The Unraveling of ethics in our politics

Where did it go wrong?

Where did it all go?

It’s funny. I think I’ve seen everything you can about Donald Trump. I’ve been a Never Trumper from the moment he came down the escalator and left the Republican Party when he cemented the nomination in 2015. I’ve never looked back with a moment of regret except that it took me so long.

As I watched his insane performance at the National Association of Black Journalists conference on Friday I was struck that even for him that was outrageous. From his opening attack on the interviewers to questioning Kamala Harris’ racial identity to a black audience it just kept going deeper until he finally got the hook by his own team. It was, as George W. Bush observed in 2016, ‘some weird shit.’

But what really made me think this week was the way his VP nominee, spokespeople, propagandists, and Republican elected officials dove into his defense. J.D. Vance, himself the husband of an Indian American woman and father of biracial children, called it “hysterical.” Tom Cotton changed the topic and his bizarre fembot spokeswomen said he clearly won the conversation and impressed black Americans.

Like…what fucking planet are these people on?

What makes a person sell their soul for political gain to such an extreme? How does someone who apparently once had a moral compass smash it so thoroughly for a man with so little morals at all? Where did we go wrong as a nation that what had been a nation of norms and traditions is now one of corruption and disdain?

When did the train leave the rails?

I’ve been chewing on that question for as long as Trump started bending the party to his will. I distinctly remember the moment it struck me that something had changed in our body politic beyond the usual suspects. It was July 18, 2015. Trump appeared at the so-called ‘Family Leadership Summit’ in Ames, Iowa.

When asked about John McCain being a war hero he said, “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

Watch it yourself:

I admit. I thought that was it…finally. I was a 22-year Army veteran with four combat tours and at that point had been a professional veterans advocate for five years. There was no way he could possibly survive smearing our Prisoners of War like that. There are certain lines you just don’t cross. POW’s and fallen service members were two big ones.

All of the Republican Presidential candidates expressed righteous indignation. There were calls for him to drop out. Then something happened.

Nothing…and worse.

I started seeing people making excuses. I saw veterans stepping in his defense. Saying John McCain was a stool pigeon or worse. Bringing up lies about his service. Smearing him because just being a POW didn’t forgive him being on the wrong side of the Republican Party…etc.

I was shocked. There are just lines that don’t get crossed. But the real shock came 10 months later. The organizers of the Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Rally that occurs every Memorial Day weekend in Washington D.C. to honor and remember our Prisoners of War and Missing in Action, invited Trump to be the finale speaker outside the Lincoln Memorial.

Yes. These veterans invited a man that said he didn’t like people who were captured literally invited him to speak and honor the very people he smeared. I knew we were done then. The veterans community splintered into warring political factions and it has never been the same.

(Side note….the Rolling Thunder organization collapsed in the coming years when sponsors dried up and had to be saved by AMVETs. I don’t think its a coincidence.)

So, I have been obsessed with understanding what drives people over that edge for someone so disgusting. Someone who shares none of our values.

Then Bob Bauer’s new book landed in my Inbox.

I’ve got a guy!

Bauer has been a Democratic Party attorney for 50 years. He joined the field just after Watergate and has been at the center of major events right up to today where he is fighting to ensure elections are managed professionally and ethically. He was part of the first Biden campaign and witnessed first hand the battles after the election.

His new book, The Unraveling: Reflections on politics without ethics and democracy in crisis, discusses his journey and the failure of ethics in our political class and industry. It’s a fascinating read and touches on many of the issues I have struggled with.

So, I had to get him on the show. In the end, it’s up to us to hold them accountable and push for the reforms that must be made to ensure our democracy survives.

The Show

Bob Bauer

Bauer has been involved in many of the biggest political struggles in the five decades since the post-Watergate 1970s. He has been a leading legal adviser to the national Democratic Party and to its candidates on strategies for winning elections and protecting voting rights, and he has represented the party in national political conflicts and controversies. He was the chief counsel to both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns and was the President’s White House counsel. He was counsel to the Democratic Senate leader during Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial. He was a senior adviser to the Biden presidential campaign on voting rights and election protection, and on vice presidential selection. Bauer is also now on the faculty of the New York University School of Law.

New Hot Seat with J.D. Vance’s own Congressman

I caught a thread on Twitter from none other than J.D. Vance’s own member of Congress in Ohio, Greg Landsman, about how he really doesn’t reflect the values of the district that he claims as his bedrock. He is so out of step in the region that Landsman carried his district by 6 points in 2022 and JD lost it by 9. His own home town voted against him.

I had to get him in the Hot Seat.