There is widespread agreement that character matters.
The title of this post probably sounds obviously wrong to a lot of folks, especially ‘Never Trump’ conservatives. The Babylon Bee posted a flowchart yesterday poking fun of how hypocritical we seem to be on the issue of character.
But let me explain why that's wrong and why there is widespread agreement on the importance of character. My claim is that generally speaking, character matters for republicans and democrats. That includes evangelical republicans who held their nose and voted for Trump in 2016 and for democrats who will hold their nose and vote for Biden in 2020. Consider Linda Hirshman’s NYT article ‘I Believe Tara Reade. I’m Voting for Joe Biden Anyway.’ Hirshman wrote:
Mr. Biden, and the Democrats he may carry with him into government, are likely to do more good for women and the nation than his competition, the worst president in the history of the Republic. Compared with the good Mr. Biden can do, the cost of dismissing Tara Reade — and, worse, weakening the voices of future survivors — is worth it. And don’t call me an amoral realist. Utilitarianism is not a moral abdication; it is a moral stance.
Hirshman doesn’t see herself as making a character argument, but a utilitarian argument. Nevertheless, it’s obvious that she views Biden as being better than Trump. Better in what sense? In the sense that he will treat women better, in the sense that his policy stances are good and, therefore, will have better effects. But Biden’s policy stances are a reflection of his actionable beliefs. If we could ask Hirshman, I don’t doubt that she would agree that Biden’s beliefs about, say, health care or gun control, are sincere and right (or very close to the right beliefs) and to the extent that Biden is willing to act on those beliefs, it’s indicative of a better character. And it’s that aspect of Biden’s character that makes him preferable to Trump.
The same is true, to some extent, for Trump voters. There may be a larger segment of evangelical and non-evangelical Trump voters who don’t believe that Trump is sincere in his anti-abortion beliefs or his commitment to conservative principles. At the very least, there would probably be a lot of agreement that Trump’s beliefs in these areas aren’t held to from a sense of deep conviction or from time spent reflecting on the issues. But I’ve still heard a lot of reluctant Trump voters speak with a sense of admiration about their impression that Trump has a genuine patriotism about him and an instinctual or primitive support for conservative causes. I would argue that it’s their impression of an unrefined character with a primitive bent towards the good — on certain issues — that is what really matters for the reluctant Trump voters.
In fact, I might go so far as to say that it is primarily this broader sense of character that accounts for the majority of reluctant Trump voters. If they didn’t believe that Trump had any tendency toward good policies — noting, again, that policies are reflective of beliefs that one is willing to act on — then their vote for Trump would have been a complete gamble.
No doubt some did see it as a complete gamble and figured that they would rather take their chances with an unknown quantity like Trump than a known quantity like Hillary. But even this isn’t the abandonment of “character matters;” rather, it is the calculation that an erratic character that may or may not be bent towards the relevant goods is better than a character fully formed against the relevant goods.
And if those who took a gamble on Trump in 2016 plan to reluctantly vote for him in 2020, then they will surely be factoring in that Trump delivered on many of the policy issues that matter a lot to conservatives. Reluctantly voting for Trump is no longer a gamble, at least not in the same sense, the way it could be in 2016. (One might argue that a reluctant Trump vote in 2020 is knowingly engaging in a gamble in a way that one couldn’t have knowingly gambled on in 2016. That argument wouldn’t be completely without merit, but those who make it and those who reject it will still be engaged in considerations of character.)
Above I’ve spoken of a broader sense of character and relevant goods. These terms play an important role in my argument. First, let me address the issue of broad vs narrow character. The argument is that critiques which focus on Trump’s or Biden’s sexual behavior and critiques of Trump’s rudeness and temperament are focused on a narrow sense of character. And when the person making those critiques thinks they represent the “character matters” side of the debate, to the exclusion of those who hold their nose and vote for Trump or Biden, then they’re narrowness is in fact myopia. This doesn’t mean that appreciating the broader sense of character will automatically decide the issue against being ‘Never Trump’ (or ‘Never Biden’). It should, rather, simply help the person who has that narrow vision see that being tactful in one’s public speech and having a polished public persona — the way, for example, Obama did — doesn’t make you a person of good character.
The devil can wear a smile (and to be clear, I’m not calling Obama the devil!). The devil can be gently spoken and tactful. There’s a case to be made that the Never Trump crowd has lost sight of this — at least at times. However, there’s also the case that while one might have a polished public persona and still have a rotten character, it’s less obvious that one can have a rotten public persona and still have a good character. I think there is some sense of this floating in the subconscious of many of those on the Never Trump side.[1]
Second, concerning the term relevant. I say that Trump is probably considered, by most reluctant Trump voters, to have a primitive character bent towards the relevant goods. Hirshman no doubt thinks Biden has a more mature character bent towards the relevant goods. The relevant goods are those which are most relevant to enactment of public policy. That is, after all, the role of a politician. We elect them to enact policies which we think are good — and good in an ethically robust sense, though this seems to be another common blindspot in political discourse.
It is at this point that my meta-discussion of character cannot avoid spilling over into the actual debates over character that the Never Trump side of the isle marshalled (and is marshalling) against Donald Trump. There is a strong argument to be made that a politician’s ‘interpersonal virtues’ —by which I mean those virtues which relate to how one communicates, holds their temper, and generally conducts themselves publicly — are some of the key goods relevant to a politician. Granted. But it’s not obvious that they are the most relevant, such that anyone who doesn’t give them overriding priority must reject the slogan “character matters” or hold to it hypocritically.
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[1] There’s an interesting discussion to be had here on the Greek idea of the interdependence of the virtues. If we considered something like congeniality a virtue, could a politician like Obama — again, NOT the devil — truly exhibit that virtue or should we consider it a facade? If a politician like Trump obviously lacks that virtue, is that sufficient grounds to be skeptical of any other virtue?
