You Can't Shame Trump or McConnell Because They Have No Shame. What They Admire Is the Exercise of Raw, Brute Power to Pummel the Democrats. They Have Disdain for Principles.

September 20, 2020

The Dastardly Duo

By Scott Trimingham

Republicans Have a Natural Immunity to Hypocrisy

What if your opponent, in any given situation, was immune to one of your best weapons? Consider the advantage that would give them. Think of how frustrating it would be for you to compete with them. It would put you at an incredible disadvantage.

So it is that Republicans are immune to hypocrisy.

Here’s how they do it.

They employ a strategy that it is so obvious that it goes unseen by Democrats. Republicans just don’t care. If accusations of theft, adultery, conspiracy, incompetence, cronyism, nepotism, lying and hypocrisy do not embarrass you – then there you go. What else you got? Who’s gonna make me? It’s the belligerent strategy of bullies, mobsters and spoiled three-year-olds. 

In fact, by simply not acknowledging the accusation or feeling shame, you have turned a weakness into a strength, both in that moment and going forward.

Machiavelli

They accomplish this sleight of hand by subscribing to Machiavelli’s notion that “the ends justify the means”. And the ends of the Republican party, as it turns out, is that it benefits them. Their own interests trump the interests of the rest of us. Even their own voters, the so-called “disgusting people”, as Trump has called them get shafted.

So, if your guiding North Star is only you, then it’s no wonder your moral compass doesn’t work. Of course, you’d have to be pretty sick puppy to go through life taking advantage of others and feeling no remorse.  

Anyway.

Finally, if everyone knows, or should know, that “the ends justify the means” then when you are caught cheating why is there shame? It’s just a game, right? By the way, if you don’t know that this is a game then you’re a chump and you deserve to be taken.

In their game, not only is there little or no shame, they actually get “street cred” within the party because they “took one for the team”. Their stature actually rises within the group, i.e. Roger Stone.

So, there you have it. How the Republicans are immune to hypocrisy, and pretty much anything else,

because they are playing a different game than we are. No conscience, no shame, no problem. 

In their game, any dirty trick is on the table. And in their game, there are no rules.

The question is why we let them get away with it.

Scott Trimingham writes about the environment and politics. One of his favorite quotations is,
”We didn’t inherit this Earth from our parents, we’re borrowing it from our children.”