Everyone knows the routine by now: A prominent personality of one political persuasion says or does something truly unacceptable. The opposing party expresses outrage while the members of that person’s party come quickly to his or her defense. Then the opposing party members are doubly outraged at the hypocrisy of defending the indefensible.
It happened when President Bill Clinton lied about sexual relations with a White House intern. It happened when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton routed sensitive government emails through her private server. And it happened countless times when Donald Trump lied, cheated and tried to overthrow democracy. The excuse-makers keep coming forward to defend the indefensible.
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This is precisely what is feeding the tribalism that is splitting America apart. It’s time for both sides to stop making excuses when their side is clearly in the wrong. If they set a standard for the other side to live by, they must apply it equally and without exception to their own side.
Consider the reaction by supporters of St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner to her resignation announcement last week. She faced relentless pressure to leave because of a sustained, demonstrable and undeniable pattern of gross mismanagement. Yet her defenders insist she was the victim of a racist and sexist attack—even when the Black female mayor of St. Louis and a Black judge joined the ranks of Gardner’s critics.
Adolphus Pruitt of the St. Louis NAACP said, “We just witnessed a modern-day lynching.”
Rep. Cori Bush of St. Louis said that Gardner “too often faced unfair and unprecedented attacks rooted in misogyny and racism.”
Excuses, in other words, bereft of calls for Gardner to be held accountable.
In his New York rape-trial deposition, ex-President Donald Trump confirmed that he was the person speaking in the 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which he asserted a right to sexually assault women. In the deposition, he went even further by saying he still believes that’s the case for famous people today. Republicans, at first outraged when the tape surfaced in 2016, found a way to excuse it and support him when he became their candidate. And they’ll no doubt find a way to excuse it now, exactly as they have with his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.
Meanwhile, the list of ethics violations by Justice Clarence Thomas seems to grow daily. But Sens. Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn are invoking references to Thomas’ confirmation hearings and his complaint of a “high-tech lynching” by his critics. More excuses, in other words, despite clear evidence that Thomas has violated any reasonable interpretation of the judicial code of ethics.
Americans have no grounds to complain about growing divisiveness and tribalism if they don’t demand that their leaders set a consistent standard and hold all to it — regardless of partisan loyalty.
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May 08, 2023 at 01:30AM
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Editorial: Tribalism won't stop unless higher standards take priority over party loyalty - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"loyalty" - Google News
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