When Do Personal Indiscretions Matter More Than Policy?

Trump's appointment of Matt Gaetz to run the Justice Department reignites an old debate.

Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash

President-elect Donald Trump’s appointment of Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz to run the U.S. Department of Justice has caused a bit of a firestorm in Washington, although little of the criticism aimed at the lawmaker is based on his policy views or judgement as a lawyer.

Rather, most of the criticism stems from his personal conduct — including a lengthy Department of Justice probe into sex trafficking where Gaetz was investigated but ultimately not charged. At the very least, there’s lots of anecdotal claims that Gaetz is a bit of a sleezeball who would brag about his sexual exploits to other Members of Congress. Whether those exploits included a 17-year-old girl is yet to be proven, but that allegation is in the mix.

Democrats want to see the results of a Congressional ethics investigation into Gaetz while many Republicans are trying to block the results of that investigation from being revealed to the public.

Meanwhile, allies of Gaetz are even floating the possibility of a recess appointment where he would be elevated to the job of America’s top cop without the necessity of the Senate voting to approve of his nomination.

The case for Gaetz’s nomination rests on his heterodox views on a wide range of issues — from antitrust and corporate power to his advocacy for animal rights (and for Trump, the case probably includes his personal loyalty as a long-time MAGA front bencher). The case against is based on his possibly awful personal behavior (the judgement there is largely moral rather than legal after the DOJ declined to pursue any charges).

That raises a familiar question. What should we value more from a public official: the public policy they enact that impacts the lives of potentially millions of people or their conduct in their private lives?

While Republicans are the subject of that debate today, it’s one that’s popped up many times across the political spectrum.

Take Bill Clinton, the two-term Democratic president. Throughout his career, Clinton was bombarded by allegations of rape and sexual assault; and he famously lied under oath about his affair with a young intern named Monica Lewinsky. At the very least, Clinton was a man who was unfaithful to his wife, abused his office for unsavory deeds, and illegally lied about it. If the allegations from women like Juanita Broaddrick are true, he’s far worse than that.

But when the Lewinsky scandal broke and the allegations against Clinton were well-known, many prominent feminists decided to stand by Clinton because they felt like he was a strong supporter of abortion rights and other liberal causes that benefit women and other people. Gloria Steinem, the popular feminist author, made the argument like this in the New York Times in a March 1998 op-ed, suggesting that feminsits were being held to an unfair standard by being asked to disavow him:

For one thing, if the President had behaved with comparable insensitivity toward environmentalists, and at the same time remained their most crucial champion and bulwark against an anti-environmental Congress, would they be expected to desert him? I don't think so. If President Clinton were as vital to preserving freedom of speech as he is to preserving reproductive freedom, would journalists be condemned as ''inconsistent'' for refusing to suggest he resign? Forget it.

Betty Friedan, the author of The Feminine Mystique, was even more dismissive. When Republicans were pursuing Clinton, she lamented that his “enemies are attempting to bring him down through allegations about some dalliance with an intern…. Whether it’s a fantasy, a set-up or true, I simply don’t care.”

“We’re trying to think of the bigger picture, think about what’s best for women,” Eleanor Smeal, the president of the Feminist Majority Foundation said.

Marie C. Wilson, who served as the president for the Ms. Foundation for Women, pointed to her experience as a progressive lobbyist in the Iowa legislature to offer a sort of defense of Clinton.

"I knew how to talk about the kinds of emissions standards I wanted for Iowa companies, and what kind of child-care standards I wanted for the children of Iowa, and Would you please move your hand? And most times I didn't get the emissions standards or the child care. Now," she told reporter Marjorie Williams, "I've gotten emissions standards, and I've got better child care, and I've still got the hand. But that's better than the other way."

Clinton’s case was hardly the only time this dilemma faced partisans.

In 2022, celebrity athlete-turned-Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker faced allegations of personally paying for the abortions of women he had been romantic with.

The scandal became overwhelming for Walker, with many liberals convinced that he was a hypocrite and anyone who voted for him was one, to boot.

But put yourself in the shoes of pro-life Republicans who decided to back Walker.

On the one hand, his opponent, the liberal Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, was in favor of progressive abortion policy that would make the procedure more readily accessible. At the very least, Walker would vote for conservative judges who could help further restrict the right to abortion, leading to fewer abortions.

What really matters more — a candidate’s personal indiscretions or the public policy they’ll implement that will impact millions?

That’s a question the feminists who backed Clinton and the pro-life Republicans who backed Walker answered in the same direction: they wanted to support people who’d implement the policy they preferred and were willing to overlook bad personal behavior.

Gaetz is a different person facing different allegations, but the dilemma is a familiar one. We shouldn’t be shocked that some people evaluate public leaders more based on policy than personal morality. There’s nothing new about it.