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    A Guy I Know Had a Liver Transplant. Now He’s Boozing Again.

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    The magazine’s Ethicist columnist on how to support someone with an addiction problem.My significant other has a friend who is a longtime alcoholic, while also being intelligent, entertaining and conniving. For example, he used to tell his wife he was going to the gym and then head to the bar; before returning home, he’d dampen his clothes in the bathroom to make it seem as if he’d gotten a good sweat on. He was off the radar for a bit, and then we learned he had a liver transplant. After that, he had an episode of hepatic encephalopathy, a brain disorder caused by liver dysfunction. It seems the doctors knew he was still drinking but gave him the new liver anyway and counseled abstinence. A few parties later, he was sneaking vodka, gin and whatever else was around. He lies to everyone and has made his guy friends vow not to tell his wife about his drinking. They’ve made a meager attempt to confront him, only to be assured that he just fell off the wagon and would be good. Just don’t tell the wife!I’m appalled that they’re going along with this. There are a couple of ethical issues here. First, who should decide whether someone is entitled to a transplant? Some hospital systems deny a liver transplant to patients who continue to drink alcohol, and other hospitals don’t. Second, do the friends have an obligation to tell this man’s wife that he’s still drinking? She could insist he leave the house and go to rehab, in which case he might have a chance of living long enough to see his children get married. Some additional context: A friend of mine died waiting for a liver transplant. I am also the child of a lifelong alcoholic. — Name WithheldFrom the Ethicist:There’s more than one morally defensible way of allocating donor organs. In the United States, as in Western Europe, the system emphasizes equity and basically gives priority to patients with the greatest need. An approach that focused instead on efficiency — on getting the maximum use out of donated livers, as measured by ‘‘quality-adjusted life years’’ — might give an edge to people who were younger and otherwise healthier and might work against low-income and minority populations.Organ allocation in the United States is governed by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (O.P.T.N.), whose policies determine the order in which deceased-donor organs are offered; they do not, however, dictate medical practice. So it’s up to a medical center to decide whether or not transplant candidates with alcohol-related liver disease are to abstain from alcohol for some period — six months having long been a typical sobriety window. Some studies indicate that carefully selected patients who aren’t subject to a sobriety window can do just as well as those who are (though the data is hard to interpret because of the ‘‘carefully selected’’ part). And if your drinking has caused a severe case of acute hepatitis that doesn’t respond to medical treatment, you probably won’t survive a six-month waiting period. So the trend seems to be away from requiring an extended interval of abstinence.The point is that the current system for allocating this scarce resource is morally legitimate, whatever trade-offs it may entail; its architects are perfectly aware that many liver recipients will not succeed in refraining from heavy drinking afterward. The fact that this longtime alcoholic has returned to his old habits is distressing. It doesn’t mean that the system isn’t functioning the way it’s meant to.One thing that transplant centers may try to determine is whether patients with an alcohol problem have social networks that could help them stay sober. This brings us to your second question. This fellow’s friends weren’t looking after him when they agreed to uphold this boozy bro code and keep mum. He doesn’t want to die, but he’s drinking himself to death, which means that, at least in this key area, he lacks the capacity for rational decision-making. In a situation like that, it’s more important to attend to his interests than to respect his autonomy. If there’s a chance that his life can be extended by successful management of his alcoholism, and if discussing the problem with his wife will help, thoughtful friends would do just that.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Shouldn’t Trump Voters Be Viewed as Traitors?

