There is a value to hypocrisy. La Rochefoucauld is purported to have said, “Hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue.”
To be clear, hypocrisy is not in and of itself virtuous — just the opposite as it is a serious sin. However, hypocrisy is not nihilism, because by definition hypocrisy implies a recognition of an external moral order. That recognition provides both validation of that existing order, and a tether which ties the hypocrite’s behavior to it and therefore restricts the extent of public deviation.
There is another element to hypocrisy. If we can further define hypocrisy as the difference between public image and private behavior, then scandal is when that deviant private behavior is publicly exposed.
Then we have Doug Emhoff, a.k.a. Mr. Kamala Harris.
As a politician’s spouse, Emhoff has two roles to fulfill. The first is to be supportive of his wife’s career and the second is not to draw negative attention to himself. This is especially important given Kamala’s national profile and her progressive politics.
Sometimes these roles come into conflict. Some First Ladies (Jill Biden, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Reagan) have taken an active and fairly public role in their respective husbands’ administrations and drawn heat. However, that is different than being a personal embarrassment. We have presidents’ brothers (Jim Biden, Billy Carter) and kids (Hunter Biden) who were personal embarrassments, but as of yet there haven’t been any spouses. (1)
Then we have Emhoff.
There has been a lot of ink spilled over the past month or two about how Emhoff has “reshaped the perception of masculinity” given his marriage with Kamala. There was the fawning interview he did last year with MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart when Emhoff stated : (2)
“There’s too much of toxicity — masculine toxicity out there, and we’ve kind of confused what it means to be a man, what it means to be masculine. You’ve got this trope out there where you have to be tough, and angry, and lash out to be strong.”
Oh my.
A few months ago there was the revelation that Emhoff had, during his first marriage, impregnated the family nanny. Then a few weeks ago we had the story about how he struck a woman on a street in France. Now we have allegations from former co-workers regarding his misogynist behavior at his law firm. (3)
I don’t know about you but where I come from cheating on your wife with the family help, hitting women, and engaging in sexual harassment in the workplace pretty much define toxic masculinity.
So, back to the definition above, we now have a scandal, not just with Emhoff’s actual behavior but in the Harris campaign’s use of him as a symbol of the “New Man” — implicitly contrasting him with the mouth-breathing Christian nationalists.
Emhoff’s private behavior is between him and his wife. However, when a false image of Emhoff is created, and then weaponized to be used in politics, it becomes a public matter and hypocrisy loses its last vestiges of public value.
(1) I didn’t use Hillary as an example of someone whose conduct detracted from their spouse, because she was in full partnership with Bill.
(2) There’s a documentary to be made regarding Jen Psaki. This was someone who spent 16 months as the press secretary for the Biden puppet show. Then there was the unprecedented conflict of interest when she announced that she was leaving for a gig at MSNBC, but then delayed her departure for weeks. And now she does what amounts to a campaign commercial with Doug Emhoff?
(3) I heard some scuttlebutt a few years ago that there were some skeletons in Emhoff’s past. L.A. lawyer, entertainment industry, would seem to raise questions. It never ceases to amaze me that people who rise to a high level think they can just escape their past. You would think that at some point, at least by the time of the Psaki interview, Emhoff might had let on about his past deeds. It leads me to conclude that the Harris campaign wasn’t paying attention, or didn’t care because they were desperate enough to risk it. Never underestimate desperation.