was a horrific story, I have never gotten over it–76 people killed, most of whom were burned alive. Oh, yeah, and then there was returning poor little Elian Gonzalez to Cuba.
The number of incidents of worldwide terrorism grew substantially under Clinton because he was such an idiot. These included the Khobar Towers attack in which 19 American soldiers were killed.
The first World Trade Towers attack in 1993 was downplayed by the Clinton administration to the extent that the guy who pulled it off gave the FBI the entire plan for what would be the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the government ignored it.
Clinton did not take terrorism seriously. He just could not face it squarely and deal with it, and Israel bore the brunt of his refusal to deal with the problem. Attacks on Israel, most of which were proxy attacks for attacks on the United States and many of which were bought and paid for by Saddam Hussein, became more and more deadly. We all knew about Osama bin Laden at that time–people who followed global terrorism knew he was out there and planning something. Giving Clinton a pass for ignoring this threat is nice of people, but I am not willing to do that. I was following global terrorism news during the Clinton administration, and that’s why I knew the story about bin Laden.
Much has happened after Clinton, and I blame him for all of it. As my mother used to quote, “After me the deluge.” That was Clinton.
Clinton is the worst person who has ever lived on planet earth, in my opinion.
No, things are much better today than they were back then.
We didn’t get here over night. Remember Mr. Smith goes to Washington ? We have always had corruption. Now it is at the agency level. It only gets this deep in a post Christian nation . Before, if it looked this deep, the populace would of done whole sale house cleaning. Now the populace goes. Meh
Perhaps it is predictable escalation due to lack of punishments. Give an inch, they take a mile. Recent history suggests there is little our politicians and officers will prosecute high-level politocos for. Heck, our military courts don’t even punish treason anymore.
Also, half of Americans voted for an obvious-but-untried felon to be President this past election. At least half of citizens either support ends-justify-the-means criminality or cannot be convinced of crimes among their own. That is a devastating degree of cultural corruption.
This country can only be helped if both Left and Right are brought to reason and justice. If Democrats remain as they are, a country cannot survive so much self-destruction.
I agree with @MarciN, except that I would extend the blame. Our response to 9/11 was not serious… and by that I mean a broad and deep commitment by the nation to combat terrorism was not demanded. In WW2, we had War Bond drives and a draft. After 9/11 the wars were paid for with debt (isn’t being off the gold standard wonderful?) and fought by a volunteer force that represented a tiny percentage of the population. The Right thereby gave up the moral case against debt, which the Left was more than happy to exploit (if we can go trillions in debt to “nation build” in Iraq, why can’t we go yet further trillions in debt to “nation build” at home?). And the younger parts of the population gained a false idea of what war is like. It’s something that need not disturb your lifestyle and is fought by others whom you can thank for their service.
The result is that as a nation, both Republicans and Democrats, do not take budgeting seriously and we collectively do not take debt seriously. There is a moral degeneration that occurs that comes to see money not so much as representing honest labor but as mere tokens in a game. The population votes for politicians who they think will give them something for nothing (other than a vote), so who can blame politicians for playing the game themselves and trying to enrich themselves? Thus the response to corruption transforms from outrage to envy.
We have yet to see the consequences of this degeneration. We have not had anything truly devastating happen on a national scale since at least the 60’s. There is a complacency that nothing really bad can happen… a false impression that I suspect will be decisively refuted in the not too distance future. Either by a major war or financial cataclysm.
Your premise is correct IMO. We’ve had scandals and bad actors nearly from the beginning of our country; elected officials with character defects who behaved badly or for their own benefit to the detriment of the country. It wasn’t until the last administration that people who did bad things to achieve a higher goal were considered good. Obama ushered in an “ends justify the means” mentality where what was once bad is good, and good became politically incorrect.
How do we fix it? You beat them. The only person I’ve seen do that at a high level is Trump.
Yes, there is a feeling that our constitutional system is on a knife edge. We have been there before and survived, but the local and regional government was more ant-fragile when the federal system was more robust. As technology has increased we have made the capacity to make the populace knuckle under greater. We have slowly but surely made control of national government a more consequential matter.
I probably could have avoided some disagreement about my point if I could have explained it as well as this. Great writing. Thank you.
So very true. And this is a very big problem.
Some idiot runs for Senate in Alabama. And people in California are outraged. Something is wrong.
Oh, it’s very, very bad, indeed. I think Marci inadvertently showed just how severe the scandals are compared to previous administrations.
Clinton may have neglected the terrorism issue, but his scandals were more personal failings rather than malignant cultural and economic Marxism. We have a corrupt press, a corrupt IRS, a corrupt intelligence community, corrupt academia and public education establishment… It may not have started under Obama, but his arrogance and capriciousness in the midst of his perfect storm administration certainly sealed the deal.
Let’s not forget Dinesh D’Souza was handcuffed and jailed, while terrorist thugs were released from GITMO on behalf of an American traitor. Men allowed into women’s bathrooms on orders from the feds. Marriage defined out of any real meaning by “wise” Latinas, et al. It was an outrage-a-day with Obama. Worst. President. Ever.
