4 ms·

The decline in what we expect of our leaders has been going on my entire life and the contrast between 20 years ago and the present is stark. In 1998 Meriwethe

The decline in what we expect of our leaders has been going on my entire life and the contrast between 20 years ago and the present is stark. In 1998 Meriwether and the rest of LTCM nearly crashed the economy, needed the Fed to get involved, and they were personally ruined, guy never opened a ten thousand dollar bottle of wine again and probably never had anything again. Shortly thereafter, Jeff Skilling took out offices in 9 cities and pension plans all over the country with shady accounting. 24 years in prison (reduced later to 14). Ebbers/Worldcom 2002: died in prison. By 2008? Zero prosecutions. Bonuses the next year. Around the same time Clinton got caught lying about chasing (consenting and of age) skirt in the Office: nearly ended his presidency, definitely ended his policy agenda, real consequences and he caught a shooting star to avoid far worse. The public was not going to accept it, Congress was not going to let it slide on either side of the aisle. Today? Something like that barely makes the press. You have to be accused of sex trafficking to even get an investigation started and everyone will probably walk. The idea that this became uniquely bad in January, or even 2016 is demonstrably untrue. At some time in the last 30 years we started accepting leadership who are dishonest, nakedly self-interested, lie without consequences, enrich themselves via extraction rather than value creation, collude with no oversight, and sell out the public. This is a completely bipartisan consensus on these norms. Speaking for myself, I think Trump represents a new low, but not by much, he's just the next increment in what history will probably call the Altman Era if his ascent to arbitrary power on zero substance continues on it's current trajectory.

daymanstep 1y ago
The rot has been going on for a lot more than 30 years. Try 70 years more like. LBJ openly cheated on his wife Lady Bird while he was in office and he never suffered any consequences for it. Eisenhower was the last good president.
- Henchman21 1y ago
  Not Carter?
ffsm8 1y ago
It's not even centered on the US. I personally think the Internet just desensitized us all. Reasons for that are easy to come up, imo chief among them being web2.0 (social media) and the ever increasing degree with which people exaggerate everything just to get a reaction. Under that context, what's a little skirt chasing compared to what people usually say about the politicians? And how are you gonna remember he did something a few months ago, when so many more extreme things have happened since? Really, I feel like social media will be considered the most destructive force to society in 20-50 yrs
- Volker-E 1y ago
  Agreed by all, but one: In 0 years.
- avhception 1y ago
  It's like watching the public discourse devolve into ever more screaming and posturing. The only winning move is not to play. Sometimes I find myself thinking about that experiment with the perfect rat paradise. The overpopulation got so bad, the normal social functions of the rats started to break down and the rats started acting like sociopaths. Sometimes, I think that's what we're doing to ourselves by exposing the average human to millions of voices through the internet. Of course, ironically, I'm ignoring my own advice and still engage with the Internet. Though I mostly keep to HN and some IRC.
  - heavyset_go 1y ago
    https://old.reddit.com/r/AskScienceDiscussion/comments/q4k070/has_john_b_calhouns_mouse_utopia_experiments_been/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskScienceDiscussion/comments/q4k07...
  - NavinF 1y ago
    The mouse utopia experiment is mostly fake and researchers who reproduced the experiment didn't see any of those behaviors: https://gwern.net/mouse-utopia https://gwern.net/mouse-utopia It was just as wrong as predictions about human overpopulation like Malthusianism
drdec 1y ago
> Around the same time Clinton got caught lying about chasing (consenting and of age) skirt in the Office: nearly ended his presidency, definitely ended his policy agenda, real consequences and he caught a shooting star to avoid far worse. The public was not going to accept it, Congress was not going to let it slide on either side of the aisle. Today? Something like that barely makes the press. You have to be accused of sex trafficking to even get an investigation started and everyone will probably walk. I don't think Al Franken would agree with this
- kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
  That was an inside maneuver by Schumer to push him out because Franken was too principled to toe the line on the party hypocrisy.
rossjudson 1y ago
We populate our corporate leadership with non-founders so highly compensated that actually succeeding does not matter to them. They've already "won" at the game, and they spend a lot of time posturing with respect to each other. They set the membership criteria for the "club", reinforce each others' positions, and use the ability to bestow membership to manipulate the political system away from regulating or taxing them. In other words, I completely agree.
wat10000 1y ago
I blame Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich. They heavily pushed the idea that the opposition could not have legitimacy. Gingrich did it through the exercise of power and Limbaugh did it on the airwaves. It wasn’t just that the opposition was wrong or bad for the country, standard democracy stuff, but that the opposition had no right to hold power at all. Once you start thinking that legitimacy is based on which side you’re on rather than who you are or what you do, you won’t care about bad leadership as long as it’s yours.
- kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
  Falwell and Reed were the genesis of modern conservative disgruntlement rooted in tribal identity. Limbaugh and Gingrich used that as fuel for deconstructing civil administration after the '94 regime change.
- kelnos 1y ago
  Couldn't agree more. And we see the continuation of this stuff today in Trumpist assertions that the 2020 election was rigged, simply because there's "no way" that Biden could have won over Trump. Trump's entire rhetoric relies on this tactic. Anyone who disagrees with him or tries to shut him down should be impeached, jailed, whatever, because they shouldn't be allowed to exercise their power against him, no matter how legally they wield it. It just makes me so angry to hear Vance say things like "judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power". Yes, they are! That's literally one of their jobs, specifically enumerated in the constitution! But that's the tactic: train people to believe that the judicial branch is not legitimate when it comes to executive branch decisions.
kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
> You have to be accused of sex trafficking The child sex ring that was uncovered in 2008 resulted in ludicrously light consequences and then after a repeat offense in 2019 was systematically ignored until now.
eli_gottlieb 1y ago
>Around the same time Clinton got caught lying about chasing (consenting and of age) skirt in the Office: nearly ended his presidency, definitely ended his policy agenda, real consequences and he caught a shooting star to avoid far worse. The public was not going to accept it, Congress was not going to let it slide on either side of the aisle. Today? Something like that barely makes the press. You have to be accused of sex trafficking to even get an investigation started and everyone will probably walk. The same President Clinton, with the same Congress, repealed the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 and thereby effectively legalized much of the next 26 years of corporate malfeasance, starting with much of what enabled the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. And when they did this, it was popular and politically nonthreatening. We got what we voted for.