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      The magazine’s Ethicist columnist on whether voters should be held accountable for their chosen candidate’s behavior.From my perspective, the attack on the Capitol spurred on by Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021, the efforts to nullify the results of the 2020 election with false electors and unfounded court cases and the persistent effort to discredit those election results without evidence amounted to an attempt to overthrow a pillar of our democracy. More to the point, 18 U.S. Code Chapter 115 includes crimes against the nation described as treason, misprision of treason, rebellion or insurrection, seditious conspiracy and advocating the overthrow of government. I hold anyone voting for Trump at least morally guilty for the consequences of Jan. 6 and everything that follows the recent election. Would you agree that people who vote for Trump in light of these circumstances are themselves guilty of treasonous acts? — Name WithheldFrom the Ethicist:Something like three-quarters of Americans, surveys over the past year report, think democracy in America is threatened. To go by exit-poll data, those voters supported Trump in about the same proportions as those who thought democracy was secure. In a study published last year, researchers at U.C. Berkeley and M.I.T. provided evidence that democratic back-sliding around the world — with citizens voting for authoritarian leaders — is driven in part by voters who believe in democracy but doubt that the other side does. The researchers found that such voters, once shown the actual levels of support for democracy among their opponents, became less likely to vote for candidates who violated democratic norms. The general point is that not understanding the actual views of people of other parties — and assuming the worst of them — can be dangerous for democracy.Trump voters, for the most part, don’t think he committed treason. And your position can’t be that unknowingly voting for someone guilty of treason is itself treasonous. Perhaps you think that they should believe him to have been treasonous. Similar issues were aired when Henry Wallace, otherwise a highly dissimilar figure, ran for president in 1948. He had denounced the Marshall Plan, wanted the Soviet Union to play a role in the governance of Germany’s western industrial heartland and — detractors thought — was a Stalin apologist.Historians can debate whether he was a voice of conscience or a pawn of America’s adversaries. But suppose you were among those who viewed him as a traitor. To have extended the indictment to his supporters would have been to criminalize political disagreement. Besides, if voting for someone who has done bad things makes you guilty of them, most voters are in deep trouble. It’s easy to be inflamed by someone with a habit of making inflammatory statements. But there may be a cost when you deem those who vote for the other side as ‘‘the enemy from within.’’ That’s a term that Trump has freely employed, of course. You’ll want to ask yourself whether protecting democracy is best served by adopting this attitude.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      My Date Recorded Us Having Sex Without My Consent. Should I Report Them?

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      My Date Recorded Us Having Sex Without My Consent. Should I Report Them?Illustration by Tomi UmI went on a date with someone, and we went back to their apartment. In the middle of sex, I caught this person, who uses they/them pronouns, recording me on their phone. For my safety, I chose to pretend I did not notice, as I did not want to be stranded in the middle of the night. In the morning, I confronted them, and they apologized and deleted the video. They said that was their first time recording someone during sex and a spur-of-the-moment decision, albeit a bad one.When I arrived home I felt more dehumanized than angry, as if I were a sex toy. I told my friends what happened, and they were very upset, and urged me to file a police report. I dismissed this at first, but I looked online and found that capturing imagery of a person’s private parts without their consent, when there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, is a violation of state and federal laws.I decided to contact my date and inform them of the gravity of their actions and told them never to do it again. I also decided that I didn’t want to press charges. I do not want to subject myself to a lengthy legal process, repeating and reliving this story over and over, as well as having to tell my family or put my life on hold. My friends are concerned that I don’t feel upset enough, and they assume that this was not my date’s first time recording someone, and will not be the last. They think I should file a police report to prevent my date from recording others in the future. I chose to assume that my date is a normal human being who made a stupid decision and does not necessarily deserve a criminal record because of it. By informing my date of the severity of their actions, they now know to never make that mistake again.My friends don’t agree with my decision, despite