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Given that Senator Ted Kennedy killed a young woman with his reckless behavior in 1969, tried to cover it up and suffered zero consequences as a result, I’m going to suggest you are giving past generations far too much credit
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I’m an older American, I can remember a time when a single antic, The likes of which we’ve seen countless from Graham, Nunes, Jordan, Giuliani, McCarthy, Gaetz, Paul, Barr, and idol Trump, Would have instantly ended a career & public life. I weep for America now.
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I’m curious. What redeeming positive traits of the political class, if any, do you believe have been lost during the Trump era through the actions of the GOP and Trump specifically? And not justifiable as legitimate responses to “they started it” Democrat behaviors?
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That’s easy. The pretense of maintaining intellectual credibility. Granted it was mostly a pretense but the ritual charade and potential embarrassment was something of a brake on more brazenly stupid things . Gone now.
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Hmm. If that’s the only damage you’re willing to lay at their door, and it sounds like you think it’s partly a good thing, it’s not a whole lot. Interesting.
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I didn’t say it’s the only damage and I never implied it’s a good thing. I implied the opposite to be specific. Nor is it a small thing if you think about how not fearing to act in an absurd way causes the wheels to come off our norms, most of which are upheld informally
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So shame-enforced norms as a line that when crossed opens the door to a lot of damage? It’s a big one, to be sure, though I’d probably rank a couple of other features of this style of politics higher on the damage score 🤔
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There are not many restraints on a ruling class in a liberal democratic society except formal constitutional checks and self-restraint. The old performative norms partly done for each other may have been partly cynical but at least it was a norm. Appearances once kept graft small
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Plus you wanted something that didn’t have bipartisan origins and I think it’s fair to say that the GOP hurried down this epistemological-behavioral hole, damn the torpedoes.
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I think abandonment of a basically empathetic moral posture is probably a bigger deal than shamelessness. For the first time, the world sees an America that seems incapable of even a slight impulse towards universal kindness, and shows signs of pure sadism.
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A lot of hypocrisy/bungling is forgiven if people sense at least a slight impulse towards kindness competing with other impulses like sadism, power, selfishness, etc. When people sense that impulse has run dry, you lose all benefit of doubt, reciprocity, cooperation,...
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Perhaps this is idealism, but with all 5 presidents I’m old enough to remember, Reagan through Obama, I got the sense that genuine capacity for empathy, compassion and kindness was in the mix, no matter what else was in there. It was competing, even if as the weakest impulse.