From the Los Angeles Times: Trump’s Rogues
The L.A. Times took a shot at answering this tricky question: Given that Trump’s Rogues are all well-educated family men, what made them do moronic, dangerous and treacherous things?
What’s the story with people like former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates, and Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn? And God only knows what this list will look like by the time Mueller gets through.
I’ll give you two answers:
Self-selection. Anyone whose career is actively forwarding policies that ruin the quality of life for the vast majority of people on this planet is by definition a terrible person. The fact they’re “well-educated family men” has no bearing on their moral depravity; Hitler was said to be intensely devoted to his family.
Zeitgeist. The guiding principle of today’s America is greed. “Get rich at any cost. Everyone’s doing it. Honest people can’t compete,” etc.
It’s true that the moral compass of the American society has taken a horrific beating over the last few years. The high water mark of my business consulting career was about 20 years ago. Though most of my direct clients were vice presidents of marketing, I knew several CEOs of the companies for which I worked. At that time, no one, not a soul, would have even considered defrauding 11 million drivers with fake emissions reports (VW) or opening up two million fraudulent bank accounts (Wells Fargo).
There is a certain someone who ran a sham university, designed specially to defraud students. The same man stiffed many hundreds of the contractors he hired. That man isn’t in prison. He’s in the White House.
Craig,
There’s an important distinction to made between the actions of Paul Manafort, Micheal Cohen etc, and other Government corruption scandals involving both Democrat and Republican elected officials or political machine operatives.
The crimes of Manafort and the others, have nothing to do with the Presidential campaign or administration and occurred years before. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s method’s are of dubious legality and only saved from challenge by reaching equally dubious plea deals.
Robert Mueller was not appointed to be a sort of grand Inquisitor with a brief to persecute the President and his supporters. The Mueller Inquiry was established to discover evidence of ‘collusion’ between US citizens and Russian officials to illegally interfere with the 2016 election.
So far, no evidence has emerged concerning any form of ‘collusion’ that would meet any test of law. “Talking to Russians”, isn’t against the law, nor is investigating doing business in Russia.
Your gloating exclamation, “God only knows what this list will look like by the time Mueller gets through”, only confirms what the majority of Americans have come to believe, that the Mueller probe has become a witch-hunt against the President (disapprove of Mueller 54%) and taking far too long 68%.
The reaction among distinguished US legal scholars and lawyers to Mueller’s tactics, is one of alarm and dismay as Mueller’s Inquiry seems to be desperately expanding it’s brief to justify continued existence.
Another alarming aspect of the Inquiry is the role of senior FBI and intelligence agency personnel who became involved partisan activities to assist the Clinton Campaign.
These Agencies and personnel, are forbidden by law to interfere in domestic political activity, yet as the Mueller Inquiry inadvertently uncovers more of this activity, while carefully ignoring any follow up, the Inquiries motives and agenda lose credibility.
At the best, Mueller was always going to be simply a distraction, closing the door after the horse had long since departed. Intentionally or not, Mueller has allowed himself and his Inquiry to become identified with those campaigning to bring down an elected President by any means.
As to the broader subject of corporate and business ethics, there’s no black and white when it comes to human behavior. Humans are very complex and react to pressure, stress and other challenges in different ways and at different periods of life.
As for business ethics or CEO conduct being better 20 years ago, I fear your rose tinted glasses are once again misleading you ! (I can understand as people get older, it seems everything was better in the good old days !).
As I recall, 1998 was the year of Bernie Madoff, Saytam, Arthur Andersen, Lehman brothers, Ernst and Young, Hank Greenberg (American Insurance Group), Freddie Mac, Richard Scrushy of HealthSouth,(convicted of bribing a Democrat Governor), Tyco (both CEO’s stole over $150 mil),
Enron, Worldcom, Waste Management Inc ($1.7 billion fraud by CEO D.Buntrock and Arthur Andersen as auditors.
The list of dishonest, incompetent or delusional CEO’s from that period numbers in the thousands!
It would be fair to say that many of these individuals probably didn’t see themselves as particularly bad or dishonest at the time, just caught up in circumstances.
Blaming the President for these actions just reveals your own prejudices.
(Oh, and Hitler showed very little devotion to his family, unless you count his dog, Blondie, but nice try, for a subtle, if snide, association between Hitler and Trump ).