understanding why I would not want to press charges. We all agree that it should not be my responsibility to prevent my date from committing future crimes, but they think I should do it anyway because it’s the right thing to do. I fear that they think less of me now because I am ‘‘protecting’’ my date by giving them the benefit of the doubt, and that I’m being selfish because I do not want to sacrifice myself to the legal system on the chance that my date is a morally reprehensible person who will continue to record people without their consent. — Name Withheld, San DiegoFrom the Ethicist:Philosophers sometimes contrast ‘‘agent-neutral’’ reasons with ‘‘agent-relative’’ ones: Very roughly, the first are general ones that apply to everybody; the second are specific to a person. There is an agent-neutral reason any child should be fed and cared for; there is an agent-relative reason I should feed and care for my child. The distinction can arise when we’re talking about supererogatory acts — acts that go beyond what’s morally required of you. Suppose, in an example offered by the philosopher Elizabeth Harman, you’re a bystander who’s preparing to enter a burning building to try to save a couple of people inside it. She suggests that from a general third-party perspective your proposed act may be simply admirable — but that a true friend isn’t going to urge you on. Instead, the friend, raising agent-relative reasons, will say: ‘‘Don’t risk your life. Think about your family.’’ If someone of modest means decides to give half her income to charity, similarly, strangers will find it praiseworthy, but, Harman writes, a friend may urge her to reconsider, asking how it will affect her and her loved ones.I understand why you’re being pressured. We want to see justice done; an investigation could reveal whether there’s a pattern of criminal offenses here. But what strikes me is that your friends aren’t acting like friends, giving priority to your own needs and interests; they’re acting like strangers, focused only on what they think would be best for the world. They want you to do something that has an unpredictable chance of benefiting unknown others, but that would also, you believe, cause you a great deal of stress and disrupt your life.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Atmosphere of the ‘Manosphere’ Is Toxic

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      To understand the state of men in this country, it’s necessary to know three things.First, millions of men are falling behind women academically and suffering from a lack of meaning and purpose. Second, there is no consensus whatsoever on whether there’s a problem, much less how to respond and pull millions of men back from the brink. Third, many men are filling the void themselves by turning to gurus to guide their lives. They’re not waiting for elite culture, the education establishment or the church to define manhood. They’re turning to Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson and a host of others — including Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson — to show them the way.Not all of these influencers are equally toxic. Tate, for example, is in a class by himself. He’s a pornographer who is facing human trafficking and rape charges in Romania. Peterson, by contrast, mixes good advice with a bizarre ideology. He’ll swing between compassionate insight and wild conspiracy. I’ve known men who genuinely improved their lives through elements of Peterson’s teaching. But to spend time watching and reading these gurus as a group is to understand why men continue to struggle even though the market is now flooded with online advice.It’s as if an entire self-help industry decided the best cure for one form of dysfunction is simply a different dysfunction. Replace passivity and hopelessness with frenetic activity, tinged with anger and resentment. Get in the weight room, dress sharper, develop confidence and double down on every element of traditional masculinity you believe is under fire.Yes, men are absolutely feeling demoralized, as Richard Reeves put it in his brilliant book “Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It.” But what is the influencer advice in response? Lash out. Fight. Defy the cultural elite that supposedly destroyed your life.I’m reminded of my colleague David Brooks’s distinction between “résumé virtues” and “eulogy virtues.” As David described it, résumé virtues “are those skills you bring to the marketplace.” Eulogy virtues, by contrast, “are talked about at your funeral — whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful. Were you capable of deep love?” Most of the “manosphere” influencers look at men’s existential despair and respond with a mainly material cure. Yes, some nod at classical values (and even cite the Stoics, for example), but it’s in service of the will to win. Success — with money, with women — becomes your best revenge.The problems with this approach are obvious to anyone with an ounce of wisdom or experience, but I’m reminded of a memorable line from “The Big Lebowski”: “I mean, say what you want about the tenets of national socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.” It’s hard to counter something with nothing, and when it comes to the crisis confronting men and boys, there is no competing, holistic vision for our sons.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Greatest Threat Posed by Trump