daymanstep 1y ago

The rot has been going on for a lot more than 30 years. Try 70 years more like. LBJ openly cheated on his wife Lady Bird while he was in office and he never suffered any consequences for it. Eisenhower was the last good president.

Henchman21 1y ago
Not Carter?

ffsm8 1y ago

It's not even centered on the US. I personally think the Internet just desensitized us all. Reasons for that are easy to come up, imo chief among them being web2.0 (social media) and the ever increasing degree with which people exaggerate everything just to get a reaction. Under that context, what's a little skirt chasing compared to what people usually say about the politicians? And how are you gonna remember he did something a few months ago, when so many more extreme things have happened since? Really, I feel like social media will be considered the most destructive force to society in 20-50 yrs

Volker-E 1y ago
Agreed by all, but one: In 0 years.
avhception 1y ago
It's like watching the public discourse devolve into ever more screaming and posturing. The only winning move is not to play. Sometimes I find myself thinking about that experiment with the perfect rat paradise. The overpopulation got so bad, the normal social functions of the rats started to break down and the rats started acting like sociopaths. Sometimes, I think that's what we're doing to ourselves by exposing the average human to millions of voices through the internet. Of course, ironically, I'm ignoring my own advice and still engage with the Internet. Though I mostly keep to HN and some IRC.
- heavyset_go 1y ago
  https://old.reddit.com/r/AskScienceDiscussion/comments/q4k070/has_john_b_calhouns_mouse_utopia_experiments_been/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskScienceDiscussion/comments/q4k07...
- NavinF 1y ago
  The mouse utopia experiment is mostly fake and researchers who reproduced the experiment didn't see any of those behaviors: https://gwern.net/mouse-utopia https://gwern.net/mouse-utopia It was just as wrong as predictions about human overpopulation like Malthusianism

drdec 1y ago

kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
That was an inside maneuver by Schumer to push him out because Franken was too principled to toe the line on the party hypocrisy.

rossjudson 1y ago

We populate our corporate leadership with non-founders so highly compensated that actually succeeding does not matter to them. They've already "won" at the game, and they spend a lot of time posturing with respect to each other. They set the membership criteria for the "club", reinforce each others' positions, and use the ability to bestow membership to manipulate the political system away from regulating or taxing them. In other words, I completely agree.

wat10000 1y ago

I blame Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich. They heavily pushed the idea that the opposition could not have legitimacy. Gingrich did it through the exercise of power and Limbaugh did it on the airwaves. It wasn’t just that the opposition was wrong or bad for the country, standard democracy stuff, but that the opposition had no right to hold power at all. Once you start thinking that legitimacy is based on which side you’re on rather than who you are or what you do, you won’t care about bad leadership as long as it’s yours.

kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
Falwell and Reed were the genesis of modern conservative disgruntlement rooted in tribal identity. Limbaugh and Gingrich used that as fuel for deconstructing civil administration after the '94 regime change.
kelnos 1y ago
Couldn't agree more. And we see the continuation of this stuff today in Trumpist assertions that the 2020 election was rigged, simply because there's "no way" that Biden could have won over Trump. Trump's entire rhetoric relies on this tactic. Anyone who disagrees with him or tries to shut him down should be impeached, jailed, whatever, because they shouldn't be allowed to exercise their power against him, no matter how legally they wield it. It just makes me so angry to hear Vance say things like "judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power". Yes, they are! That's literally one of their jobs, specifically enumerated in the constitution! But that's the tactic: train people to believe that the judicial branch is not legitimate when it comes to executive branch decisions.

kevin_thibedeau 1y ago

> You have to be accused of sex trafficking The child sex ring that was uncovered in 2008 resulted in ludicrously light consequences and then after a repeat offense in 2019 was systematically ignored until now.

eli_gottlieb 1y ago

>Around the same time Clinton got caught lying about chasing (consenting and of age) skirt in the Office: nearly ended his presidency, definitely ended his policy agenda, real consequences and he caught a shooting star to avoid far worse. The public was not going to accept it, Congress was not going to let it slide on either side of the aisle. Today? Something like that barely makes the press. You have to be accused of sex trafficking to even get an investigation started and everyone will probably walk. The same President Clinton, with the same Congress, repealed the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 and thereby effectively legalized much of the next 26 years of corporate malfeasance, starting with much of what enabled the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. And when they did this, it was popular and politically nonthreatening. We got what we voted for.