Why is this happening now?
Obama.
He fundamentally transformed the country. If you opposed him, you were widely seen as racist. If you had an Obama sticker on your Mercedes, you virtue signaled. So the country just let his scandals proliferate.
Of course, your list of Obama era corruption scandals is incomplete. Just off the top of my head I can point out:
The illegal change in creditor priorities of the GM bankruptcy.
The awarding of half a billion dollars to Solyndra as part of his national debt doubling efforts.
The distribution of fines levied by the CFPB distributed to favored NGOs.
I could go on . . . His legacy is having transformed America into a Third World country. No, strike that. Thats racist!
I think all of that blossomed under Clinton. Wow, did the press cover for him. It was appalling.
Furthermore, there’s a lot of evidence that came out of the Scooter Libby “trial” pointing to a rogue effort within the CIA to bring down GW. The Washington careerists hated GW. And they were there under the Clinton administration. They loved him.
Obama’s election and re-election and the ridiculous cult-like following he developed (remember those fainting at his campaign stops?) in my view mark the watershed between “good old-fashioned” graft (which the Clintons took to unprecedented heights, or depths) and the truly scary sedition that was Obama’s transformation of America.
Amassing money for Felonia von Pantsuit and Bill’s horndogging his way through life make the Clintons disgusting and condemnable, but they were not focused on goals that are seditious (they just did not care to block the globalists — who translated to money in the bank for the Clintons).
Obama and his minions’ endless race-baiting, the police-hating policies (Holder, Lynch), and such underhanded moves as Ben Rhodes’ lying twaddle put out to sell the Iran deal (coupled with political prosecuting for graft of Obama’s most vocal critic of the Iran deal in the Senate, Menendez), lying Susan Rice (Bergdahl served with distinction), lying Hillary (Benghazi was caused by a video) and on and on, all the way through embedding Obama acolytes throughout the Deep State, seem to pose much more danger to the republic.
You’re not wrong. This pales to fluoridation. Government control cradle to grave with ‘liberty’ limited to sex and drugs.
This could serve as the Democrat Party platform in every election. They don’t need that long, detailed document. This sums it up.
a) Why only go back to the Clinton presidency for precedents?
b) Are we limiting the definition of “scandal” to actions which became public knowledge during an administration and which the public found crapulent at the time, or are we including actions by government which we consider crapulent today but which may or may not have been public knowledge at the time?
I ask because I think the biggest difference between government now and government in the past is that it’s much more difficult to keep things secret today.
It’s been too long since I read it, but wasn’t this the scheme in Huxley’s Brave New World?
True. I see differences between those two administrations and now.
Clinton certainly had willing accomplices within government, but there were plenty of people outside government who thoroughly disapproved of his behavior. He course corrected politically to meet a resulting more conservative Congress in the middle and ushered in the last era of prosperity in my memory.
George W did not contest or resist efforts to denigrate and humiliate him or his administration, for his own sake or on behalf of his supporters. This failure to engage domestic combatants set a precedent for all succeeding GOP candidates for POTUS, and set the stage for Obama to raise hopes that his attempts to change America into one Progressive nation with less liberty and more government for all would be permanent. The real shock of Trump is not so much his manner as his effrontery in even attempting to halt the determined Progressive march.
For years I’ve respected the Romneys, Bushes, Kristols, Wills, McCains, etc. Right now in the name of saving the GOP they seem intent on hindering or removing the one individual who’s managed to slow public enemy #1 – Progressivism. So I ask myself: what is the GOP good for if not to resist, to stop Progressivism? Is there any principle more worthy, any higher municipal goal, than halting the thing that’s choking the life and liberty out of us? Has anyone other than Donald Trump had any real success in doing so? The honest answer to all those questions is no.
Just so.
Trump was elected, analysts explained, because the public lost faith in its institutions, including and especially the media, which is supposed to be a watchdog; education, which has become anti-intellectual; and popular culture that is busy bashing everything good about us rubes in America. I would even include religion which seems to be wandering in the wilderness. We expect politicians to be crooked. And outside of the Koch’s that are publicly crucified by popular media and Harry Reid, even business leaders generally suck. Yes men to the new perverse world. Anything for a buck guys.
The scandals are worse, I think, when we don’t think there are good guys out there that have some authority and ability to protect us from the power of polticians and their cronies that are on the take. The corruptions and lack of integrity are blatant. When the President of the United States tells the public not to listen to Fox News, and crickets come from CNN, ABC, et. al., it isn’t a wonder we are cynical. Nor is it a wonder,that politicians with a devious, crooked bent, push the envelope. The President chose sides in the news competition. Access is important.
I’m reminded of an old joke about the Russian news reporting that the wheat crops were so good they reached God in the heavens, and the people scoffed that there wasn’t a God, and no wheat either. It’s getting to be like that.
So, it is Dubya’s fault after all!