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      If Donald Trump storms through Iowa and easily seizes the G.O.P. nomination, as presumed, and then goes on to win back the presidency, his victory will trigger a wild political and legal melee. The primary motivating purpose of his campaign is vengeance. He’s told his base that he is their retribution and has promised to “totally obliterate” the deep state. If he faces protests, he may immediately invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy troops, under his command, to American cities.Although we experienced a related melee during his first term, a second would be substantially worse. Instead of offering an internally divided administration, in which a variety of responsible aides and appointees struggled to contain Trump’s worst impulses, a second term would present him in his purest form. His MAGA base would replace the Federalist Society as the screener of his judicial appointments, and there are now a sufficient number of pure Trump sycophants to staff his White House from top to bottom.I dread the division and conflict of a second Trump term, and I don’t minimize the possibility of Trump doing permanent political damage to the Republic. But the problem I’m most concerned about isn’t the political melee; it’s the ongoing cultural transformation of red America, a transformation that a second Trump term could well render unstoppable.To put the matter as simply as possible: Eight years of bitter experience have taught us that supporting Trump degrades the character of his core supporters. There are still millions of reluctant Trump voters, people who’ve retained their kindness, integrity and good sense even as they cast a ballot for the past and almost certainly future G.O.P. nominee. I have friends and family members who vote for Trump, and I love them dearly. But the most enduring legacy of a second Trump term could well be the conviction on the part of millions of Americans that Trumpism isn’t just a temporary political expediency, but the model for Republican political success and — still worse — the way that God wants Christian believers to practice politics.Already we can see the changes in individual character. In December, I wrote about the moral devolution of Rudy Giuliani and of the other MAGA men and women who have populated the highest echelons of the Trump movement. But what worries me even more is the change I see in ordinary Americans. I live in the heart of MAGA country, and Donald Trump is the single most culturally influential person here. It’s not close. He’s far more influential than any pastor, politician, coach or celebrity. He has changed people politically and also personally. It is common for those outside the Trump movement to describe their aunts or uncles or parents or grandparents as “lost.” They mean their relatives’ lives are utterly dominated by Trump, Trump’s media and Trump’s grievances.You can go to social gatherings here in the South and hear people whisper to friends, “Don’t talk about politics in front of Dad. He’s out of control.” I know that rage and conspiracies aren’t unique to the right. During my litigation career, I frequently faced off against the worst excesses of the radical left. But never before have I seen extremism penetrate a vast American community so deeply, so completely and so comprehensively.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Now Is the Time to Pay Attention to Trump’s Violent Language

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      Donald Trump has never been shy with his language but recently, the editor Alex Kingsbury argues, his violent speech has escalated. In the last few weeks alone, Trump suggested his own former general was treasonous, said that shoplifters should be shot and exhorted his followers to “go after” New York’s attorney general. Kingsbury says he understands why voters tune Trump out, but stresses the need to pay attention and take action for the sake of American democracy.Illustration by Akshita Chandra/The New York Times; Photograph by Kenny Holston/The New York TimesThe Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.This Opinion short was produced by Jillian Weinberger. It was edited by Kaari Pitkin, Alison Bruzek and Annie-Rose Strasser. Mixing by Pat McCusker. Original music by Carole Sabouraud, Sonia Herrero and Pat McCusker. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. More

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      Donald Trump’s Campaign of Violence and Lawlessness

