On Political Integrity and Courage

Integrity and courage are two virtues held in the highest esteem as the measure of a person in every culture. It’s the central theme of stories told about founding fathers and national heroes who risked all for what was just and good. It’s what we most admire in close friends, co-workers, and political leaders. This is especially true when we think of courage as steadfastness in what is right rather than Rambo-like recklessness.

It is a virtue that appears to be in short supply among members of Congress, particularly in the GOP. Senators and Representatives have surrendered their integrity in fear that Trump will turn on them, that they will be primaried by MAGA, that they will lose their seats and suffer the fate of Liz Cheney. Yet, it is Liz Cheney who will go down in history as an example of integrity and courage for others to follow.

The House and Senate have always been institutions where members are pressured by lobbyists, their constituents, other persons in high office, and campaign necessities that have made it difficult to keep one’s integrity intact. Unwillingness to bend as the wind blows can show more fragility than strength, but bending has to have its limits—”for the good of the nation and my reelection, I can bend this far and no farther,” might be the rule. If so, it’s a rule no longer followed by the current majority in each house. To be sure, every member, regardless of party, faces the added pressure of unlimited Super PAC campaign spending intent on “buying” government to serve private and ideological interests. It’s a reality but not an excuse to capitulate integrity.

Entrenched MAGA senators and representatives are fixed in an unmovable position that willfully ignores facts, cannot bend, and whose only negotiating tool is angry, vilifying intimidation. The remaining “mainline” Republicans have grown used to cowering behind platitudes and ducking hard questions with clumsy rhetorical evasions. A particularly sad case is that of Iowa’s Senator Ernst, a decorated combat veteran who folded under threats of facing a primary if she failed to vote in favor of Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. I regret singling her out; it’s just that she is the most recent example.

I wonder what would have happened had she voted with integrity and faced threats with courage. What would happen if she stood up to a MAGA-financed primary and spoke hard truths to her constituents? So what if she antagonized MAGA? Would cowering before them achieve anything better for the people of Iowa? I don’t think saying they might elect someone worse is an excuse. They already have someone worse if the incumbent won’t stand up to the bullies.

It is not true that the nation is sharply divided by those on the hard left and hard right. The nation is more centrist and always has been, strong loyalty to one party or the other notwithstanding. Most of us are more liberal on some things and more conservative on others. There is no radical left-wing threat, no plan to force “Socialism” onto the people. But there is a plan, now being executed by MAGA and their current administration, to replace democracy with oligarchic authoritarian rule. We have to be honest about it and stop mumbling about extremism on both sides. We are faced with one side only, intent on taking away the promise of American democracy.

A final note, at least for this column. There is an assumption I have heard in casual conversation with friends that there is no such thing as political integrity. No member of Congress can be trusted to be a person of integrity and an honest politician. It is not true, and saying so is a lazy way of disowning the responsibility of each citizen to be reasonably well-informed and willing to hold their elected representatives accountable.