I keed, I keed.
This is a terrific point. I think many of us sensed no good would come of Dubya allowing himself to be crucified the way he was. I wonder how many recognized the Obama threat to our national integrity at the time. He certainly tipped his hand by his “fundamentally transforming” speech.
Gack. What an arrogant fool.
Bush 43 made a big mistake and he left the Republican brand in deep doodoo. He pretended that he was above it all and that the country would not like him defending himself. I seriously do think that he was more interested in his own legacy in history than in the Republican Party and the country (because he let the left have uncontested control of it). This is really the only explanation. He must have known that the 2006 election is proof of what was happening in the country.
Also, he dropped the economic reputation of the Republicans down the toilet.
Final point: I think that Trump was more a reaction to Obama than anything else. Obama was the atypical candidate (in history) who came from the far left and his rise was directly due to the Republican Party’s reputation being in tatters.
On 1/20/2009:
Obama: I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear…
Obama: …that I will execute…
Obama: …the Office of President of the United States faithfully…
Obama: …and will to the best of my ability…
Obama: …preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Obama: So help me God.
Roberts: Congratulations, Mr. President. Very best wishes.
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-hezbollah-drug-trafficking-investigation/
If true, this has to be one of the most amoral, corrupt acts by a POTUS in the history of the United States. I keep thinking surely not even Obama would sabotage US law enforcement from going after cocaine coming into this country just to appease Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists in order to get a deal not worth the paper it’s printed on? Yet this corroborated story says he did. Americans would get hooked, some die even, for the sake of a grand master plan to install Iran as Middle East hegemon and diminish US influence in the world.
One thing I do know, once Obama did this — sold out Americans to appease terrorist drug runners — they knew he’d do anything for a deal.
“In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States,
…Obama administration officials threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way, according to interviews with dozens of participants who in many cases spoke for the first time about events shrouded in secrecy, and a review of government documents and court records. When Project Cassandra leaders sought approval for some significant investigations, prosecutions, arrests and financial sanctions, officials at the Justice and Treasury departments delayed, hindered or rejected their requests.
The Justice Department declined requests by Project Cassandra and other authorities to file criminal charges against major players such as Hezbollah’s high-profile envoy to Iran, a Lebanese bank that allegedly laundered billions in alleged drug profits, and a central player in a U.S.-based cell of the Iranian paramilitary Quds force. And the State Department rejected requests to lure high-value targets to countries where they could be arrested.
…“They [Hezbollah] were a paramilitary organization with strategic importance in the Middle East, and we watched them become an international criminal conglomerate generating billions of dollars for the world’s most dangerous activities, including chemical and nuclear weapons programs and armies that believe America is their sworn enemy,” said Kelly, the supervisory DEA agent and lead coordinator of its Hezbollah cases.
I’m going to give you an entirely different perspective.
I think Trump is being attacked this viciously because he is the first President to have openly promised to do actual harm to the administrative state. That makes him highly dangerous to the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. These people want to save their jobs and egos. As a result, they will do pretty much anything, including breaking laws, to protect themselves. Thus we have people during the run-up to the election wanting to make sure he could not possibly win. We have people after the election trying to stymie him in any way feasible. You have to remember that they are unemployable outside of government. I’ll bet government is where a lot of those Women’s Studies graduates wind up going. Would anyone in private business want one of them?
Today, politics has become more of a religion. People who violate religious precepts are punished without mercy. People who obey are rewarded with plum jobs. Shepard Fairey is supposed to be ironic, but society seems to be taking him literally: OBEY.
(Gosh the above doesn’t look ironic, does it?)
Here’s where I’m confused. (In a not-at-all-confused sort of way.)
1. Trump hatred on the left originated in fear of his Authoritarianism.
2. Authoritarianism requires a vigorous, powerful administrative state.
3. Now they hate Trump for what he is doing to diminish the power of the state – fewer EPA regs, jailing the climate scientists, stuffing a dirty gym sock in the mouth of anyone who says “diversity” in a government document, and so on. Well, that’s not exactly what he’s doing BUT HE MIGHT AS WELL AND IT’S WHAT HE WANTS. So they’ve revealed that it’s not authoritarianism they fear, but the lack of well-intentioned authoritarianism.
It’s nice to see them admit it, but they won’t.
Still reading, but just wanted to point out you forgot to include the IRS.
I’m not sure I agree that scandals have changed over the years. Lord Acton, famous for saying “[p]ower tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” lived from 1834 to 1902. But something has changed when the best our two parties can offer are Hillary and The Donald, characters that are overwhelmingly unpopular outside of a small core of die-hard supporters.
I think what has changed is the ever-increasing media saturation, which in turn emphasizes those candidates who are most entertaining. Trump won the nomination (at least in part) because he is entertaining; Hillary, because she was the anointed one. Unless we can remove the entertainment factor from the equation — and I don’t think we can — I don’t see this changing for the better. Indeed, I suspect it will get worse. Think of the people clamoring for Oprah to run in 2020.