I get more worked up over disgusting behavior than I do over whether an activity was illegal or not. His behavior was disgusting, and I’d be demanding his resignation no matter how much I loved his politics.
It helps me think in terms of what I’d do if this were a friend of mine. 1) Not my cup of tea but whatever floats your boat, 2) seriously uncool, dude, or 3) the friendship is over. This is easily #3.
The power imbalance makes it predatory even if the women entered it freely. This isn’t a professional sex worker who knows her boundaries, it’s a struggling girl who needs money. Look at the increasing payments to the “girlfriend” that totally weren’t for drugs. Was that all part of her original plan, or was she coerced into more and more? I know which one I believe.
Well argued, @TroutMan. I have another take. A politician’s private business is their private business, partly because judging relationships at a distance is fraught, partly because I’m interested in what politicians do on the job rather than off the job. Corruption matters: I’m less interested in sex scandals.
Problems with my take:
Setting a bad example is setting a bad example: it encourages bad behavior in general.
Sleazy exploitive behavior says something about how the politician approaches power. I say this line of attack is mostly bunk: a politician’s approach to policy is most important and direct measures are more accurate. This is just after-the-fact justification for tabloidism.
Ick. This, I believe, is a fairly compelling counter-argument. No irony. I’m a geek, so I abstract away from stuff, but most normal people do not.
Judging personal relationships at a distance is fraught, but in this case I suspect @TroutMan clears the preponderance of the evidence standard, given the ethics investigation report. I do have reasonable doubts.
I’m dodging the issue of taking advantage of some else’s substance abuse and even encouraging that same substance abuse. Now we don’t know for certain whether that happened; we don’t know for certain whether Woman number 1 benefited or was hurt on net due to her 2 year relationship with Gaetz. I do think it would be fair for a voter or citizen to ask themselves whether Gaetz was indifferent to harm and whether they would want such a person making policy. Seen in this light, I would wager that for many US citizens, the cruelty is the point. Such citizens should see his personal vices as qualifications for office.
Still at the end of the day, Gaetz’s position on mass deportations and child separation matters a lot more to me than his possible mistreatment of Woman One. Also, my representative is my employee, not my friend.
In many cases I agree with you, but I really feel like exploitive behavior against women is very different than garden-variety exploitation. This isn’t just using leverage against someone for your own gains; it demonstrates a specific attitude toward women that has important implications for their approach to policy.
To treat women (and girls) like this is the textbook case of objectification. He saw women down on their luck and didn’t think, how can I help them. He thought, how can I use this situation for sex. That’s a horrible attitude, and I don’t think it’s possible to feel that way if you look at it from the woman’s perspective. It’s only possible if you consider them objects, not a human like you.
I’ll never support someone who shares Gaetz"s position on deportations and child separation, and I’ll never support someone with his attitude toward women. It’s not a matter of which is more important to me; they are both disqualifiers.
It seems obvious to me that Gaetz is a POS and unfit for office. The bigger issue is that Trump thought he would make a fine AG. Either he nominated him knowing about the details of the the report and accusations or not knowing. I don’t know which is worse but both are unacceptable. Money and loyalty ae the only two things that matter to Trump and we are going to have to deal with it for the next four years.
I’d lean towards the forward. Even if Trump made the nomination without consulting any of his advisors, I have to believe that he was aware of the allegations, and what would be in the report (which, AFAICT, had nothing “new” in it, and seems to corroborate things which have been alleged about Gaetz for years).
Trump, himself, of course, has denied claims of sexual harassment and sexual abuse for years, so probably didn’t care about that part of the case against Gaetz.
This is the crux of it. Gaetz had always been a loyal follower, and that’s all that really mattered to Trump.
Indeed – apparently he was an extraordinary level of asshat within the GOP’s own circles. And, of course, he is widely seen as responsible for the Speakership sh*tshow in the 118th Congress that hobbled the Republican Conference.
Yeah, getting someone charged and convicted on a felony in a court of law is different from getting someone drummed out of office in a political body. In that way he’s just one more of thousands about which the authorities had to say “we KNOW what you were up to but with what I’ve got I can’t make a jury find you guilty”.
There is the theory that a number of Trump’s nominations are just yet another act of trollery on his part to make any skeptics in the ranks break cover.
Or that there are 2am text messages from Elon to the effect of “you know what would be hysterical and make all the lamers freak out?”
Trump is not picking people because he thinks they are going to be good at their job. He is picking them based entirely on whether they will answer to him unquestionably or are useful to him in some way. Gaetz was absolutely the best pick given those parameters.
By “fine AG” I meant “do what he is told, legal or not”. Nothing to do with competence in the position. Although Trump would still argue that he was the smartest, most qualified person for the job.
Everyone’s favorite law-talking’ YouTuber has a new video about Gaetzs’ ethics report. It details the various icky crimes in which he was involved and how things have gotten this far. But I’m sure that the fine voters of Florida will ensure that “Governor Natt Gaetz” is a phrase that never becomes reality.
I like Legal Eagle, but that specific vid is mostly hosted by the less coiffed but similarly educating Liz Dye, a regular contributor.
As a fan of Mr. Eagle (I do not know his real name) I have to point out to my dismay, that his personal coiffee* is similar in many ways to the anti-hero of this thread, Mr. Gaetz.
* I am reasonably certain I missed an é acute there, but schoolboy french is many years behind me
ETA, did I just find the origin story of “covfefe”?
