The Death of Caesar's Wife Or Accountability and the Fascist Moment

Senator Grassley and his staff are conducting a witch hunt against the FBI. The staff finds agents who they think are biased -- largely meaning agents who were assigned to investigations, such as into the January 6th insurrection, that they disapprove of. The agents are then publicly named in emails, documents, etc. from Grassley’s office and such naming is used as an excuse to fire the agents, largely absent any of the due process protections they are supposed to receive. This is obviously vile behavior, designed to frighten the agency into abandoning the American people and becoming an instrument of the Republican Party. Grassley and his staff will likely never face consequences for their despicable behavior. This is, of course, a sign of the authoritarian moment we are inhabiting. But it is also a symptom of the disease that infected the nation with fascism to begin with.

Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion is an old saying, likely based on a fiction rather than history. But it does have a grain of truth — public officials should be above suspicion. With great power, to quote something more modern, comes great responsibility. We used to at least pretend to believe that as a nation. Often this was lip service — the GOP did not dump Nixon until his numbers cratered and threatened to take them with him. People defended Clinton’s inappropriate relationship with a staff member even as they condemned the action itself. Often the principle, as with many principles, was honored more in the breach than in reality. But not always.

George Washington really did turn down power when the army offered it to him. Smedley Butler really did stop the Business Plot coup against FDR. Gary Hart really did have his presidential ambitions destroyed by his bad behavior. The cynical might say that we often talk a bigger game than the walk as a society around accountability, but that talk, too, has value. By holding out things as acceptable and not, we have at least a mechanism for applying pressure to those who behave badly. Having principles is better than not, even if the application of the principles is unevenly applied. One of the reasons we find ourselves as a nation buried in authoritarianism is that we have given up on the idea of principles.

After Nixon was forced to resign, a segment of the right wing decided that they would never allow that to happen again. They built a series of think tanks and media properties to ensure that there would always be someone to argue based on partisanship rather than principle. This has leaked into all politics. Support for Clinton was often based on the hypocrisy of Republicans who had done worse and yet called for his head. Support for sex-pest and grandma-killer Cuomo existed because some people were so terrified of free buses that they would support perhaps the worst person in New York politics — which is quite the title — instead of anything resembling principles. When Trump pardoned a democratic congressman who had been caught red-handed in a crime, Leader Jeffries welcomed him back. A lack of principle has devolved into a lack of even pretending that their are principles above power.

So who cares? Politics is a hard game and who holds power is more important than having saints in office. Except that the lack of principle seeps into every interaction and allows the worst people to rise to power. It is indisputable that Mark Zuckerberg’s firm, Meta, and its refusal to properly support content moderation materially contributed to the genocide in Myanmar. And yet, politicians of all parties have treated him as a genius, fawning over him and reaching for his donations. Elon Musk has turned Twitter into a place for nazis and chid sex abuse material, yet no one spends anytime demanding that Republicans give his donations back. Tim Cook presented Trump with a golden plaque and, lo and behold, smartphones, one of the most important pieces of Apple’s business, are now exempt from some tariffs. And yet, no one suggests that Apple be held to account for its actions.

Abandoning even the pretense of principles means abandoning accountability. Power becomes the north star, and the powerless suffer. Look at qualified immunity for police officers. For those unaware, qualified immunity is the idea that police officers cannot be held accountable by the public for violating their rights unless the way in which the right was violated had already been established as a clear violation. In practice, this has led to all sorts of clear violations being forgiven and justice denied. The courts, acting on their own, decided that police and officials needed to be protected from the consequences of their actions. Instead of the most powerful among us being held to the highest standards, they are held to one of the lowest.

Over and over again, we see this pattern. Significant numbers of Trump officials, including cabinet secretaries, have been shown to have had relationships with Jeffery Epstein even after he pleaded guilty to soliciting a child prostitute. The Panama Papers showed how the richest people were breaking laws in order to steal tax revenue and avoid other financial obligations. Nothing happened to the vast majority of the people named, and nothing is happening to the Americans named in the Epstein files. Why? Because we no longer pretend to have principles when it comes to the rich and powerful. And the rich and powerful take advantage of that to consolidate their power.

Nothing will happen to the malefactors of great wealth and power in part because they hold the, well, power. But by refusing to adhere to principles, we allow people to confuse power with morality. By allowing people to confuse power with morality, we make it more likely that the immoral will hold onto power. Senator Murphy posted this weekend:

“Good morning. The President of the United States was in the middle of the most serious child sex trafficking ring of the last quarter century.

He is referenced not a dozen times in the case files. Not 100 times. Not 1,000 times. He’s referenced 38,000 times.”

Notice that the Senator does not demand that Trump resign. Would Trump resign? No, of course not. But if the opposition party demanded it, then it would become a story. Trump would be asked about it during press scrums. Republican Senators and Congresspeople would be forced to defend Trump’s decision not to resign over his connections to Epstein. The connections his Administration officials maintained with Epstein would become fodder for and against the arguments. Republicans with principles or in districts where principles are valued would have the space to demand resignations. Absent that demand, absent those principles …. nothing.

Nothing is demanded. Nothing is expected. Nothing is discussed. Nothing changes, because there is no basis for expecting anything to change. If there are no principles, if power is all that matters, why, precisely, should anyone care of anything they do is good or bad or indifferent? And given that, why are we surprised that the kind of people who do not care for anything but their own power are able to accumulate said power? And on what basis do we even ask for better?

By not insisting on holding everyone in power to high standard, by walking away from those principles, we remove the basis for accountability. And by removing accountability, we create a society where might makes right, where power accrues to people who abuse it, where the language for preventing those abuses doesn’t really exist. Will this mean, sometimes, that the bad guys get away with things the good guys don’t? Probably. But the only way to insist on accountability, to ensure people trust that your principles matter, is to live up to them yourself. Caesar’s wife, and Caesar, really do have to be above suspicion or, eventually, the laws will be torn down and there will be nothing there to protect you when Caesar and his wife turn back round on you.