Mike Lee’s Ambition
And his corruption.
A theme that runs through many posts and comments here at OTB, and really in the broader political zeitgeist, is how and why many Republicans have cleaved so deeply to Trump. While I think that answers for mass behavior differ from specific individual cases (and again is different for voters versus politicians), it is quite obvious that in some circumstances it is nothing more than the corrupting influences of ambition and power alongside revealed character.
This overall topic was already on my mind and it led me to read The Atlantic‘s profile of Utah Senator Mike Lee: Why Mike Lee Folded. I find Lee noteworthy insofar as he came into office as a Tea Party type in 2010, and was initially willing to play games of chicken with the national economy in the name of fiscal conservatism. But later, as the piece details, was a vocally anti-Trump in 2016, including leading a mini-rebellion at the RNC that year.
Indeed, between his anti-Trump behavior in 2016 and an interview with Lee and political scientists Julia Azari, Lee Drutman, and James Wallner on their podcast, Politics in Question (Do ideas or interests drive our politics?) that I listened to in the fall of 2020, I thought that maybe he was one of the reasonable ones, even knowing some of his Tea Party foolishness. I recall thinking that while he put on the airs of a serious thinker about the US Constitution, his understandings were more of the dorm room philosopher depth than anything else. I don’t usually expect too much depth out of politicians.
Still, I didn’t expect him to be central to the efforts to overturn the election. He ended up being a booster for both John Eastman and Sidney Powell. He also was a fake elector booster. These are, to me, disqualifying positions. I detailed a lot of this first in the post entitled Senators Graham and Lee Owe us an Explanation, but most especially in this one about Mike Lee’s Texts.
Two other examples that have brought Lee to my attention include:
- The Rhetorical Framing of HR1 (which has the subhead: “A truly silly characterization from Senator Mike Lee.”‘
- A foray by Lee into the “We’re a republic, not a democracy”: The Dark Side of “It’s a Republic, not a Democracy”. (So, basically, Dorm Room Philosopher confirmed).
I am not prone to wanting to do too much psychoanalysis via magazine article, but The Atlantic does a pretty good job of making the case that Lee lives in the shadow of his father (who was Reagan’s Solicitor General) and his brother (a member of the Utah Supreme Court) and, moreover, that his attachment to Trump could be a pathway to the AG’s office if Trump wins in November (which also makes him worth paying attention to).
The father, Rex Edwin Lee, is described in the piece as follows:
a giant of the conservative legal movement. Raised in small-town Arizona, Lee graduated as valedictorian from Brigham Young University and finished first in his class at the University of Chicago Law School. At 36, he was recruited to become the founding dean of BYU’s law school, a position he held until a newly elected president, Ronald Reagan, came calling. Serving as solicitor general during Reagan’s first term, Lee argued before the Supreme Court with “an astonishing rate of success,” according to the New York Times’ obituary, winning a great majority of his cases and earning renown, according to former Justice David Souter, as “the best solicitor general this nation has ever had.”
And unlike Senator Lee, the elder Lee apparently had a backbone.
But[Rex] Lee’s real legacy is independence as much as intellect. Not long after Reagan appointed him, the Times noted, “White House political aides soon discovered that he was not automatically their man.” Lee was reliably conservative on a host of matters—busing, abortion, prayer in schools—yet he sometimes set aside his own views, and those of the administration he represented, for what he described as “the broad interests of the nation.” The resulting conflicts with Reagan’s Republican Party, and criticism from far-right conservatives, wore Lee down. Resigning his post in June 1985, Lee remarked of the political pressure he faced: “I’m the solicitor general, not the pamphleteer general.”
What a concept!
At his funeral, Justice Byron White (a liberal, appointed by JFK), called Rex Lee, “the epitome of integrity.”
In terms of comparisons:
Like his father and brother, Lee attended BYU for his undergraduate degree. Unlike them, he stayed there for his legal studies. There was no shame in this; Rex, who had since returned to BYU, this time as the university’s president, had helped build the law school into one of America’s top-tier programs. Even so, it was apparent that Mike wasn’t a legal prodigy like Thomas. While the older Lee was clerking for the U.S. Supreme Court, the younger brother failed, in his first attempt, to qualify for the BYU Law Review. Classmates described this as a humiliating setback: The Law Review was effectively a prerequisite for earning prestigious clerkships down the line, and Lee was suddenly forced to consider the limitations of his own career.
You’d think that being a US Senator would be good enough to fill whatever void there is in Mike Lee’s life, but apparently not.
To be honest, Senator Lee comes across to me as pathetic and obsequience in pursuit of his ambitions in the piece. Moreover, like Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, he clearly calculated in 2016 that Trump would lose and so thought opposition to him would redound to his benefit and then had to do an about-face once Trump won the White House. It is a truly pitiful tale and one that underscores how weak and self-serving politicians can be (which is both disappointing and not at all surprising).
