Monthly Archives: January 2020

Disdain for Congress Not Only Reason for Withholding Information

There is wide-spread agreement that President Trump doesn’t consider Congress a co-equal partner. Nor does he believe it has any right to restrict his activities, let alone investigate him. This was abundantly clear in his handling of the killing of Soleimani. He failed to notify the Gang of Eight as required by law, and the explanations subsequently provided by his team were totally inadequate and misleading. This fits a pattern from his earliest days and continues through the Impeachment process.

But there is a second aspect that deserves attention as well. Trump also slights Congress because he rejects the very notion of a “loyal opposition.” This term is generally applied to non-governing parties in a parliamentary system that freely oppose the government’s policies and are actually seeking to replace the party in power, but remain loyal to the greater institutional  framework. 

This concept rests on a set of mutual obligations. The opposition agrees not to challenge the government’s basic authority but express their opposition through legal means (not rebellion). In return, the government allows their dissent and does not equate opposition to treason.

This concept is a basic pillar of all democratic societies. As Levitsky and Ziblatt point out in their prophetic 2018 book How Democracies Die, the denial of the legitimacy of political opponents is a key indicator of authoritarian behavior. 

Only Personal Loyalty Counts

Yet Trump not only rejects this concept, he considers it anathema. There is no such thing as a loyal opponent; opponents are enemies to be crushed, or at least kept at bay. To Trump, the only loyalty that counts is personal loyalty to him, not to some abstract notion such as the Constitution, the law, professional ethics, or the truth. He made that clear to Comey and countless others who have left or been forced out of their positions. 

Given this perspective, sharing classified information with Schiff, Pelosi, Schumer, et al., makes no sense. They not only don’t deserve it as members of Congress, as enemies they can’t be trusted. One excuse made for not briefing the Gang of Eight was the expectation that Democrats would leak classified information.

This basic distrust is also reflected in his frequent accusation that his opponents are guilty of “treason.” Putting aside they are not guilty of the crimes he ascribes to them, even if they were, these crimes don’t rise to the level of treason. But to Trump, opposing him is treasonous.

The greater danger is that his rejection of the concept of “loyal opposition” has infected much of his party, the right-wing media, and many of his supporters. Whether this pillar of democracy can survive the Senate trial, the campaign, and the election, regardless of who wins, will be critical to our future.

The Relative Irrelevance of Motivation in Politics—Part I: As We Judge

A. In the Broader Scheme of Things

Understanding an individual’s motivations is a critical component in many aspects of human life. Much of the focus in therapy is on learning what truly leads us to do what we do (or don’t do). We choose friends and judge many others in part on what we believe drives their behavior—ambition, need for pity, greed, empathy, status-seeking, desire to serve, etc. 

Motivation is also critical in religion, in which certain desires are considered positive, while others, such as lust and jealousy, are condemned. In our legal system motivation plays a role in defining certain crimes (i.e., the various levels of murder) and in sentencing, and can also be considered in civil actions. 

And understanding motivation plays an outsize role in our consumer consumptive society. Marketing is driven by pushing the drivers of brand selection, and the primary task of market research, a profession in which I have spent most of my career, is identifying those drivers.

B. Judging in the Political Realm

In the world of politics, however, a focus on motivation can be misplaced or even, as discussed in my next blog, pernicious. Here it is far more important whatan official does than whyhe or she does it. Does he support or enact a policy because he really believes it’s the right thing to do, or because it makes him look good, or will win votes in the next election, or pays a political debt? How much does it really matter?

Of course, you would prefer she does the right thing (in your opinion) for the right reasons. Because it shows commitment to a course of action and is less likely to change, while an “insincere” official may be pushed to another side by changing circumstances. In fact, integrity may ultimately be one of the most desirable traits in a leader. But in the short term, at least, it is far better that the “correct” action is taken, than not, and probably preferable to a right-thinking leader who is unable or unwilling to effect this course of action.

But the current obsession with analyzing our leaders, seeking to distill the purity of their motives, is often counter-productive. Political motivation is always complicated. Politicians constantly take both high-minded desires along with personal considerations into account, and probably could not even tell their therapists why they took a particular action. And since we can’t put them on the couch, we are left with judging them by their fruits.

C. Some Examples

Consider Lyndon Johnson, a politician with a fair number of personal faults who nonetheless can claim an impressive set of positive domestic accomplishments before he was undone by Viet-Nam (where his flaws eventually destroyed him.) 

Consider also Presidents Carter and Obama, both men of high integrity who were able to accomplish far less than they (and their supporters) had hoped. Whatever the external circumstances that inhibited their achievements, personality traits also played a role, such as a lack of political savvy and unwillingness to engage in the more unseemly aspects of the political process. These aspects were, of course, particular strengths of Johnson.

