In Texas, the Republican primary voters overwhelmingly voted for Ken Paxton over the current longtime Senator John Cornyn to be the party’s candidate for senator in the November 2026 election. By the time this column is published, Democratic primary voters will choose Graham Platner over the sitting Governor Janet Mills to be the Democratic Party’s candidate for senator. I can spend a good portion of the article mentioning the slimy and possibly illegal things that both Paxton and Platner have done. As a Jew, I find Platner having a Nazi SS Totenkopf tattoo, which he claims he did not know the symbolism of, especially hard to take. Now Platner has gone from extreme right-wing to extreme progressive.
Those Democrats who attacked Republicans for supporting Paxton are defending Platner, and those Republicans who are attacking Platner had no problem supporting Paxton.
These are two examples of the moral decay that has occurred in this country. Years ago, neither one of these individuals would even bother trying to run because character mattered. It was only when a person appeared to be of high moral character that they could be judged on their policies. That first step is gone. It is merely, “Do we agree with what they say or what they pledge to do?” Are they going to be a “fighter against Trump” in Platner’s case or a “fighter with Trump” in Paxton’s case?
It is naive to believe that prior presidents were of the highest moral character. John F. Kennedy presented an image of a family man with a wife and young children. There was a dark side that was kept quiet. The point is that it was kept quiet because back then, it would have been political suicide if the information had been revealed. Now we live in an age where everything goes, whether it is based on a lack of morality, corruption, or legal troubles.
The most obvious example is the President, which we first saw back in 2016 after the Access Hollywood tape came out close to the election. Most elected officials and pundits assumed that Trump was done. The voters said otherwise, and they continued to do so in 2024. Trump had more legal problems in 2024 and did better than in 2016 or 2020.
The question is how and when the country lost its way. Although society had issues, until the late ‘60s, the country had morality based on Judeo-Christian values. Then the baby boomers, who came from the generation that saved the world, rebelled against their parents. They shunned traditional societal values. Woodstock, which many look back at fondly, was a symbol of that generation, and not in a positive way. Woodstock was a music festival in 1969 where ticketholders spent a lot of money to purchase tickets. Those ticket holders were swamped by the freeloaders who decided that even if they did not have a ticket and did not pay for a concert, they were going to be there no matter what. Another symbol of the ‘60s was the so-called Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967, which was nothing more than groups of people getting high on drugs. It was also the place where Charles Manson recruited his followers, who later committed murder at his behest.
These baby boomers got older, became prominent leaders, and foisted their belief system on society, which affected societal values. It may have been a slow change, but it happened.
The first major test of the new societal morality happened during the presidency of Bill Clinton. Clinton had his own morality issues. He engaged in conduct that led to him being impeached in the House of Representatives. Voters looked at his conduct and shrugged, and reelected him in 1996 with a higher percentage of the vote than in 1992, which was before his foibles became publicly known. Once Clinton was not hurt by his conduct and voters only looked at his policies and not his character, it should not be a surprise that we have gotten to where we are.
We have no one else to blame for this moral abyss that our political system has become. These individuals have the power because we put them there. It is only going to change when voters decide that character matters. Until then, we will continue with individuals like Paxton, Platner, and Trump.