Feeding Frenzy among the Cannibals

We are witnessing the ongoing destruction of the political class in America.

They are doing it to each other.  It is happening out of revenge, opportunity, and fear.  When the mood is outrage it isn't safe to sit back.   

Look closely.  This isn't furtive lust.  It is silly humor.

It started as tit for tat revenge--killing each others' hostages-- but has transformed into a melee.  

Hollywood and the media outed some of their own: Ayles and O'Reilly from Fox; Mark Halperin from MSNBC.  Entertainment has outed and shamed Harvey Weinstein, Louis C. K., Kevin Spacey.  Republicans are turning on their own--McConnell and Ryan telling Moore to withdraw.  Democrats are turning on Al Franken, shaming him, returning his campaign donations, and Senator Kirsten Gellibrand saying that Bill Clinton should have resigned over the Lewinsky revelations.

Donald Trump laid low on Roy Moore but instantly tweeted blasting Al Franken for the unwanted kiss and grope, something "really bad," he said.

Weinstein's shaming followed O'Reilly's, but that wasn't the start.  The left's shaming of Trump and his dozen accusers drew the counterpunch of Trump blaming Hillary for shaming Lewinsky.  This frenzy of accusations over past deeds has a long history.  People seeking revenge on the other side have lots of scores to settle.

Throughout politics, the media, Hollywood, and business powerful people are reflecting on their past lives and wondering if they are next.  There appears to be no statute of limitations.  The past is not the past and no misbehavior or hurt feeling disappears.  There is no safe harbor.   

Not even humor.  Franken is being accused of being caught red handed in doing furtive groping.  Note there are shadows under his hands.  Note he is mugging for the camera.  This may well be stupid humor, but it is not lust.  He is not groping her.  He is posing for the camera publicly pretending to be groping her.   

What is going on here?

Some of the new outrage is simply partisan opportunism.  It is warfare and these are sniper attacks on vulnerable people on the other side.  Get O'Reilly.  Get Al Franken. Get Roy Moore.  There are news narratives and Senate seats at stake.  Shoot the enemy's leaders.

Some of the new outrage is frustration on the right that Bill Clinton seemed to have gotten away with something sexually shameful and came out stronger for it, then frustration on the left that Donald Trump did the same thing after the Access Hollywood revelations.  It demonstrated that powerful men do not pay a catastrophic price for sexual predation, and it is infuriating.  So people become furious.

Some of the new outrage is the feeling of power in calling out a persistent element of modern American society, which is that rich and powerful people feel entitled to use that status to gain sexual favors.  In the current moment people are acting shocked.  Yet the notion of women using sexual wiles to "sleep their way to the top" is a well known cliche.  The phrase "casting couch" is another cliche.  We are aware of its presence, now women are openly objecting, getting heard, and getting people fired.

We are witnessing a revolution.  Power to the previously disempowered.

Donald Trump is a witness and authority:  I cite Donald Trump here, not to shame him, but to use him as an eyewitness giving un-guarded testimony:  "I'm automatically attracted to beautiful women--I just start kissing them, it's like a magnet.  Just kiss.  I don't even wait.  And when you're a star, they let you do it.  You can do anything, grab them by the pussy."

Sniper attack.

A lot of people were stars in their own realms: newsrooms, movie sets, business and corporate offices.  They felt entitled, and sometimes with good reason.

We are witnessing a period of turmoil that happens when the cultural rules change.  In the thirty years of brokerage offices from 1985-2015 I watched the culture change from strongly masculine to carefully sanitized, driven there by lawsuits from female Financial Advisors and staff people, by bad publicity from some incidents in a "Boom Boom Room" in New Jersey, by the increasing number of female Advisors, and by changing mores generally.  What was thought OK in 1985 was not OK by 2015.

Some men, perhaps coached by a mother, a wife, or by an HR department, stayed ahead of the wave of change.  Some did not.   Some, like Bill Clinton, were caught by the past in the form of Paula Jones.  Some, like Donald Trump, as recently as the 2005 Access Hollywood brag, were slow to understand the landscape of a business world that now better empowered women.

The rules are changing.  Twenty five years ago it would have been shameful to be outed as gay; now not. Now the shame would be to openly criticize a person for being gay.  And now the shame is to to have been heterosexual and to have made an unwanted sexual advance.  

What constitutes unacceptable behavior?   Whatever the accuser says loudly, clearly, convincingly.  If a person was offended, then it was an offense.  New rules.

Who survives and who is crushed by the changing rules?   It all depends on whether then revelations damage or confirm a brand.  Donald Trump and Bill Clinton presented to the public as alpha male bad boys.  Their public outing showed mis-behavior, not hypocrisy, while it confirmed their power and virility.  We value strength in a President.  It hurt Bill Clinton more than Trump because Clinton projected himself as an enlightened modern man,  empathetic and supportive of women's equality, married to a peer.  Trump projected himself as someone who was tired of political correctness, so while Republicans were shocked by his Access Hollywood comments they ended up voting for him. As he said, he was a star.  Women let you. That is power.  For both Clinton and Trump, the job was Commander in Chief, and people want to see that you have power and know how to exercise it.  

O'Reilly, Halperin, and Spacey were positioned as truth tellers, not leaders.  Being shown to be "abusers" undermined their brand.  They folded and left the scene.

Roy Moore might survive.  He is positioned as a victim of liars and liberals, and by attacking McConnell and the Washington Post he has worked to frame this election not about dating very young women, but about whether Alabamans want to represent them a conservative values or a  Democratic abortion-loving secular multicultural liberal.

Al Franken's advantage in keeping his seat is the same thing that will make him un-electable as president.  He was a comic. His kiss and photo was a mistake.  He really is good inside, instantly apologizing, it was just a joke, a stupid joke, not really reflective of who he is, he said.  That ironic separation between statement and reality that is inherent in a comic will likely save his Senate seat.  He only pretends to grope and he doesn't justify it for a second.  He accepts the premise of his accusers.  Ultimately, that comes across as both weak but compliant. Comics are the side-kick and theater Fool, not the King.  They are talkers, not doers. He won't be president.