Public Service Was A Nobel Profession

Lying for self-interest trumps the common good

“This has broken my heart,” Rob Zimmerman, self-described former friend of Ohio US Senate Candidate, Josh Mandel, told the NYT reporter in a story the TIMES ran on February, 17,2022. Zimmerman, and others quoted in the story as former friends of Mr. Mandel, were saying that while Mandel had been a Republican, he’d remade himself in former President Trump’s image specifically to appeal to the Trump base in the Ohio body-politic. The former friends told the reporter that until Trump, Mandel had been politically ambitious but hewed to traditional GOP values and policy positions: low taxes, muscular military, anti-a woman’s right to choose.

In the mold and example of the former President, would be Senator Mandel lies about virtually all he stands for and would strive to achieve if elected Ohio’s junior Senator. It seems that Mandel’s Trump lines resonate with the right wing blogs, social media, and tv and radio that cater to America’s right. Mandel is their kind of candidate and they heartily support him.

Ohio has long been a near fifty-fifty state, and that’s true today. More, it leans more right than center, and so if voting were tomorrow in the actual primary, it’s likely a Republican candidate would defeat a Democrat.

Mandel, however, doesn’t have the field to himself in the Republican primary. J.D. Vance, author of HILLBILLY ELEGY, is also running. Vance, as well, remade himself to also resemble a loyal trumpist. However, before his conversion to a Trumper, he’d said some true things about Trump in office. For this he’ll likely be punished by the Trump faithful. Will they cancel each other out? No, one will tally the most votes and he will face the Democratic Candidate, who right now may be Tim Ryan. Maybe in that circumstance the Republican primary will have sufficiently alienated enough voters that they won’t vote for their Senate candidate and a democrat would win.

I’m not writing a regular column for the Wall St. Journal or the New York Times, but those papers are calling attention to these various disingenuous candidates. However, how many Ohio conservative voters read the NYT or the WSJ—-or my short essays? Lying in public life must be called out continually. When warranted, it should be punished. One way to restore democracy’s strengths is just this.

It’s likely this era, but the left or progressive democrats do their share of lying as well. But one punishment that works when dealing with politicians who lie, is defeat at the polls. This past week in San Francisco, 3 board members of the San Francisco Unified School District were recalled by nearly 80% of voters. These folks were not tutored in politics by the former president. Watching their antics, I believed that Emperor Nero had returned from the grave to coach them on fiddling while SF Schools burned.

The three had gotten elected to improve the public schools, and then spent the early days of the pandemic, when teachers and the administrative staff of SF Unified struggled to teach kids remotely, focussed on anything but how to make this work during Covid times. They drew a list of 48 schools, from elementary through high school, that needed their names changed to new honorifics, urgently needed during the pandemic? (take down Dianne Feinstein’s name, for example, because when the was Mayor she allowed a flag on the entrance to City Hall that offended some).

One of the top public high schools in California should open admission to students who win lotteries; academic merit should be diminished in favor of diversity at all costs. (Would it be so wrong to identify promising students and to ensure they get in-school/after school supplementary education to enable them to compete to get into the competitive high school?—why dumb down? Why not bootstrap up?)).

Prevalence of raw self-interest lately trumps the public good, unless and until voters give the liars the boot. Some information silos work to purvey fact-free opinions, so their loyal followers are never burdened with truth or facts. The SF School Board recall should not prove an isolated instance. If you lie, you don’t deserve the public trust. You don’t deserve to hold public office. You should go back to remedial morality lessons with your clergy person.