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      Though it was lost in the four-year cyclone that was the presidency of Donald Trump, one of his most immoral acts was to pardon soldiers who were accused of committing war crimes by killing unarmed civilians or prisoners. Military leaders, including his own defense secretary and the secretary of the Army objected, saying it would undermine good order and discipline. Lawlessness can easily beget lawlessness.But the American system is ill prepared to deter leaders bent on undermining the rule of law. Checks and balances spread powers across the government, but that isn’t enough to temper or stop bad-faith actors looking to subvert the law. According to a new article in The Atlantic, Gen. Mark Milley, upon becoming the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2019, “found himself in a disconcerting situation: trying, and failing, to teach President Trump the difference between appropriate battlefield aggressiveness on the one hand, and war crimes on the other.”Donald Trump, as General Milley discovered and many Americans already knew, is a man unencumbered by any moral compass. He goes the way he wants to go, legalities and niceties be damned. Last week in a post on his social network, Mr. Trump argued that General Milley’s actions would have once been punishable by death.Most Americans probably didn’t notice his screed. Of those who did and were not alarmed, far too many nodded along in agreement. As Josh Barro said in a Times Opinion round table this week about the former president’s recent comments, “Trump is and has been unhinged, and that’s priced in” to the views that many voters have of him.It is no exaggeration to say that Mr. Trump is running for the presidency on a platform of lawlessness, promising to wield the power of the state against his enemies — real or imagined. Today, millions and millions of Americans support him for that reason or despite it.In poll released this week, 51 percent of American adults said they’d vote for Mr. Trump over President Biden, including the vast majority of Republicans. And Wednesday night’s farcical G.O.P. debate may only increase Mr. Trump’s large lead in the primary.That advantage over the Republican field is growing even as prosecutors are finally trying to hold Mr. Trump legally responsible for his misdeeds — from the plot to overturn the 2020 election to fraud allegations concerning his real estate empire.The backlash has been predictable: In the past few months, Mr. Trump has argued that federal laws about classified documents don’t apply to him; floated the idea of pardons for his supporters jailed for attacking the Capitol; said that judges with whom he disagrees are unfit to preside over cases against him; and has been accused of threatening to prejudice the jury pool in one case. A judge decided to shield the identity of jurors in another after Trump supporters posted the names, photos and addresses of grand jurors involved in issuing an indictment in that case. He is also pushing for a government shutdown to halt Justice Department investigations, to force a show of loyalty and try to bend our political system to his will — even when he is out of office.All this has accompanied a sharp uptick in the often incoherent statements from the 77-year-old former president, on social media and at his rallies. And while many Americans long ago tuned him out, his most extreme supporters, like Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona, have not. In his newsletter, Mr. Gosar recently wrote that General Milley should be hanged.As the legal cases against Mr. Trump have picked up, “so too have threats against law enforcement authorities, judges, elected officials and others,” The Times reported this week. “The threats, in turn, are prompting protective measures, a legal effort to curb his angry and sometimes incendiary public statements and renewed concern about the potential for an election campaign in which Mr. Trump has promised ‘retribution’ to produce violence.”Mr. Trump’s targets extend to other Republicans. In a biography out next month, Senator Mitt Romney disclosed that he was spending $5,000 per day on security for himself and his family against threats from Trump supporters.This combustible combination of heated political rhetoric, unhinged conspiracy theories, anti-government sentiment and a militant gun culture have created fertile ground for political violence. The country is not powerless to stop the spread of lawlessness but it requires addressing those precursors to violence.Many of those elements swirled around a visit by Mr. Trump this week to a gun store in South Carolina that this summer, sold an AR-15-style rifle to a man who later carried out a racist mass shooting at a dollar store. During his visit, Mr. Trump hefted a custom Glock handgun with his face etched onto the handle. Though he said he wanted to buy one of the weapons — they’re big sellers! — it is unclear if he could legally do so since he is under indictment.Mr. Trump’s whims and erratic online missives should not be dismissed as “Trump being Trump.” Take his call this month for House Republicans to shut down the government. Mr. Trump egged them on, urging them to settle for nothing less than their full slate of demands, including forcing the Justice Department to end its investigations of him. He called it “the last chance to defund these political prosecutions against me and other Patriots.”While a government shutdown won’t end the prosecutions of Mr. Trump, a Trump presidency could easily do so. After all, there are few moral or legal hurdles