No, it's not their parents' fault

Some politicians' juvenile behavior raises the question of how they got that way

You may think some politicians were raised by wolves, but let’s put blame for their behavior where it belongs. (Photo by Linda Kazares on Unsplash)

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A wealthy businessman I knew whose ethical standards always struck me as honorable would sometimes shake his head as he considered the bad behavior of his social and professional peers. “You’ve got to wonder,” he would say, with the hint of a smile, “what his parents did to that fellow to make him turn out this way.”

He was talking about people in the private sector, but the same goes for politicians. If our parents’ influence is powerful, as both common sense and Sigmund Freud suggest, then we might conclude from the behavior of many whom we raise up as leaders  that the generation or two preceding ours must have been pretty messy: We’re awash in displays of egotism, short-sightedness and selfishness, the kind of stuff we’re expected to leave behind upon reaching adulthood. It couldn’t be their own fault — assigning blame elsewhere is political custom, you know — so let’s blame the folks at home. And thank you, Dr. Freud, for this exit ramp from personal responsibility.

Let us consider, for example, the most obvious pathologically impaired presence among us, Donald Trump. Imagine what his folks must have done, as my businessman friend would have said, to make Trump the sort of person who, according to his sister, “has no principles.” The late Judge Marryanne Trump Barry noted that her brother was “a brat,” which isn’t a rare thing for an older sibling to say, but she added, referring to the grown-up Donald, “You can’t trust him.” That could be one factor that led former Vice President Dick Cheney, himself a witness to a lot of bad acts, to conclude, “In our nation’s 236-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our Republic than Donald Trump.”¹

Since Trump is a virtuoso of victimhood, maybe it’s appropriate to blame his malevolence on Fred and Mary Anne Trump, his parents — the father alleged by a granddaughter to have been a “high-functioning sociopath” who was heartless to his children, the mother’s role perhaps benign except in the flamboyant hair style that seems to have inspired her son’s own famous coif. Is the ex-president’s coarse cruelty an echo of his father’s? Might he be habitually trying to please his late momma, however subconsciously, by altering his appearance to look like her?

But wait. Before we answer who did what to him, let us consider Robert F. Kennedy Jr., too, whose family life has been marred by tragedy playing out on a global stage. I mean no discourtesy to Ethel Kennedy, now 96, who is appropriately revered for her public service, but it is unsurprising that a man whose mom was pregnant for her 11^th child when his famous father was murdered displays some character flaws. Maybe the guy is driven by the need for attention, or by the fear, even at age 70, of failing to measure up to family expectations. Who could blame him?

Except that we all are expected at a certain point — surely after living some decades as independent humans — to take responsibility for our own behavior. Early childhood experiences are important, certainly, and developmental psychology has progressed to the point that we can safely infer the origin of some of our strengths and weaknesses, and the idiosyncrasies and prejudices that we carry all our lives. Indeed, research has tracked the impact of personality disorders into a third generation, so we might as well blame our grandparents for our own flaws. ²

But to paraphrase Popeye, we are who we are, and that’s all we are. And you must assume a special responsibility if you’re so bold as to ask tens of millions of people to invest their hopes in you, which is what a presidential campaign is all about. It raises the bar of behavior in a way memorably described in the Gospel of Luke: “To whom much is given, much will be required.” The next verse isn’t repeated as often: “But even more will be demanded from the one to whom much has been entrusted.”

What responsibility do we have a right to expect from someone with the wealth of a Trump or the name of a Kennedy? Or of someone elected to Congress? Perhaps an assumption that they might take on the hard task of governing, rather than logjamming and showboating. We teach children responsibility by giving them simple tasks, and set them up to collaborate with others by asking them to share their toys with playmates. It’s not possible that so many people in public life were denied those early life lessons; we must be witnessing not the results of a massive failure of parental guidance, but rather a display of deliberate delinquency by grown-ups who know better.

We all fall short of the thoughtful behavior our parents might have hoped for us, or that we might wish of ourselves. But that’s not the same as the epidemic of childish irresponsibility that seems to have swept American political life in recent years. We have a right to expect so much more of those rewarded with the privilege of a public platform.

