Late night host Jimmy Kimmel, in my view, isn’t usually worth writing about on an ethics blog. He’s a despicable human being, and the fact that Kimmel is paid large amounts of money to be a media celebrity nicely illustrates the state of rot in our popular culture. Nevertheless, even the despicable have their uses. A recent outburst by Kimmel on his ABC show stands as throbbing evidence of just how estranged from logic and reality the Trump Deranged are. He also demonstrates just how meager the ethics decision-making skills are of many celebrities. (Very meager.)
Kimmel’s monologue three nights ago began with Jimmy expressing amazement that a poll showed Donald Trump leading Joe Biden in several crucial swing states ahead of the 2024 presidential election. “How could this be?” Kimmel asked, channeling Hillary Clinton’s absurd lament in 2016 that she should be leading in the polls by “50 points.” Kimmel’s grand proof that Trump’s lead in polls was inexplicable consisted of his observation that many ex-associates of the former president have spoken out against him, so Trump. “doesn’t even lead in a poll of people who worked for him.”
Good thinking there, Jimmy. In fact, close associates and even family members of many, perhaps most popular elected officials and other public figures, like entertainers, have vastly different views of them than the public. The list of prominent figures including successful leaders who have sterling reputations, but who had smelly feet of metaphorical clay or worse is too long to list. The public doesn’t know the candidates they support; they usually only know their carefully constructed images. Moreover, working for someone is completely different from having a stake in their decisions. Kimmel’s reasoning here is incompetent, as usual.
Yet it is still not as damning as believing that there is no reason why anyone would rather see Trump—or anyone—in the White House rather than Joe Biden. To begin with, Trump’s term, until the pandemic derailed everything with the heavy assistance of the Democratic Deep State, was undeniably more successful that Biden’s term so far. It’s not even close. When one asks a loyal, closed-minded Democrat what is so impressive about Biden’s policies and results, all they have is admiration for Joe’s fealty to the progressive agenda, and the gaslighting argument that the public doesn’t appreciate how good they have it.
Biden may have the most incompetent Cabinet in Presidential history. Foreign affairs are an expensive, feckless mess. His Justice Department has politicize law enforcement beyond anything Richard Nixon would have dreamed of. Due process, equal protection, the right to fair trials, the First and Second Amendment and the Constitution itself have been eroded under Biden’s watch. The nation is enduring a totalitarian-style alliance between the central government and the news media, which is dangerous. Major cities are becoming unlivable, border enforcement is out of control, anti-Semitism is epidemic, and the single thing that Biden promised to do, heal the division in the nation, not only hasn’t happened, but Biden set out to make it…
…worse. He has succeeded.
The one justifiable argument for not supporting Trump over Biden should be that Trump is a) an asshole b) an embarrassment as a leader because of his vulgarity, nastiness and boorishness, c) that he’s unstable, and therefore untrustworthy, and that d) he lies. But Biden is falling apart in chunks before our eyes. He’s not just old, he’s progressively cognitively impaired. His Vice-President really appears to be the dumbest, most unqualified VP in U.S. history, which is an amazing accomplishment. Biden lies as often as Trump does; it’s just that nobody keeps score. Trump is a misogynist; Biden is a serial sexual harasser with a disturbing fixation on young girls. Trump isn’t a nice guy, and neither is Biden, though he plays one on TV.
Claiming that there is no reason for a voter to prefer Donald Trump over Joe Biden is as ridiculous as saying that there is no reason not to support Donald Trump. In fact, it is more ridiculous. Character matters in a leader, a lot. (I have a related post on the way digging deeper into that issue.) I don’t believe, and never have, that “it’s the economy, stupid!” A democracy needs a role model, and the President must fill that need. Donald Trump cannot. He’s not only an asshole, he doesn’t try to be anything else, nor does he seem to think he needs to. Lots of our Presidents have been assholes, but like Barack Obama, they recognized the importance of hiding that ugly side of their character, and usually succeeded. (In addition to Obama, recent Presidential assholes include Bush II, Clinton, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, JFK, Truman and FDR.)
If someone chooses to hold that character is more important in a President than successful policies, I can respect that position, and except in extreme circumstances, might even agree with it. That, however, is not the current situation. Both Biden and Trump have demonstrably poor character. Both are assholes: Trump may be more flamboyant about it, but he never did anything like…
..that. Trump is old, Biden is senile. Then we have the little matter of how the U.S. was doing during Trump’s Presidency, in contrast with the wreckage now.
I can certainly understand anyone who concludes that they just can’t bear the idea of voting for someone like Donald Trump to be President again, especially in light of his conduct since losing in 2020. However, maintaining, like Jimmy Kimmel, that there is no rational reason why anyone would not want to vote for four more years of Joe Biden illustrates how bias makes people stupid, and in extreme cases like Kimmel’s, so stupid that they are unaware how deluded they sound.
Ethics Alarms 
Kimmel will always be a kreep.