left to clear after pardoning war criminals.There are many nations where citizens live in fear of governments that wield unchecked and arbitrary authority against their enemies, real or imagined. That is the America that Mr. Trump is promising his supporters. When Mr. Trump told supporters “I am your retribution,” all Americans should take him at his word.Defeating Mr. Trump at the ballot box is going to require a lot more political courage than it takes to put flashes of honesty in the pages of a memoir. The former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson is the latest in a long line of memoirists, declaring in an interview on Tuesday for her new book that Mr. Trump is “most grave threat we will face to our democracy in our lifetime, and potentially in American history.”True enough. Which is why Americans can’t wait until January 2025, and another shelf of memoirs, to hear the truth that so many Republicans have long known.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      The Contagious Corruption of Ken Paxton

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      Let’s talk about leadership again. Last week, I wrote about Vivek Ramaswamy and the power of unprincipled leaders to exploit civic ignorance. This week, I want to address the power of leadership to shape character and the problem of corruption in the era of Trump. And for this discussion, we’ll turn to Texas.A very good thing is belatedly happening in the Lone Star State. Republicans are on the verge not merely of expelling one of their own from office, but of expelling someone with the most impeccable of MAGA credentials. The suspended Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, is facing an impeachment trial in the Texas Senate, and if the early votes are any indication, it’s not going well for him. He’s already lost a number of motions to dismiss the case by margins approximating the two-thirds majority that will be necessary to convict him — and this is an upper chamber that Republicans control 19 to 12.Paxton faces impeachment in large part because seven of his top deputies blew the whistle on him in 2020, claiming that he had engaged in bribery and abuse of office. The charges against Paxton, to which he pleads not guilty, center primarily on his relationship with an investor named Nate Paul. Paxton is accused of providing favors to Paul, including using the power of his office in an attempt to stop foreclosure sales of Paul’s properties, ordering employees not to assist law enforcement investigating Paul and even providing Paul with “highly sensitive information” about an F.B.I. raid on his home.And what did Paxton get in return? Paul reportedly helped Paxton remodel his home and employed Paxton’s mistress. (Paxton’s wife, Angela Paxton, is a Republican state senator who is attending the hearings but is barred from voting on the charges against her husband.)But that’s hardly the complete list of Paxton’s misdeeds. He’s still facing criminal charges — which I’ve long considered questionable — stemming from a 2015 state indictment for securities fraud, and his treatment of the whistle-blowers is also under public scrutiny. Soon after coming forward, every whistle-blower either resigned, was fired or was placed on leave. When they sued for retaliation and improper firing, Paxton attempted to use $3.3 million in taxpayer funds to settle the lawsuit.In addition, following the 2020 election, Paxton filed one of the most outrageous lawsuits in the entire Republican effort to overturn the presidential result. He sued Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, seeking an order preventing those states from voting in the Electoral College. The suit was so transparently specious that Texas’ respected then-solicitor general, Kyle Hawkins — who was appointed to the post by Paxton — refused to add his name to the complaint. The Supreme Court dismissed the case without even granting it a hearing.Naturally, none of these scandals truly hurt Paxton with Texas Republican voters. He won his 2022 primary runoff against George P. Bush by 36 points. He defeated Democrat Rochelle Garza in the general election by 10 points. Texas primary voters — like Republican primary voters in many other states — decided once again that character is irrelevant so long as their candidate fights the right enemies.But that’s not the end of the story. What’s happening now is a Texas-size version of the civil war that rages across the right. Is it possible for Republicans to police their own, or does Paxton’s devotion to Donald Trump and his zealous commitment to the culture wars excuse his misconduct, however egregious? Is it possible for Republicans to potentially start the slow and painful process of healing the G.O.P.?I date my interest in the moral power of leadership back to 1998, when I was shocked that a number of my progressive friends could shrug their shoulders not just at Bill Clinton’s affair with a White House intern (though I could see their argument that his adultery was a personal matter) but also at his dishonesty under oath. The country was at peace and prosperous, they noted. Besides, weren’t Republicans hypocrites? Newt Gingrich was an adulterer. Bob