We should also allow politicians, like everyone else, to evolve, to grow, to enlarge their world view. Bobby Kennedy the presidential candidate was a far different person than Bobby Kennedy the attorney general. Certain things may not be forgivable no matter how long ago they happened, but I would limit these to particularly repugnant deeds, not positions once held. 

D. Evaluating Candidates

This becomes particularly challenging when we evaluate candidates, when we try to gauge what a future leader willdo. We get statements and positions, but will the candidate really carry these out or even fight aggressively to turn them into reality? Here we tend to rely (again, too much) or evaluations of character. An “honorable” person is more likely to say what she believes. 

But other character traits must also be considered, such as flexibility and a willingness to compromise. A rigid official can turn out to be an ineffective leader. And sincerity and commitment to a cause can also reflect a self-righteousness that can lead to ineffectiveness and even to autocratic behavior. 

So, while an off-the-couch evaluation of a range of character traits can be helpful, it is perhaps more productive to look for patterns in positions or policies supported, that indicate a more holistic (and well-thought-out) vision. Also focus on the consistency and the forcefulness with which a position is held. But most critically, try to discern how the candidate expects to achieve her vision. If that’s too vague, or you’re told, “Just trust me to do this,” then you are probably right to question both the commitment and the effectiveness of the candidate. 

Did anyone seriously think Mexico would pay for the wall? No serious person could have thought so. But many apparently put their faith in a candidate who convinced them he could make this happen; they only needed to trust him. Here we enter the world of faith, not politics.

The next part moves from the motivations of politicians to how the political set evaluates the motivations of others.

The Relative Irrelevance of Motivation in Politics—Part 2: As We Are Judged

A. Turning the Tables

In the first part, I suggested that our current obsession with judging politicians by what we believe truly motivates their behavior is counter-productive and unhealthy in a democracy. But far more pernicious is the current situation in which our leaders and their enablers judge by the motivations they ascribe to others. 

A recent op-ed piece by Tom Mueller in the Washington Post argued that whatever led the whistleblower to blow the whistle really doesn’t matter, whether honorable, partisan, or selfish. This excellent essay makes a strong, legally-based argument that the only relevant question is whether the charges made are credible. These, of course, have been substantiated by multiple witnesses. 

But to the President and his supporters, the whistleblower’s motivation is critical. And their arguments suggest this is the only aspect that needs to be explored. In fact, the testimony of all the sworn witnesses is dismissed because these detractors of the president must be driven by personal animosity: Never-Trumpers. Disgruntled officeholders. Democrats who just want to overturn the 2016 election. Damn the facts, the messengers are tainted, kill them all.

B. “We Are All Tainted”

But this is more than a tactic. This posture betrays a deeply-held conviction that everyone is partisan. No one acts out of pure motives, such as a concern with democracy or the rule of law. No one’s behavior is really beholden to professional or journalistic ethics or statistical accuracy. Everyone is really just as corrupt as we are!

We see this attitude most clearly in the president, who could not believe that Comey wouldn’t give him his primary loyalty, or that Sessions felt legally obliged to recuse himself. He rejects polls as “phony” without feeling any need to explain how they are methodologically or otherwise flawed. There is no need to do that; the numbers are “fake” because they emanate from polluted sources, produced by partisans driven to hurt the president.

But this attitude permeates the administration and to a large extent, the partisan media. Climate science is rejected based on the notion that all those scientists are biased. In fact, science itself is debased because it is assumed that all those researchers and academics have their own agendas that shape their results; in other words, just as the “research” put out by industry groups does.

On Fox and other networks, the messengers of truth and in fact anyone who opposes their positions are trashed as the commentators assign nefarious motivations to each one of them, and to the entire “liberal” establishment. And you can find echoes of this approach in the ventings of many authoritarian regimes: No one really cares about democracy or human rights, they say. These are only cover stories promulgated to hurt China, or Turkey, or Saudi Arabia, and to sew discord. 

There may even be multiple layers of corrupt purpose: someone who publicly disparages your regime may really be doing so for personal profit, as a paid agent of George Soros who is the one who is really out to destroy your country….And so it goes.

C. The True Bottom Line

In part, this pervasive refusal to accept the objectivity or reliability of any scientific data, or information no matter how well documented, may explain the rejection of the whole concept of objective reality that seems to permeate the right wing. (And has always been a tool of the extreme left, as well.)  It’s not so much that reality doesn’t exist, but that no one is willing to describe it objectively, because everyone is corrupt! Apparently, Pirandello gets the last word.