Deals with the Devil

Even before Bill Clinton achieved national prominence, he was known around his home state of Arkansas as a womanizer. A 2016 New York Times story noted that when pollster Stanley Greenberg worked with the Clintons on strategy for the 1992 presidential campaign, Greenberg “recalled Mrs. Clinton’s acknowledgment that her husband had strayed.” Shortly thereafter, the same Times story reports, Connie Hamzy told Penthouse magazine that Clinton “had once propositioned her at a hotel in Little Rock, Ark.” Rather than ignore the story as ludicrous or beneath addressing, Hillary Clinton, according to former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos, said, “we have to destroy her story,” which the campaign proceeded to do via affidavits from aides and others vouching for Clinton’s version of events.

The infamous quelling of subsequent “bimbo eruptions” remained a prominent feature of the ’92 campaign. And rather than ditch their candidate (and eventual president) as the stories mounted during the campaign and throughout Clinton’s White House tenure, many Democrats dug in and practiced a perverse inversion of the present day slogan #BelieveWomen: They pursued a policy of #RidiculeWomen, which reached its zenith with Clinton campaign adviser James Carville’s execrable statement aimed at one of Clinton’s accusers, Paula Jones: “If you drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you’ll find.”

But beyond the harassment allegations of Paula Jones and Kathleen Willey and the abuse of power manifested in the sordid Monica Lewinsky affair, the Juanita Broaddrick allegations against Clinton loom largest. Broaddrick alleges that then-Arkansas attorney general and gubernatorial candidate Clinton raped her in a hotel room. Joshua Kendall recently wrote for The Weekly Standard a devastating and detailed account of Broaddrick’s accusations, along with a laundry list of other indiscretions and transgressions—some consensual, some forced, some admitted, some denied.

Since the MeToo movement took off, several prominent publications have also featured articles taking a second look at the Broaddrick matter; they’ve largely found Bill Clinton’s and his defenders’ explanations, excuses, and denials wanting. While the Clintons’ stock may have fallen recently, Bill Clinton has met with nothing like the fate of others caught in the MeToo whirlwind. Along with the planned nationwide tour, Hillary Clinton has even hinted at another presidential run in 2020. The Clintons may be down, but they are far from out.

While Democrats have been rationalizing the personal foibles of Bill Clinton for nearly three decades, Republicans are relative newcomers to the but-he-gets-things-done game. The election of Donald Trump in 2016 was perhaps even more surprising when contrasted with the party’s previous, squeaky-clean nominee in 2012, Mitt Romney. Trump’s nomination by the GOP was the political version of a 1970s vengeance movie: The nice guys just couldn’t take it anymore. Donald Trump was more than willing to play the part of the aggrieved, avenging victim, but it was obvious from the beginning that he was no white knight.

While Trump is best known for the infamous Access Hollywood “grab ’em” video that emerged during his campaign, as well as for his consensual infidelities (which his defenders largely brush off as “locker room talk,” with Clintonian everyone-lies-about-sex excuses), more serious charges have been leveled as well.

In a way, the president’s reputation for fabulism and his penchant for associating with those with reputations similar to his have worked in his favor. And yet, if it can still be said that we haven’t seen flames, there is an awful lot of smoke.

A recent Business Insider compilation of Trump accusers puts the total at 22, with charges ranging from inappropriate comments to sexual assault. Unlike Clinton’s penchant for indignant denials and harsh rebuttals by surrogates, Trump often brands accusers directly as liars, even crudely dismissing one accusation of groping with “Believe me, she would not be my first choice.” Trump has even denied behavior he previously bragged about on tape, suggesting that taking his confessions at face value is not the clearest path to discovering the truth.

Concerns over Trump’s character, however, extend far beyond his physical actions. Evidence suggests then-candidate Trump was actively involved in paying off two alleged mistresses in the closing months of his presidential campaign. He has repeatedly attacked all parties involved in the sordid narrative, including his own lawyer, and his story regarding his knowledge or lack thereof about the payments has undergone a Clinton-like evolution.

Supporters of President Trump have largely adopted the Democrats’ philosophy that personal behavior is irrelevant in a politician, particularly a productive one. Many evangelicals, aghast at the blasé reaction to Clinton two decades ago, have taken an unconventional approach to the apostle Paul’s rhetorical question contemplating whether evil might be done that good may come of it. They say it depends—how much evil and how much good are we talking about?

Bill Clinton’s boosters, even secular ones, faced a similar dilemma with Clinton’s deplorable womanizing and the potential gains he might have ushered in on behalf of progressive feminism and other liberal causes. Even the worst of history’s rulers are at times credited with advancements that benefited their societies, which in turn allowed some people to rationalize or justify their support in spite of obvious and glaring moral deficiencies.

So as things stand, this pair of Faustian bargains defines the American political landscape. Trump is the unchallenged head of the GOP and there is no clear successor to Mrs. Clinton and her husband to lead the Democrats. There are signs of discomfort and agitation with the status quo, perhaps more so on the part of Democrats. But neither party seems willing to be the first to nudge its larger-than-life scoundrel president off the plank.

After a stunning loss in 2016, the Democrats have to be wondering about the efficacy of their deal, while many Republicans remain sanguine over the possibility that after a long winning streak, the devil has finally met his match. Indeed, the Trump administration’s impact on the federal judiciary will be significant and long-lasting, and Trump has implemented other conservative agenda items as well, though largely by fiat and with few legislative accomplishments to date.

As well, the midterm elections have moved the Republican party closer to Trump, with candidates showing little willingness to put daylight between themselves and the chief executive. With more GOP gains in the Senate, the judiciary will continue to move in a conservative direction, the holy grail that makes many willing to rationalize Trump’s conduct.

Is it possible that both parties could simultaneously reach the toleration tipping point? Can the country defy political gravity and clamber its way back up the slippery slope? No bipartisan, smoke-filled backroom exists where such a deal could be hammered out. Rather, politicians and laypersons on both sides of the political spectrum who believe the pendulum has swung too far toward amorality must be willing to face down the true believers in the current ends-justify-the-means political culture. It may be a bloody fight, but if it is fought on both sides simultaneously, it may help restore our politics to a higher plane.