Embellished military career. Allegedly dodged the draft.
Misplaced ballot box. Falsified voter names. Abused Congressional staffers.
Commitment to doing as little policy work as possible out of fear of alienating
one side or another. Condescending and dismissive toward women. Clear and
consistent racist behavior.
While each of these might sound like a laundry list of
just how polarized and broken politics and politicians in the United States
have become, none of these are new.
I am almost finished re-reading Robert A. Caro's
four-volume The Years of Lyndon Johnson. Caro's deftness at
capturing behind-the-scenes episodes throughout Johnson's life continues to be
one of the best examples of reporting and writing. While the books begin with
Johnson's childhood, the later volumes focus on his role as a U.S.
Representative from Texas' 10th district from 1937 to 1949, as U.S. Senator
from 1948 to 1961, and as 37th President of the United States starting in 1963,
upon the assassination of his predecessor, John Kennedy.
I bring up the notion that abysmal behavior in politics
is nothing new now because the temptation to dismiss any current instances as
just par for the course might exist. You know, that's just politics and how the
game is played. Such a temptation should be fought.
If we had given over to accepting past injustices because
they've always been with us, then it's likely I would have been dismissed out
of hand for several jobs because of my religion or my niece might have faced
insurmountable obstacles to voting because of her race; or several other nieces
would not have been permitted to serve in the military if their sexual
orientation had become known.
Holding politicians accountable for unjust, immoral,
misogynistic, anti-Semitic, and racist behavior should be part of our
responsibility as citizens and voters. This goes for politicians of any
political affiliation. Johnson was a Democrat. Nixon was a Republican. Each
engaged in behavior that certainly doesn't represent the best of us. You can
certainly add to the list with your own examples, both past and present.
Granted, we are all flawed. It is a ridiculous assumption
that we could ever find candidates who have not made a mistake or two along the
way. But most of us can discern, for example, the difference between a mistake
and a worldview that governs your behavior. The latter should be disqualifying.
If we have evidence that candidates running for office,
at any level, have engaged in reprehensible behavior, it seems a low bar to
cross them off our list of people for whom to vote.
In his most recent book, Working, Robert A.
Caro includes a chapter on how he got people to be candid with him when he
interviewed them for his books. The gist of it is that he learned to "shut
up" (his words) and listen rather than interrupt. By letting his subjects
fill the silence, he got a fuller and truer sense of who they are and what they
had to say. We can most definitely take this into our lives as we listen to
political figureheads on all sides and attempt to hear what they say,
completely divorced from our own opinions.
There's a quote often attributed to Maya Angelou that
says: "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first
time." I would add that as they show us unjust behavior, the right thing
is to fight to correct such injustices rather than to accept them as a fait
accompli.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of
Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior
lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at
Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused
on ethical issues. Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send
them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.
Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.
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