Dirty Politics

Em Carpenter

Em was one of those argumentative children who was sarcastically encouraged to become a lawyer, so she did. She is a proud life-long West Virginian, and, paradoxically, a liberal. In addition to writing about society, politics and culture, she enjoys cooking, podcasts, reading, and pretending to be a runner. She will correct your grammar. You can find her on Twitter.

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7 Responses

  1. LeeEsq says:

    He should be given a good whack in the head for that tweet.Report

  2. J_A says:

    I strongly concur with almost everything in this post, but I take exception to the following

    If Maroney is proven guilty, his ouster is not inappropriate, though I am of the opinion that, barring serious violent crimes or crimes against the public coffers such as corruption, such ouster should occur at the voting booth.

    If a state senator is found guilty of any misdemeanor, he should suffer the same consequences any other person would suffer. If a misdemeanor is cause for someone to lose their job, it should be enough for a state senator to lose his.

    If hiring a sex worker is a misdemeanor, but not the kind that should really matter, or have consequences for a politician, then it shouldn’t matter for anyone, and it should be stricken out of the WV penal code. Which is what should actually happen, by the way.

    But the concept that misdemeanors and other petty criminal laws are for the little people, and not for those important enough, is an abomination to my eyes.

    *steps off soap box now*Report

    • George Turner in reply to J_A says:

      I doubt the rest of the Senate would do more than censor him, and our form of government doesn’t allow an elected representative to simply get fired, which would require a boss who is above the will of the people.Report

    • Em Carpenter in reply to J_A says:

      I agree he should lose his job, if the people who hired him think he should. That’s the same thing that anyone else is subject to. It is unfortunate that it’s not immediate like it would be for you or me.Report

  3. Tod Kelly says:

    This relates to a belief that I have held for years, which is this: public figures (especially politicians) who gain wealth or power by dictating who in society we should judge harshly are usually the ones who dictate how we judge them.

    A candidate who rails against his opponent for never having run a successful business inevitably makes it news if it turns out he or she has a long string of Chapter 11s in their past. A white Hollywood celeb who gets lots of press for shaming other white people for not being “woke” enough has necessarily made it more of a story if they get caught on tape saying something racist, or paying their hispanic nanny sub-minimum wage under the table. And, of course, a politician or pundit who says they or theirs should be given more power because of they are more morally disciplined than everyone else has themselves said they should be run out on a rail long before they were caught with their pants down.

    It’s common in all of these cases for public defenders and their critics to cry “hypocrisy” whenever they get caught, but that’s not really what it is. We largely let people with power and fame dictate the terms which we judge them, and how we punish them.

    What I find most interesting, however, is how routine it is for the public figures who ask us to be concerned about other people doing X end up being people who do X far more than most. Does anyone know if there’s ever been a comprehensive study about this? It is a very weird thing.Report

    • Saul Degraw in reply to Tod Kelly says:

      The expression I have seen used is “every accusation is a confession.” I don’t know how one would study it except for statistics purposes. I suppose you can see if the people who do this would submit to psychological profiling and neurological evaluation. I doubt they would though.Report

  4. Saul Degraw says:

    I think the tweet shows why there is a push to get rid of the bozo now. Negative partisanship is quite high and no one knows how to reduce it or get rid of it. Well maybe there is some clutching of the tea cups and saucers and misremembered nostalgia of Tip and Ronnie banging out a solution over whiskey.

    But the issue of the fact is that hatred of the other party runs high. Odes to the ballot box often feel like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.Report