Partisanship is Muddling the Important Debate Over Supreme Court Ethics

July 21, 2023

Ethics allegations have been raised against Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Sonia Sotomayor. Both sides have retreated into whataboutism.

by Steven Greenhut Reason.com

One of the most frustrating aspects of our highly partisan, culture-war-infused times is that people have lost the ability to direct criticism at anyone on their own side of the political divide. This tendency is corrosive because, without self-policing within the warring political camps, almost any form of bad behavior is defensible to one camp if any of its prominent members are caught doing it.

The late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D–N.Y.) famously coined the phrase “defining deviancy down” to explain how destructive social behaviors become socially acceptable. But it applies to the political arena, as well. As one definition notes, Moynihan’s term describes “the tendency of societies to respond to destructive behaviors by lowering standards for what is permissible.”