The Michael Cohen Conundrum

Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, lies a lot. That’s one thing we learned when he pleaded guilty to an array of crimes that became public on Tuesday. In the process, he also indicated that the president had instructed him to pay two women to keep them from telling their stories about Trump. The glee of the president’s critics is pulsating brightly. They are vindicated. Or so they think.

But did Cohen’s appearance in court change anyone’s mind about Trump? I doubt it. I’ll have more to say about this soon, but it’s already causing me to reflect on the disservice we do ourselves with our obsessive focus on scandal. It wasn’t helpful when Republicans ceased doing the country’s business two decades ago to hound President Bill Clinton about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, and it isn’t helpful now.

Think of the issues we face that require the government’s full attention. We learned on Tuesday, for example, that Microsoft caught the Russian military attempting to hack the websites of conservative think tanks; the United States continues to put American lives at risk in low-intensity wars in Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen, without a clear strategic goal or measure of victory; and an aggressive, self-confident China is building islands in the South China Sea for military bases from which it can control crucial trade routes.

When we’re not focused on the gory details of illicit but consensual sex between adults, we’re obsessing over gossipy West Wing intrigue. I’m exhausted — and bored — by the psychodramas that occupy an unnaturally large part of our attention. Is it just me? You might be tempted to think, knowing my political sensibilities, that this is a thinly veiled attempt to shame President Trump’s critics into silence. It isn’t. I had the same view during the Obama years, when we had to endure apocryphal stories about whether he was born in Kenya, notably from Trump himself when he was still Citizen Trump. If you disagree with the president’s plan to renegotiate trade deals on terms more favorable to the United States or his attempts to get NATO members to pay their fair share or anything else he wants to do, by all means say so. But this voyeuristic focus on petty personal corruption is a harmful distraction. Trump’s dalliances are a sideshow. So were Bill Clinton’s “bimbo eruptions.”

As a largely apolitical friend of mine likes to say of such scandals, “How does this affect me?” That’s what a lot of people ask. What political types fail to understand is that many Americans don’t hold our elected representatives in very high regard or look to them for moral example. We see them more as contractors hired to do a job.

My friend’s question is a good one for all of us to keep in mind. How do the things we’re talking about and spending our time on affect the peace and prosperity of the nation? Scandal mongering for partisan advantage makes our nation less secure. It’s one of the dangers of democratic government, which is why political systems like ours require politically mature citizens. Right now, we’re not passing that test.

This article is part of the Opinion Today newsletter. David Leonhardt, the newsletter’s author, is on a break until Aug. 27. While he’s gone, several outside writers are taking his place. This week’s author is Christopher Buskirk, a contributing Op-Ed writer for The Times and the editor of American Greatness, a conservative publication. You can sign up here to receive the newsletter each weekday.

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