Toxic shamelessness

There was a time when a politician could be shamed out of office. It happened with some regularity. There was a rhythm to it. Accusations would be raised and denied, an investigation would be initiated or threatened, and suddenly the candidate or office holder in question would remember that they had a family with which they wanted to spend more time. So they would start exploring alternative ways to serve.

Sometimes you could feel bad for them, because they seemed more clueless and awkward than anything else. It’s not wise to psychoanalyze people you’ve never met (especially if you have no training in the field) but it’s probably safe to say that some people get into politics because they want to exercise dominion over others.

A lot of politicians are motivated by the same things that motivate some people to become entertainers. They’re attracted to the power and social regard that comes with the office. They like having strangers know them; they like being treated as though they are special.

And, deep down, people who like to be treated as though they are special probably don’t really believe they are all that special. So they over-compensate by behaving like—well, people without shame.

Andrew Cuomo is the latest example. He’s still the governor of New

York today and I suspect he will still be governor of New York next week.

He’s not going to resign to spend more time with his family and find alternative ways to serve. If he’s thrown out, it will have to be by impeachment.

And impeachment is possible, though the process of removing a sitting governor is complicated and difficult. I have no insight into New York state politics but imagine that many Democrats would be looking for reasons not to vote to remove Cuomo, because what happens if you strike at the king and he survives?

He’s still the king. And now he’s mad at you. It’s naive to think right and wrong has anything to do with these calculations. Morality is a sucker’s game. It probably always has been, though as of late political tribalism has reduced most of us to partisan hooligans willing to excuse any misbehavior by anyone wearing our colors.

Sure, plenty of Democrats are calling for Cuomo to resign, but would they be doing that if New York had a Republican lieutenant governor waiting to step in? I doubt it. Their real calculation is that Cuomo’s staying is likely to do more damage to their team than Cuomo’s going.

Or maybe it’s just that they believe that not condemning Cuomo and calling for his resignation would do more harm to their personal brand than calling him out for being creepy to women.

And that report compiled by the state attorney general based on nearly 200 interviews provides us plenty of reason to believe Cuomo has been creepy with women and should be ashamed of himself. So ashamed that he steps back and goes off someplace quiet to sit in a room alone and think about how he has hurt others.

But he’s not going to do that. He’s going to brazen his way through and see what happens. He’ll probably survive, because that seems to be what happens most of the time these days.

In retrospect, Al Franken looks like a sap. There are plenty of people who will tell you Franken should not have resigned. Some of you think what happened to Franken was just terrible.

But I don’t feel sorry for Franken. Franken did the right thing. He was creepy to women. Maybe not as creepy as some have been, but creepy enough. So he resigned from the Senate.

I would like to think that resigning from the Senate didn’t mortally wound Franken’s self-esteem. I would like to imagine that he’s perfectly fine looking for alternative ways to serve. I don’t think he needed to be a senator in the way that some other people need high office.

One thing we don’t say because it’s insufficiently respectful to people who run for office is that sometimes the same character deficiencies that make you want to run for office also make you want to misuse others. Not everyone who likes to go on TV and talk about how brave and honest and smart they are is over-compensating for something, but it’s obvious a lot of them are. Some are pathological bullies.

Some of them are really sad. Obviously, some people believe they are entitled to special dispensation, that they can behave in ways that would get most of us censured if not jailed. Did Andrew Cuomo imagine he was doing anything wrong when he was being creepy to women? Probably, but maybe not. Maybe he was oblivious. We can all do dumb, inappropriate things and not know they are dumb and inappropriate in the moment.

But the difference is that most of us—I hope most of us—would be deeply embarrassed and ashamed when we discovered that the dumb thing we did had made someone else feel weird and vulnerable. Most of us would be devastated to find out we had made someone feel bad about themselves. We might go to some lengths to try to atone for our mistakes—because they would be mistakes, not something willed or wished for—and resolve to do better.

Idon’t want to say this era of shamelessness began with Bill Clinton’s calculation that he didn’t have to resign when confronted with the evidence of his own dumb and inappropriate behavior, but maybe it did. Maybe he provided a template that sex scandal survivors such as Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump, Matt Gaetz and Andrew Cuomo might follow.

Deny, then brazen it out. The calculus is that your base will not desert you, no matter what. You can always say the allegations are politically motivated, that the press is out to get you, that you were set up. All you need to do is provide some alternate facts for your tribe.

In today’s environment, Richard Nixon would have survived Watergate. No Republicans would break ranks to vote against him, not because they approved of Nixon, but simply to deny the opposing party a victory. Winning matters; to do more than pretend to care about the soul of the nation is to be a chump.

What we need is a better class of people running for office. People with some humility, some ability and, most of all, a capacity for shame.