Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Kellyanne and George Debacle: A Sad Testimony on Marriage
This post is not going to cover the lurid details of the public spat between Donald Trump and George Conway. Instead, I’d like to speak to the degradation of the Conway marriage vows, to the absence of spousal respect and to the damage it causes to the family, especially the children.
Let me provide a little background. Kellyanne and George Conway married in 2001. They now have four children. Before working for President Trump, Kellyanne founded a polling company with many credits to her name. George is a private attorney.
Early on they both supported Donald Trump for president. Kellyanne was chosen by Trump to be a consultant to him. It appeared that George would be appointed to the Justice Department, but after James Comey was fired, George withdrew as a candidate to remain a private lawyer. Shortly thereafter he began his attacks on Twitter. If you’d like to read more about the attacks, you can look here and here.
The real tragedy for the Conway family, the country, and the institution of marriage is not the battle that has emerged and evolved, but how it has been publicly displayed and the disrespect it shows for the institution of marriage. Let me explain.
First, I assume that George Conway knew he was marrying an independent and successful woman. We can’t know how healthy their marriage was before her work with Donald Trump, but since the original plan was for them both to be in the administration, and George bowed out, his decision may have created all kinds of conflicts on his part. The problem is not that George opted out of the administration, but how he acted following his own decision: he publicly attacked his wife’s boss in a high-profile manner, and since her boss just happened to be the President of the United States, it made the headlines.
I don’t expect George to support the President or his wife publicly. But when there are difficulties in a marriage, your spouse is entitled to a level of respect and decent behavior. For George to not only humiliate his wife’s boss but also his own wife is a violation of the marriage vows. Remember, “love and honor”? In fact, I don’t know the nature of their relationship, but whatever problems George and Kellyanne had, his behavior is abominable. When a couple is in conflict, especially when they are high-profile people, the appropriate thing to do is to keep it between themselves.
The couple also has four children. George is putting them in an impossible position when he indirectly attacks their mother. Kellyanne not only chose to work for the President, but to date, she has tried to maintain some dignity in her public comments. To have the children hear their father humiliating their mother, even if indirectly, is unacceptable.
I know that all marriages go through changes. Many of us have probably had a spouse take a job that we resented, disliked or are even envied. When those decisions are made, they need to be discussed privately, candidly and resolved in a way that both parties can make adjustments and work with the situation as maturely as possible. There is no way I can know the ins and outs of the Conways’ relationship. But I do know what I see in the media, and I am saddened and disappointed to see such a display.
I’m clearly not objective about this situation. I can appreciate that George Conway doesn’t like Donald Trump and wishes his wife didn’t work for him.
But she does. And he apparently approved early on of her taking the job.
I believe Kellyanne will find her way through this debacle.
Will George?
Published in Politics
Yes, this is incredibly harmful. Either (according to George) Kellyanne is an idiot, a knave, a sycophant, or a double agent. Pick one. That is what George has broadcast to the world. Disgusting.
@rodin, I always try to take into account the bias of the media, but I don’t think that makes a difference. Sigh.
Contrast with James Carville and Mary Matlin: Both of these individuals had strong, oppositional partisan identities before they married. They had a context for their public critiques of the politics that their spouses supported. That created space for the public to make no inference about the other spouse since it was a continuation of a long standing persona. And it also made it possible for “Oh, James” moments. And when the kids came along it was just the way it was and did not create strains in the family. It was an odd pairing, but once made — it worked without dishonor to either.
Excellent example, @rodin. I have no idea how they were able to do it, but they have for a very long time–and they were on opposite sides, for pete’s sake!
Seems to me it is a degradation not only of the vows of marriage, but of the Golden Rule and/or of the way that any decent rational person should expect to be treated by any other decent and rational person with whom he or she has any sort of a relationship at all. Like you, I neither know, nor particularly care what is the state of the Conway’s marriage. But George’s behavior seems inexplicable to me, if what he’s seeking is a peaceable and pleasant home life with his wife and their four children. He must be adding considerably to her stress level, and the media is in a frenzy over the whole thing, dubbing it “comedic gold.” Very ugly, all round, and I should think hard to live with when your job necessitates your keeping a high profile among the same media who are determined to mock you and take you down.
I don’t think it’s only a “spouse” who is “entitled to a level of respect and decent behavior.” I think that’s something we owe each other, until it’s incontrovertibly and irrevocably clear, from the other person’s actions, that we don’t. Perhaps there are things I don’t know here, but my Respect-o-Meter for Old George isn’t running very hot at the moment.
the damage it causes to the family, especially the children.
And if this goes to the Main Feed, are we not adding to it?
Ego. Combine an outsized ego with Twitter and this is what one gets. Not that I disagree with anything you said.
As an aside, I find the matter of this DOJ “job offer” a bit sketchy.
I don’t think so. I’m speaking to the respect that is due to two people, their children and to marriage itself. I am not gleeful about it. The way I’ve spoken to the situation is intended to remind people, as @she has said, the respect we owe to each other, unless we’ve worked to damage the relationship. But you and I can disagree, @rightangles.