Livingston, the Louisiana Republican and speaker-designate to succeed Gingrich, also confessed to extramarital affairs and stepped down.In the midst of these revelations, the Southern Baptist Convention — the nation’s largest Protestant denomination — gathered at its annual convention in Salt Lake City and tried to make the simple case to the American people that character counts. It passed a resolution on the moral character of public officials containing this memorable line: “Tolerance of serious wrong by leaders sears the conscience of the culture, spawns unrestrained immorality and lawlessness in the society, and surely results in God’s judgment.”Putting aside the words about God’s judgment, I suspect that a broad range of Americans, regardless of faith, would agree with the basic premise: Corruption is contagious.But why? Consider the relationship between leadership and our own self-interest. Most of us belong to organizations of some type, and unless we’re leading the organization, our income, our power and even our respect within the community can depend a great deal on the good will of the men and women who lead us. In very tangible ways, their character creates our path through our careers, our churches and our civic organizations.Thus, if a leader exhibits moral courage and values integrity, then the flawed people in his or her orbit will strive to be the best versions of themselves.But if a leader exhibits cruelty and dishonesty, then those same flawed people will be more apt to yield to their worst temptations. They’ll mimic the values of the people who lead them.Let me use an analogy I’ve used before: Think of a leader as setting the course of a river. It’s always easier to swim with the current. Yes, you can swim against the current for a while, but eventually you’ll exhaust yourself, and you’ll either yield to the current or leave the stream altogether.And what is the moral current of Trumpism? For Donald Trump’s supporters, tactics that would normally be utterly unacceptable on moral grounds instead become urgent priorities. In this moral calculus, Paxton’s absurd lawsuit against Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin isn’t a mark of shame, but rather a badge of honor.Paxton’s aggressive loyalty to Trump, in other words, acts as a form of indulgence that grants him license in his personal and professional life. Paxton’s acknowledged sins, including his affair, are cheap and tawdry. Yet a constellation of Republican stars are rallying to his side, led by Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ted Cruz and Steve Bannon. Because he’s a fighter. He goes to war against the left, and if the age of Trump teaches us anything, it’s that the current of his leadership flows eternally toward conflict and self-interest, consequences be damned.It’s hard to overstate how much this ethos contradicts the Christianity that Paxton purports to proclaim. In fact, scriptures teach that the role of the godly man or woman isn’t to yield to power, but to confront power when that power is corrupt. The mission is to swim against the cultural current. That brings me to one of the most grievous abuses of scripture during the Trump presidency — the constant comparison of Trump to King David.Trump is flawed, his supporters acknowledge. But so was David, they argue, and God blessed David. Scripture calls him a man after God’s own heart. But David’s virtues did not excuse his vices. In one of scripture’s most memorable passages, the prophet Nathan not only directly confronted the king but also declared a harsh judgment for David’s sins. And what was David’s response? Repentance. “I have sinned against the Lord,” he said. He then penned a poignant, penitent psalm. “God, create a clean heart for me,” he begs. “Do not banish me from your presence,” he pleads.Does any of that sound like Donald Trump? Does that bear any resemblance to the religious right in the age of Trump? Of course not. The contagious corruption of a broken president and a broken party has turned the hearts of millions of Christians away from scripture’s clear moral commands. They have chosen not to swim against the tide.But the battle is not lost, not entirely. In Ken Paxton’s office there were people who had the courage to confront their leader. They put their careers on the line to confront Texas’ legal king. And even if Paxton himself doesn’t have the integrity to repent and accept the consequences, there are other Republican leaders who can impose consequences themselves. They can start the process of altering the current of the Republican river, away from corruption and deception and back toward integrity and respect for the rule of law.The trial of Ken Paxton may well be the most important political trial of the year. It is in Austin that the G.O.P. directly confronts the enduring legacy of Donald Trump and asks itself, will we completely remake ourselves in his malign image? Or do we possess enough lingering moral fortitude to resist his leadership and at least begin respecting the truth once again?America needs two healthy political parties, and not just because healthy parties create better policies. Healthy parties create better leaders, and better leaders can help repair the fabric of a party, a nation and a culture that has been torn and frayed by a man who told America that the road to power was paved with mendacity, self-indulgence and conflict. Defeating Trump and his imitators is the first step onto a better path. More

