Secondly, Aristotle examines societal structures serving all people, particularly governments. Aristotle is even less sanguine about ethical prospects here. The more people involved, the less likely virtue is the result. However, he does settle on the most ethical possible government which he concludes is a constitutional government elected by people who are equal in rights as citizens. The constitutional governments consist of branches roughly equivalent to our judicial, legislative and executive with a contemplated fourth for the administrative function.

Though he favors elections, Aristotle does not favor pure democracy due to the imbalances in numbers of every segment of society. He views pure democracy as a perversion of self-governance,  as once one group or segment gains a majority or allies itself with other groups to essentially engage in mob rule where human appetites, biases, and preferences for gain or goal or punishment are most likely to dominate. Elected government is desirable only as long elections feed a balanced structure of constitutional branches and thereby retain as much restraint on personal gain or desire for public honor. The challenge is to restrain unethical behavior individually and in society while rewarding virtue whenever possible

Leaving the works of Aristotle, it is easy to see that we have an ethics problem in the US because we have a virtue problem, or at least an insufficiency of  virtue problem. This has been a common malady throughout all human history. But the question now seems to be: Considering all our train wrecks, is it worse or getting worse, or do we just notice it more now as the digital and AI age feeds us these issues with greater frequency we are interested in them due to our digital behaviors?

That’s a tough one to determine with any objective certainty. It is apparent that  the use of technology has enabled the unethical to more efficiently and, sometimes, more effectively pursue their gain and goals, which also causes them to be more readily noticed.

Our problem, no matter how digitally exaggerated it may or may not be, seems to be twofold when considering our political leaders and their relationship to our constitutional government.

On one hand we have political leaders who are what Aristotle calls “prodigals”—leaders within both US political parties intent on using their constitutional authority to distribute the wealth of the citizenry to others who are underserving or less deserving. These political leaders are seeking honor by utilizing their power over resources to gain favor with recipient groups that are inclined to honor them with additional resources authority over the people from whom the resources are being extracted.

The second group are what Aristotle calls “the pleasure-seekers.” This group seek power by influencing, they hope, a majority of, citizens to doubt, change, or reject the constitution in favor of a more direct power structure favoring “the pleasure-seekers.” Today’s version of these political leaders more frequently and intentionally extols “ democracy,”  hoping to mislead citizens by deceptively equating the existing constitution with democracy. They attempt to influence the minds of the majority that the current leaders who oppose them are actually anti-constitutional or fascists and thereby working against the welfare of the people. These attempts are opportunities to engage mob rule by supporting policies such as eliminating the electoral college, convicting opponents in the court of public opinion or contrived ideological biased political hearings, adding states or territories known to be aligned with their political perspective, changing the population of the supreme court as it does not reflect their particular ideology and others.

Unfortunately, both groups have obviated or usurped constitutional authority, processes, and practices in the executive function by taxing/tariffing, spending, cutting budgets or staffing, and self-declaring policies and regulations. As elections have resulted in executives from different political parties, much time has been spent by administrations undoing the prior regime and engaging in renewing past edicts or creating new ones that also obviate the constitution in spirit or text.

So, how did we get here in the US? We started expecting less of ourselves as citizens and of our politics. We stopped caring about virtue and accepted the vain and/or power-hungry. It is readily apparent that nearly every event or cause is politicized to justify policies and leverage power for the nearly permanent political class.

How many of our elected officials are career politicians who have done nothing other than seek power or honor for themselves while functioning as nominal representatives of one sort or another? Aristotle and, later, his admirer subsequently Benjamin Franklin warned against career politicians because the power imbalance they create can be deadly to a proper constitutional society. Citizens of equal value…barbers, doctors, lawyers, plumbers and the rest, all should have a time-limited turn in political office. This limit means power and the mechanisms to seek power are far less available and tempting to our very human but ess than virtuous impulses. Term limits seem to be worth considering as one systemic defense again this political class.

Our ethically challenged era is, sadly, of our own creation, whether it is a larger or smaller problem than our train wreck-strewn village seems to indicate. Aristotle would exhort us to defend our constitutional society by being vigilant in choosing the most virtuous candidates possible and insisting, whoever is elected, that they abide by the Constitution that also functions more broadly as our social contract.

If our society is unethical we cannot expect improvement in any aspect of our public life. We must choose wisely or our society will fall to the prodigals or the power seekers.