….is that it was a portion of Christians (e.g. Falwell) who made Trump v. Clinton inevitable, but when it came to the general election, it was a contest between a man who doggedly pursued sex, money, and power versus a woman who doggedly pursued money and power, and in her early life (before it was too clear what her husband was about) was about the first, too. Worth noting is that most of the Clinton scandals—Whitewater, cattle futures, travel office, Vince Foster, carpetbagging in Chappaqua, their “charitable” foundation, and the like—were about leveraging political power for money. In the same way, a lot of the scandals of Obama—his church, Bill Ayers, his house bought with felon Tony Rezko, the IRS scandal, Benghazi, etc..—were all about power, too.
Bush looks a little bit better, but W.’s early business dealings presumably benefited a bunch from his family connections. So at least in the past three decades or so, it’s hard to find a top leader who did not spend a lot of effort on money and power. Maybe Reagan, but even he had those quick talks with a Japanese company for a cool million or whatever.
So I don’t know that it’ll be easy to demonstrably separate our politics from the pursuit of sex, money, and power anytime soon. You can also make some interesting allegations about the Kennedy family (got rich through gin-running in Prohibition), Johnson, the Roosevelts, and the like. So it’s a longstanding problem.
Discussion
NewA quibble....
….is that it was a portion of Christians (e.g. Falwell) who made Trump v. Clinton inevitable, but when it came to the general election, it was a contest between a man who doggedly pursued sex, money, and power versus a woman who doggedly pursued money and power, and in her early life (before it was too clear what her husband was about) was about the first, too. Worth noting is that most of the Clinton scandals—Whitewater, cattle futures, travel office, Vince Foster, carpetbagging in Chappaqua, their “charitable” foundation, and the like—were about leveraging political power for money. In the same way, a lot of the scandals of Obama—his church, Bill Ayers, his house bought with felon Tony Rezko, the IRS scandal, Benghazi, etc..—were all about power, too.
Bush looks a little bit better, but W.’s early business dealings presumably benefited a bunch from his family connections. So at least in the past three decades or so, it’s hard to find a top leader who did not spend a lot of effort on money and power. Maybe Reagan, but even he had those quick talks with a Japanese company for a cool million or whatever.
So I don’t know that it’ll be easy to demonstrably separate our politics from the pursuit of sex, money, and power anytime soon. You can also make some interesting allegations about the Kennedy family (got rich through gin-running in Prohibition), Johnson, the Roosevelts, and the like. So it’s a longstanding problem.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.