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      in Elections

      Joe Biden and the Struggle for America’s Soul

      by

      Joe Biden built his 2020 presidential campaign around the idea that “we’re in a battle for the soul of America.” I thought it was a marvelous slogan because it captured the idea that we’re in the middle of a moral struggle over who we are as a nation. In the video he released this week launching his re-election bid, he doubled down on that idea: We’re still, he said, “in a battle for the soul of America.”I want to dwell on the little word “soul” in that sentence because I think it illuminates what the 2024 presidential election is all about.What is a soul? Well, religious people have one answer to that question. But Biden is not using the word in a religious sense, but in a secular one. He is saying that people and nations have a moral essence, a soul.Whether you believe in God or don’t believe in God is not my department. But I do ask you to believe that every person you meet has this moral essence, this quality of soul.Because humans have souls, each one is of infinite value and dignity. Because humans have souls, each one is equal to all the others. We are not equal in physical strength or I.Q. or net worth, but we are radically equal at the level of who we essentially are.The soul is the name we can give to that part of our consciousness where moral life takes place. The soul is the place our moral sentiments flow from, the emotions that make us feel admiration at the sight of generosity and disgust at the sight of cruelty.It is the place where our moral yearnings come from, too. Most people yearn to lead good lives. When they act with a spirit of cooperation, their souls sing and they are happy. On the other hand, when they feel their lives have no moral purpose, they experience a sickness of the soul — a sense of lostness, pain and self-contempt.Because we have souls, we are morally responsible for what we do. Hawks and cobras are not morally responsible for their actions; but humans, possessors of souls, are caught in a moral drama, either doing good or doing ill.Political campaigns are not usually contests over the status of the soul. But Donald Trump, and Trumpism generally, is the embodiment of an ethos that covers up the soul. Or to be more precise, each is an ethos that deadens the soul under the reign of the ego.Trump, and Trumpism generally, represents a kind of nihilism that you might call amoral realism. This ethos is built around the idea that we live in a dog-eat-dog world. The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. Might makes right. I’m justified in grabbing all that I can because if I don’t, the other guy will. People are selfish; deal with it.This ethos — which is central to not only Trump’s approach to life, but also Vladimir Putin’s and Xi Jinping’s — gives people a permission slip to be selfish. In an amoral world, cruelty, dishonesty, vainglory and arrogance are valorized as survival skills.People who live according to the code of amoral realism tear through codes and customs that have built over the centuries to nurture goodness and foster cooperation. Putin is not restrained by notions of human rights. Trump is not restrained by the normal codes of honesty.In the mind of an amoral realist, life is not a moral drama; it’s a competition for power and gain, red in tooth and claw. Other people are not possessors of souls, of infinite dignity and worth; they are objects to be utilized.Biden talks a lot about the struggle between democracy and authoritarianism. At its deepest level, that struggle is between systems that put the dignity of individual souls at the center and systems that operate by the logic of dominance and submission.You may disagree with Biden on many issues. You may think he is too old. But that’s not the primary issue in this election. The presidency, as Franklin D. Roosevelt put it, “is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership.”One of the hardest, soul-wearying parts of living through the Trump presidency was that we had to endure a steady downpour of lies, transgressions and demoralizing behavior. We were all corroded by it. That era was a reminder that the soul of a person and the soul of a nation are always in flux, every day moving a bit in the direction of elevation or a bit in the direction of degradation.A return to that ethos would bring about a social and moral disintegration that is hard to contemplate. Say what you will about Biden, but he has generally put human dignity at the center of his political vision. He treats people with charity and respect.The contest between Biden and Trumpism is less Democrat versus Republican or liberal versus conservative than it is between an essentially moral vision and an essentially amoral one, a contest between decency and its opposite.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More