In that light, the lack of seriousness of the Kennedy campaign is especially galling, because he is trashing a political legacy that many people respect, waging a presidential campaign based on dangerous scientific misinformation and hateful conspiracy theories, including his bonkers claim that chemicals in water are turning people gay. His careless approach to what ought to be an awesome responsibility — talking to voters about the key issues of our time, and seeking their support based on an honest representation of facts — is reminiscent of a careless adolescent.³

Take, for instance, Kennedy’s selection of a vice presidential candidate, the prime qualification of which ought to be the capacity to assume the presidency, as Lyndon Johnson did when Kennedy’s uncle was assassinated, and Gerald Ford did when Richard Nixon resigned. Both Johnson and Ford had lengthy records of elected public service before their elevation to the vice presidency. Kennedy’s pick of a running mate, Nicole Shanahan, 38, is a blank slate, her chief qualification seemingly her immense wealth: She is the ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who is believed to be worth more than $100 billion. Under a 1976 Supreme Court ruling that defined spending money as a form of free speech, candidates are allowed unlimited expenditures of their own money on their campaigns. The Kennedy-Shanahan ticket thus will be able to buy access to voters at a level that could upend the presidential race.⁴

With Kennedy offering voters a non-Trump alternative to Joe Biden, his name on the ballot could deliver some states to Trump, as Ralph Nader’s place on the 2000 ballot crucially did in Florida, turning over the White House to George W. Bush. With no chance of winning, but every prospect of bringing a second Trump administration into power, Kennedy’s candidacy is clearly an expression of ego over altruism or patriotism. Imagine behavior revealing such a blatantly selfishness cry for attention in a child six decades younger than RFK Jr., and consider what a thoughtful parent might say.

Trump’s behavior is even more transparently childish, and has been often analyzed by armchair psychologists — that is, people with more authority than I have on the topic — as a demand for attention from a rich kid who could gain acquiescence but never respect from those who mattered to him. His current trial on campaign finance law felony charges has drawn a new round of media coverage pointing to Trump’s unrequited desire for acceptance by Manhattan’s elite. A Washington Post analysis this week described the ex-president as “a real-life Gatsby, perpetually stretching toward the green light, just out of reach.”⁵

Fred Trump made his $300 million fortune — the cornerstone of the wealth that set up his son for a White House run — mainly by constructing apartment buildings in New York’s outer boroughs for low-income and working-class families, many of them non-white, yet he has been described by biographers of his son as notoriously racist. So we shouldn’t be surprised that Donald Trump complains about the predominantly dark-skinned people migrating to the United States as coming from “shithole countries,” and that he remains the champion of blatantly racist groups like the Proud Boys. He is, in fact, who he was raised to be.

Plenty of people overcome the limitations of their parents’ influence, which every mom and dad with appropriate humility must hope for their children. Sometimes it is a single teacher who imbues a child with a sense of worthiness, or military training that teaches in the value of discipline toward achieving an objective. Many of us find our own full development through the love of a partner or professional achievement, or through the fulfillment of parenthood. However it happens, we manage to take our place as responsible citizens, maybe even striving to do better than the generations that came before us.

No, you cannot blame parents, of course, for the juvenile behavior of candidates and officeholders. As you shake your head at what you’re seeing, though, you may consider what your response could be.

A great nation ought to expect aspirants to its leadership, or officials elected to its service, to regularly display the elements of character that we associate with thoughtful adulthood: an ability to live by admirable values and principles, to recognize and respect competing views, to display both humility and gratitude, and to keep commitments to others. If those traits aren’t what you see in the candidates asking for your support, don’t reward them with your vote.

Every parent knows, after all, that a sure way to make bad behavior habitual is to reward it. That’s no way to treat a kid, nor a candidate.

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1. https://people.com/all-about-donald-trump-family-tree-7567639

2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9009746/#:~:text=These%20findings%20indicate%20that%20personality%20pathology%20in,than%20specific%20(i.e.%2C%20individual%20disorder)%20psychopathology%20domains.

3. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/WhctKKZWllFwHlPMBtfkvrddwwfwlmncFrCxtclcKGRSxQBxbvFPtcxlcBhkcpbQvGhdqnl

4. https://www.npr.org/2024/03/30/1241733022/rfk-jr-shanahan-vice-president-pick

5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/17/trump-hush-money-new-york-manhattan-queens/

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NEWSCLIPS FROM THE UPSTATES

Dispatches from our common ground *

Wherein each week we look around what we call the nation’s Upstates — those places just a bit removed from the center of things — to find illuminating news and intriguing viewpoints, which you might not otherwise see.

