Danny ChaiI sometimes feel like I’m a crazy person in being consistent about feeling that character matters for our political leaders. In fact, I feel like it may be the most important characteristic, even more significant than the positions they stand for.
What I mean by consistent: I strongly disliked both Bill Clinton throughout his presidency and Donald Trump now for the same reasons – I think they displayed terrible moral values, unfit for being a leader – and it confuses me how alone I feel in this.
Clinton was at best a serial philanderer. More likely he is credibly accused of engaging in sexual harassment (which is how the investigation that eventually led to Monica Lewinsky happened) and sexual assault. I never liked him, never voted for him.
Liberals at the time – including feminists – lined up to support him. The defense, in my opinion, was pretty weak. Along the lines of discounting the accusations because they were partisan attacks, saying that they ultimately didn’t matter because they did not impact his effectiveness as a president, or arguing that the accusers were willing participants, not victims.
The defense that offended me most at the time was this movie called The Contender (2000) that seems mostly forgotten now, but it’s about a Vice Presidential candidate who’s accused of having a somewhat sordid sexual past. She refuses to answer questions about it under the principle that one’s personal life is private and irrelevant and she holds fast to it even though (spoiler) she’s innocent of the charges. The movie frames it in a certain feminist light that’s reasonable, about not sexualizing women and punishing them for that. But underneath the veneer the movie was pretty clearly a defense of Bill Clinton, and its rationale bugged me. That one’s personal life has no bearing on public service. I wrote in my blog about the movie at the time: “To me, Bill Clinton is the ultimate symbol of this political and maybe social era. If the cultural attitude is that character doesn’t matter, just how good you are at what you’re supposed to do, you will raise up people who are good at what they do with no moral character. I’m just against that.”
Christians at the time were appalled by the behavior, and rightly so, saying that moral character really matters for our public officials, and if they aren’t held accountable to it, society suffers as a result. I agreed with that. It’s not about expecting moral perfection from our leaders. Everyone messes up, me especially. But it’s about a repeated, willful disregard for morality. That should matter for our leaders.
The liberal defense of Clinton has not aged well, especially in light of #MeToo, and I frankly think my stance was vindicated. Many liberals came to see their defense of Bill Clinton as wrong in retrospect (this NY Times article from 2017 discusses some of this). And I’m glad about this, this is good.
But sadly, evangelicals have now adopted that defense almost exactly – the sides have swapped, and I feel crazy that I still feel the same way, that moral character matters. This Christianity Today article points out that “Evangelical voters and regular churchgoers are less likely than other voters to see a presidential candidate’s ‘personal character’ as a deciding factor” and that the “majority of Harris supporters say character and position on abortion are their top issues.” (Side note: this is another odd flip. Many evangelicals are thought of being one-issue voters in regards to abortion, but the article points out that “only 6 percent of evangelical voters rank abortion as their No. 1 factor in selecting a candidate.” I’m not sure what happened.)
It depresses me that evangelicals who seemed to care so much about moral character with Clinton now disregard any of Trump’s moral failings. David French wrote a recent piece where he considers why this is: “Were they lying in 1998? Was the evangelical argument for character a cynical partisan exercise from the beginning?” he asks. He concludes that they weren’t. They meant what they said, but it wasn’t put to the test. It’s easy to make a stand when it’s applied to someone you already oppose. But you don’t know how strong your conviction is until it comes with a cost. “Evangelicals thought they valued integrity in politicians, and they held to that conviction until the very moment it carried a cost. That is when courage failed.”
There’s a plot twist in the musical / book / life Hamilton where Hamilton endorses Thomas Jefferson for President over Aaron Burr despite Jefferson being from the opposing party and Burr being the preferred choice of his own party. His reasoning: “Jefferson has beliefs; Burr has none.” This is another way I feel like I’m crazy, but I feel the same way. I honestly believe that it’s better to choose a candidate who has strong principles even if they are counter to my own over someone with no character. Because when it counts, you know that that candidate will be guided by some sort of principle, and that matters. I have a friend who is very liberal and has served in the SF city government, and I would not hesitate to support him in any government office because I know his character. I have another friend who is conservative and served in the Trump administration, and I would not hesitate to support him in government office because I also know his character. I realize that to most people this seems bananas. But I honestly believe this and stand by it.
Our church is in the process of selecting deacons and our pastor preached a sermon series on what the Bible says about deacons. It’s interesting because the Bible does not say that much about what they actually do. It’s so sparse that most of it has to be inferred. Whereas the Bible has much to say about what their character should be like. To me, the Biblical lesson is clear: when choosing church leaders, character matters above everything else. It’s not as obvious that this applies to political leaders as well, but I do think the principle holds, that character really matters. Even if, as Hamilton believed, it means picking among the lesser of two evils.