There are also those people who might say that Kellyanne has it coming to her: those who hate Donald Trump, those who hate successful wives and mothers, and those who are envious of her. I’d like to be one small voice who says this is not acceptable, clearly in support of Kellyanne.
Yes we do. I’m speaking as the mother of a child who was 7 years old when her father moved out. Within a matter of days, our neighbors were talking about it at the dinner table, and one of their children called out on the playground, “Caroline doesn’t have a daddy!” I just think there is already enough press and online gossip out there on this topic, and that all of it has the potential to make everything worse for those children. It isn’t helpful.
@rightangles, you add a dimension that is often overlooked in the fact that we are commenting or discussing public facts. The fact that it is public makes it more hurtful for those involved. But I do make a distinction between discussion meant to be instructive to ourselves about what we will do and how we will hold ourselves accountable as opposed to mere mockery or gossip. The former involves ethics, the latter is mere entertainment.
I do see what all of you are saying. And I apologize, Susan, for coming into your post and contradicting you that way. It was wrong. I just see these things from a more personal perspective, I guess. Like @rodin, I’m capable of forming a distinction between discussion and gossip; however, those kids won’t be. Any more public discussions of their family just adds to their pain, that’s all I’m saying. But also we have no idea really what goes on behind closed doors, so it’s all speculation anyway. All the musings about “Is he jealous of a powerful woman” or any of the rest of it is speculation and there is a fine line between that and gossip. Okay sorry. This whole thing has taken me back to a bad time for my daughter. I will shut up now. If it were Members Only, it wouldn’t bother me.
Thank you for your sincere and candid comment, @rightangles. I can understand your reaction based on your painful history, and there is some merit to what you’re saying. I’m not clear, however, on your saying that you wouldn’t mind if it were to stay on the Members’ Feed. It seems like you would have preferred I not post it at all, which based on your reaction, I’d understand. It’s like saying you don’t mind my sharing it with 900 of my best friends! ;-)
Not to worry. We’re good.
I don’t know about the private lives of Carville and Matalin, but I always assumed their schtick was exactly that- an act which was pleasing to a large enough audience. Together they were definitevely centrist comedic. Apart, Matalin seems to have been mostly a non-entity while Carville was an amoral or immoral demagogue. The schtick itself made me think less of Matalin as a pundit personality – the subject matter wasn’t Burns and Allen material and Carville’s sycophancy wasn’t just ho hum differences among classical liberals.
The Conway’s situation is different. They aren’t an established industry act, they’re supposedly both on the right, and Kellyanne isn’t a sociopathic huckster like Carville.
This is the problem: back in the 90’s the culture of the left treated the Clintons as normal when it should have been much more critical while the left and others now treat Trump as literally Hitler when he’s actually much closer to normal than people like to admit.
One of the rare times I momentarily felt some sympathy with Hillary was when she was in public with Clinton and ignored him after his disaster with Monica. Yes, I know she put up with his stuff and denigrated the women who accused him, but it was still a sad display.
An interesting question. How many people would expect to keep their jobs if their spouses were to publicly attack their boss on a repeated basis? In the world I live in if you let your personal life interfere with your professional on you would be gone.
I’m strongly inclined to the fourth option, I think we might find out that Kellyanne is like Col. Nicholson in The Bridge Over the River Kwai. George’s tweets seem to be based on dinner table conversations, not just ranting into the wind. As Susan said, we don’t know what dynamics are going on behind closed doors, and projecting our own prejudices into the mix is not helpful.
I held back as long as I could. I am fully on Kellyanne’s side in this. It’s not like she’s working for a drug dealer or an Islamic terrorist group. She’s working for the duly elected President of the United States, warts and all.
I’m sure they had a heated discussion when she first accepted the job, but she appears determined to remain on duty, while he appears heartless and cruel. I hate adding fuel to the fire, but I think George suspects something more than a business relationship, given the MSM coverage on Trump. If George has concerns, he should voice them in private with his wife. Otherwise, SHUT UP.
Frankly, I’m surprised Trump held back counter-criticism for so long, given his reputation for hitting back . . .
I’m not sure women can be knaves.
Carville was poisonously opposite.
Technically, they can’t.
It’s probably a thoughcrime to say so, though.
Guilty.
I thought it positively despicable when his undermining tweets first started.
What appetite is he satisfying? What’s in it for him?
So I’m trying to understand this in a personal way. Should I imagine that I’m married to Gary Robbins? :)
You should not.
My wife is the last person I’d want to humiliate in public. It’s hard for me to believe this is actually occurring.
Good point, @randywebster. Whatever the female equivalent of “knave”, then.
He sounds like a jerk, but frankly this is too much inside baseball for me to really take interest. That said, I like Kellyann. I hope their marriage survives.
Don’t put stuff like that in the world where people can’t unsee / unthink it. You may have done me serious damage with that one.