Jimmy Kimmel was hilarious side-kicking with a well-known conservative in “Win Ben Stein’s Money”, which still might be my favorite quiz show of all time. But progressivism and TDS are powerful diseases separately. When they’re mixed…
Paul Grossman, supposedly a conservative, wrote The following, which should kind of tell you all you need to know about Trump derangement:
Paul Grossman is a nationally known employment defense lawyer at Paul Hastings and a Republican/conservative guy. He has written the following & encouraged that it be shared, which I do so now (with apologies for the formatting glitches). Let me know if you want me to forward the pdf letter that I received from one of his former colleagues.
“April 5, 2024TO:
My Friends and Acquaintances
FROM: Paul Grossman
SUBJECT: The Upcoming Presidential Election
In most elections, candidates differ in philosophical approach regarding how best to solve commonly appreciated issues and shared challenges such as the large federal deficit.In 2024, we are faced with a departure from this normal paradigm in which we can presuppose the integrity of the candidates and their desire for a better United States now and in the future.
For the first time in my lifetime, one of the two major candidates for President of the United States has proven himself to be not just unfit for office but affirmatively evil. I am a Republican. Until our former President came along, based on the issues, I voted for The Republican candidate for President. Ronald Reagan wanted me to run the Department of Labor for him. I had serious hopes of being Mitt Romney’s Secretary of Labor. I would have happily voted for Nikki Haley over Biden, with whom I differ on numerous policy issues. But for the reasons set forth below, in this election differences in character are more important than the underlying policy issues.
Please vote. Sitting out this election is not a reasonable choice.Is the former President evil? Yes. There can be no doubt. Consider the following: He incited the January 6th riots. He refused to take action for hours that day while watching the riots on television. He has promised to pardon the convicted rioters despite the deaths and destruction they caused. He calls racists “good people”. He still claims the 2020 election was “stolen” – he lost it by 7 million votes. He calls his opponents demeaning nicknames – a tactic used by grade school bullies. He is a serial liar. His trade policy is protectionist – he ridicules serious economists. He has engaged frequently in unwanted sexual touching of females – as he put it in a recorded statement, he “grabs pussy”.
He has been found by a court to be guilty of sexual assault. He avoided military service; at a military cemetery he labeled those who served “suckers”. He initially denied the existence of the recent pandemic. He rejected medical evidence in relation to the recent pandemic and demeaned medical experts. He makes fun of climate change. He embraces nonsensical conspiracy theories.*My problems with Biden include his age, immigration, the Afghanistan exit, unconditional sympathy for trade unions, overspending, and contentions the wealthy are not paying their “fair share” of taxes. But I must admit despite my reservations about Biden, the economy is doing quite well. He makes fun of people with disabilities. He dehumanizes immigrants – all four of my grandparents were immigrants. Those who have worked most closely with the former President are unstinting in their assessments:o He has been privately labeled a “moron” by his First Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson He has been called dangerous by his former Secretary Of Defense, Mark Esper, who will not vote for him.o He has been accused of undermining our NATO alliance by his former Secretary of Defense, James Mathis. His Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao resigned in protest of his January 6th related actions and inactions.o Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called the January 6th mob violence a “failed insurrection.”o He tried to bully his vice president to refuse to perform his vice presidential duty and certify the election results –Mike Pence, an honorable conservative, has announced he will not vote for the former President. He used to be pro-choice – he switched when he became a Republican and needed the evangelicals. He admires Putin and for good reason – both are evil and serial liars.
He could not care less about Ukraine’s heroic stand against Putin and Russia.Please join me in voting for the candidate who is a decent human being, and against the candidate who is evil.
Please forward this email to your circle of friends. I truly fear for our democracy if the evil candidate again becomes President. I think it possible, perhaps likely, that if elected in 2024, as the 2028 elections approach, despite the Constitution, he will do whatever he deems necessary to stay in power. Prominent conservatives including Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, and Lisa Murkowski have publicly announced they will not vote for the former President. It is not clear whether they will abstain. But an abstention or a vote for a candidate who has no chance makes it easier for the evil candidate to win. Thank you for considering my views.”
***
I’m back. The only thing I can say is that the TDS is strong here. there really isn’t anything in this bowel movement in written form that isn’t the Democratic party line. It doesn’t take much thinking to parrot the party line. It doesn’t take much analysis to simply put together a bunch of things that other folks have already said and send them out. A lot of this stuff is demonstrably false. You kind of know that he is already off his rocker when he characterizes the former president as evil.
Only someone who doesn’t know history would characterize any of the United States presidents as evil. History is seen its share of evil people. Attila the Hun was evil. Vlad the impaler was evil, although some Romanians might take issue with that. Mao Zedong was evil as well as blindly stupid. The three pashas were evil. Stalin was evil. Of course a certain German Chancellor with a toothbrush mustache tops the list of the evil, although some of his lieutenants were evil in their own right, and a lot of them paid the final price for it.
There are a few United States presidents who were less than competent, like the feckless Warren Harding, like Franklin Pierce who spent his one term addled by grief and drink, like James Buchanan, who didn’t even try to stop the Civil War, like Andrew Johnson, who was never intended to be president and had the hardest act of all to follow. There are a few United States presidents who were heavy-handed. FDR governed as an elected King and basically ignored any kind of opposition. Teddy Roosevelt pretty much ignored anyone’s opinion but his own. Andrew Jackson created a humanitarian disaster in the form of the Trail of Tears.