This week, we share reporting published here:

• Fayetteville, N.C. (Fayetteville Observer, fayobserver.com)

• Springfield, Mo. (Springfield News-Leader, news-leader.com)

• Lebanon, Pa. (Lebanon Daily News, ldnews.com)

• Victorville, Calif. (Victorville Daily Press, vvdailypress.com)

NOTE: The complete “Newsclips from the Upstates” section, and The Upstate American Midweek Extra Edition, which is sent to email boxes on some Wednesdays, are available only to paid subscribers. Thanks for your support!

NORTH CAROLINA

Is government artificially inflating waterfront property values?

Rising sea levels and temperatures are increasing the risk of catastrophic damage along coastlines. But, as Gareth McGrath notes in the Fayetteville Observer, property values are continuing to rise on waterfronts, so that six of the 10 priciest communities in North Carolina are on coastlines. In a natural economy, increased risk would decrease value — but that’s not what’s happening with homeownership. Researchers from Duke University and the University of North Carolina have found that government actions to protect and enhance coastal communities from environmental risks are helping support and boost property values. "We're shielding these markets from the underlying risks they face, and hence propping up these markets,” McNamara said. And, the reporting notes, as property values increase and coastal communities become more wealthy, it becomes easier for officials to justify additional and more expensive projects to maintain that economic value in these increasingly vulnerable areas.

MISSOURI

A sword-swallower,two preachers, and a call to repent

A Pentecostal megachurch is being torn apart by an argument between two preachers over the appearance of a noted sword-swallower at an annual church event, the Stronger Men’s Conference, reports Susan Such in the Springfield News-Leader. Alex Magala, who has performed on various televised Got Talent shows, showed his sword-swallowing act while performing acrobatics on a vertical metal pole. That drew a denunciation from a visiting clergyman, Mark Driscoll, who compared it to a stripper’s act, saying it was a “Jezebel act to seduce men.” Not so, insists John Lindell, the lead pastor of James River Church, which boasts weekly attendance of 19,000 at multiple sites. Yes, Magala formerly performed at nightclubs, Lindell said, but he’s a born-again Christian, and if Driscoll “does not repent,” then Lindell and his church will cut ties with the other preacher, and church members should “treat (him) as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

PENNSYLVANIA

This is not how you rob a bank — successfully, that is

In Palmyra, a community of a few thousand in the Lebanon Valley, a young man pulled up to a bank drive-up window and passed a note through the drawer to a teller claiming to have a bomb and demanding cash. Note the detail of the report by Daniel Larlham Jr. in the Lebanon Daily News: The would-be robber was a man in his 20s to 30s with blonde facial hair on his chin and a thin blonde mustache, driving a 2016 or newer red Honda Civic, which pulled away when the teller passed the note along to the branch manager. There’s a nice photo of the guy, taken as he looked blankly at the teller. One suspects he is likely in custody by the time you read this.

CALIFORNIA

Land trust vows to protect tortoise and Joshua tree

The Mojave Desert Land Trust scored a number of wins lately, according to its annual report, but Rene Ray De La Cruz reports in the Victorville Daily Press that its agenda ahead is clear: It must move to protect the Mojave Desert tortoise and the western Joshua tree. “The challenges facing these two keystone species are symptomatic of the twin overarching threats facing the California desert – climate disruption and habitat loss,” the trust executive said. To save critical desert tortoise habitat, the land trust is coordinating a three-year project to restore one of the most heavily impacted regions for the state’s reptiles; the tortoise is expected to be uplisted by the state to endangered this month. 

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IF YOU’RE A READER who wants to hear more of Rex Smith’s views, check www.wamc.org for his weekly on-air commentary aired by Northeast Public Radio. Here’s a link to the latest essay. And if your interest is specific to American media, you can download the podcast of The Media Project, the 30-minute nationally-syndicated discussion that Rex leads each week on current issues in journalism. In the states where Northeast Public Radio is heard, the program airs at 3 p.m. each Friday, and is rebroadcast at 6 p.m. Sunday. You can tune in live, too, at www.wamc.org. It has been called “a half-hour of talk about finding and telling the truth.” It’s often worth your time!

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Thanks for taking the time to read The UPSTATE AMERICAN, and for sharing our love and hope for this great land. We hope you’ll continue to join us on this, *our common ground.

-Rex Smith