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Robert Klose is a four-time winner of a Maine Press Association award for opinion writing.
In America it has become fashionable to dismiss the abhorrent speech of politicians as a question of “style.” Donald Trump’s lies, misogyny and personal threats? No problem. It’s just his style. Rudy Giuliani asserting 2020 presidential election fraud while admitting he had no evidence? Again, lying is not deception. Like one’s choice of clothing, it’s a matter of style.
Not wanting to be outdone, Maine’s own Paul LePage is perfectly suited for this climate in which political effectiveness is measured by its level of offensiveness: He apparently long ago realized that a significant segment of the electorate had an appetite for the vulgar, the base and the cruel. Whether it’s referring to student protesters at the University of Maine at Farmington as “idiots,” criticizing the accents of immigrants from India, saying President Barack Obama can “go to hell,” describing the IRS in terms of the Holocaust or leaving a profanity-laced voice message on the phone of an opposition legislator, he has reflected an alarming level of immaturity that, for some reason, appeals to many of his supporters.
Most recently, he threatened to “deck” a Democratic tracker in Madawaska (thus putting to rest any argument about the “new” LePage who had learned his lesson). Again, there is a willingness to absolve him of all his threats and verbal trespasses in the name of “style.”
I think I could be convinced to excuse all of the governor’s foregoing transgressions, rationalizing, perhaps, that he committed them in the heat of legislative infighting. But there is one sin for which I can’t seem to grant absolution. It happened in 2015, at a Dirigo Boys State event in Waterville. LePage took pains to remark, to a 17-year-old boy, that he’d like to shoot his father, George Danby, the political cartoonist for the Bangor Daily News.
Now, I realize that LePage subsequently apologized to the boy in writing, and I was touched that Nick Danby, to the credit of his maturity, not only accepted the apology, but assigned it a humorous gloss, and conceded that the governor was “simply representing the feelings of many Mainers.” A generous sentiment, to be sure.
But, in my mind, it’s not so simple as all that. The bottom line is this: Adults don’t accost children. Adults don’t threaten the lives of a child’s parents. Adults don’t say everything that comes to mind. And finally, couching something as “humorous” should not serve as a Get Out of Jail Free card.
Can you imagine if I, or any other private citizen, approached a child and, for whatever reason, told that child that I wanted to shoot his or her parent? The trauma to the child aside, legal consequences would surely ensue. The upshot is that I am not free to threaten anybody (it’s against the law), much less use a child as a conduit for the threat. To think that many found the incident amusing or entertaining says as much about them as it does about the ex-governor.
I’m writing all this because the Danby incident is the one that I cannot seem to forget. It speaks to something very deep in LePage’s personality. It reflects an assumption that no matter how mean-spirited he is, or how profane, or how threatening, running it through the filter of “style” will wash it all away.
Thus far, and in light of LePage’s seeking the governorship again, it seems to have done the trick. LePage is not stupid. As such, he knows what works, and, given his impulse to assert his personal style, nothing he says or does in the campaign should come as a surprise. In fact, he may fear that not reverting to his old ways would be a letdown for his followers. This itself would seem to provide incentive aplenty for the continued bad behavior for which he has become notorious.
Correction: An earlier version of this column misspelled Rudy Giuliani’s name.