I hesitate to call any of them evil on the level of the genuine dictators and genocidal murderers that I just listed above. Trump certainly doesn’t and did not rise to that level. Those who call him evil are just the small-minded types who call anyone who disagrees with them and does not spout the party line that they agree with evil. You know the people I’m talking about. We have all heard the black coworker who never got past High School spout off in a piercing voice that white people and conservatives are all racist, some of us are just better at hiding it. We all heard the Hispanic acquaintance spout off about how Trump wants to deport their grandmother. We have all heard the women in our lives spout off about how abortion is the most important right of all, and nothing else matters. These are the kind of people who call Trump evil. Consider that when you consider what they say.
This is a classic case of half-truths and buying into the idea that January 6th wasn’t insurrection and the Trump was right behind it. Anyone who’s bothered to look at the evidence knows otherwise. Anyone who looked at the facts knows that this was no insurrection. If anything, the riots that swept the country in 2020 for a lot closer to insurrection, but somehow those don’t get mentioned much anymore. Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias. 300 idiots armed with nothing stronger than bear spray we’re not going to take over the government for overthrow the government. Trump never called for them to assault Congress. If you keep buying into that you are simply buying into the Democratic boogeyman.
Where this guy really loses me is when he says Biden is a decent human being after going over Trump’s period of social sins. It’s simply a lie. Biden is as bad a sexual harasser as Trump and he’s quite possibly a pedophile as well, who pursued and married the babysitter and cannot seem to avoid acting like a creep around young girls. He is at least as big a liar as Trump, but, as was pointed out above, the mainstream media isn’t keeping track of his lies. I wonder what the number would be if they were. He is also a bully who seems to think he can just push his way around anything and everyone. He is also quite possibly more arrogant than Obama was, acting as though any criticism of him is just something for him to ignore and how dare anyone who criticizes him disturb his vacation.
the results of his malpractice as president speak for themselves. Yet this guy seems to just blow right by them like they don’t mean a thing. Then there is the fact that he is severely cognitively impaired and getting worse every day. There is also a real question as to whether he will survive complete his second term at the age of 86. A vote for fighting is effectively a vote for president Harris, which we know would be a complete disaster.
You know this guy is reaching when he is dredging up Trump’s characterization of a reporter who was hostile to him as mocking someone with a disability. There is no proof that that was the case, but it’s just another one of those things that those who’ve already made up their minds grab hold of to make themselves a grievance.
Somewhere buried in there, if you don’t don’t want to take the time to wade through all of this, is the fact that this guy had high hopes of being Mitt Romney’s Secretary of Labor. That obviously didn’t come to be, partly because Romney thought he could run a gentlemanly campaign against an opponent who was practicing the politics of personal destruction against him. To this day Mitt and his supporters remain bitter about the fact that Trump achieves what they could not by using tactics they disdain. If you don’t believe me, then look back at the post about Romney’s bio. He spends most of the book justifying his own behavior and speaking ill of Trump. They say that when you hear something you should consider the source. In this case, the source is a bitter Romney supporter who is also a never Trumper. I don’t think he even believes half of what he was saying, but he will advocate for taking the country down four more years of the disaster in the last 4 years have been rather than admit that Trump had any redeeming features.
You can talk about evil while you want, but lying and deception are also evil acts s. Gaslighting is an evil act. embracing incompetence and calling it competence is an evil act. this is no different than the garbage that the CEO of Expensify spouted 4 years ago to customers who probably didn’t give a damn about his views: vote for Biden and only a vote for Biden will do. it’s partisanship of the worst and most blunt kind, yet it’s being characterized as something else. If that’s not evil I don’t know what is.
1. I’ll put this up as a COTD, Steve (and I’ll clean it up.) Thanks for sending it.
2. This guy is not only a lawyer, but a successful one? Wow. Where’s that woodchipper?
3. He lost me with the paragraph beginning “please vote.” It is either affirmatively and intentionally dishonest (not a good look when you’re accusing someone else of lying) or the man is senile and no longer capable of professional-level fact-checking and research. I don’t expect lawyers to be topics for Hanlon’s Razor.
4. He stoops to an appeal to authority using people like Mitch McConnell, Elaine Chou, and Lisa Murchowski and, incredibly, Liz Cheney. I’m surprised he didn’t cite George Conway.
Thanks – sorry for the cleanup needed – I was doing it on the phone.
Holy crap!!! You did that on a phone?!? I’m impressed. I’d still be punching that in…if I started a year ago!!
Well done…and the COTD is well-deserved!!
I agree. I have trouble sending a six word text. However, I happen to know that Steve has freakishly tiny thumbs…
A lot of it was dictated.
As I realized when “Biden” became “fighting”!
Good one, Steve-O. Grossman’s inclusion of a mish-mash of long-ago debunked democrat/media fables is, in itself, enough to cause one to disregard his opinion as corrupted and unworthy of consideration.
If Trump is demonstrably awful, couldn’t Occam’s razor indicate that the reason people are choosing him over Biden is that Biden is….worse?