Thinking back to 2016, it is worth underscoring that Lee actually called on Trump to drop out after the Access Hollywood tape emerged.
After the convention fiasco, Lee went dark for a while. He mused to friends about leaving the GOP; about registering as an independent, or perhaps as a Libertarian. Then came the Access Hollywood tape in October 2016. Lee immediately called a meeting with his top staffers. They agreed that it was best for him to keep quiet and let the situation play out. A few hours later—to the shock of his aides—the senator posted a four-minute video online calling for Trump to quit the race.
How does he look back on all that now?
I had long wondered, given Lee’s foresight in diagnosing the dangers of Trumpism, whether he harbored any regret about allying himself with the man. Instead, the more we dwelled on Lee’s actions during the 2016 campaign—suggesting that Trump was an aspiring autocrat, attempting to sabotage his nomination, calling for him to quit the race—the more contrite Lee sounded for having doubted Trump in the first place.
“I was a jerk,” the senator said. “I was a jerk to him.”
It was a remarkable moment. After all of Trump’s cruel, ad hominem venom throughout that 2016 campaign, I said to Lee, you’re the jerk?
“Fair enough,” the senator said. “But his decisions don’t have to determine mine.”
The phrase “feet of clay” comes to mind.
I would recommend the piece in full (the link should be a gift link).
But as I ponder how we reached the point we find ourselves at, people like Lee have a lot to answer for, as they clearly are driven far more by ambition than principle (even if they tell themselves otherwise).
Moreover, it is instructive to note that people like Lee, Cruz, and Graham were willing to appear as Men of Principle when they thought Trump was going to lose to Clinton. But man, oh, man once Trump won, it was MAGA time, baby!
A reminder:
A closing thought. As a photographer, I find this image striking. The pose is pretty standard, if not cliched. But the look on Lee’s face just seems to capture the picture painted by the article.
The key word is pathetic. That describes Lee in a nutshell.
Speaking of Mike Lee here is a clip from the TV drama The Newsroom where they discuss the similarities difference between the radical left of the late 60’s and the Tea party. The difference being that the radical left of the 60’s was never embraced by the Democratic party where the radical right was embraced and found a home in the Republican. It a funny clip that sums up the difference nicely.
https://youtu.be/cGsLhyNJBh8?si=5nrgFKzXdgUylqbg
Never forget that the “return it to the states” nonsense of the R position on abortion is 110% the same as the Confederate position on slavery. And counting those slaves for purposes of proportional representation. Funny how it keeps coming up!
The Southernization of the Republican party is complete. There are no “good” Republicans, as Mike Lee amply demonstrates.
Hannah Arendt devoted chapters to to this.
@Gavin:
In Lee’s father’s day it may have been possible to be a principled Republican. People like Tom Nichols and James Joyner would have us believe so. Of late that has not been possible. However, that may be changing. Either because things have gone too far, or because they judge Trump is losing and they want to beat the rush, there are suddenly a surprising number of GOPs supporting Kamala.
@Sleeping Dog:
Germany required ruinous defeat in a World War, resultant hyperinflation, and the Great Depression to reach the state we’re in. Russia required a corrupt monarchy, a ruinous war, and a huge revolution. We’ve had 13% inflation followed by the Reagan Recession, W’s Great Recession, and COVID with its after effects. Either we are really soft, or Rupert Murdoch is more effective than Joseph Goebbels.
@gVOR10: There were genuine economic policy disagreements during Reagan’s time.
And a lot of us were just bigots who didn’t want blacks to get stuff. My recollection is that was a driving force for restrictions on family planning services through Medicaid.
@Gavin:
Not to mention the needle they are threading even with that. I recently heard some R talk about how the states should decide and then he clarified that the government of each state should decide. It was a quick correction and the interviewer didn’t notice it, but given how popular citizens initiatives restoring abortion rights are in even the reddest states, he has to make it clear that the citizens themselves can’t be allowed to make the decision, only the government
The whole image is fascinating.
The weirdly bent right ankle with the foot pointing straight at the viewer and enough shadow under it so you can see that his toes aren’t quite on the ground. The “interesting” socks that are displayed to show him as an individual are ill-fitting and sagging.
I don’t know what his right hand is trying to do, but the left hand is putting a stop to it. Is he flashing a gang symbol, or did someone just tell him to keep his right hand natural and relaxed and now he is completely focused on it and it will not be natural or relaxed.
There’s the edge of the stand for lighting showing on the left side, reminding us of just how staged and fake this all is. It’s too good of a photograph for the photographer to not have noticed, at least after the fact.
There are weird lumps and shadows on the backdrop.
The corner of the chair facing us has been beat to shit, scuffed by being banged into things. The chair itself is just slightly larger than expected, or he is smaller than expected.
The suit has a too narrow lapel, out of fashion, trying to suggest he is a bit of an iconoclast. Meanwhile, the lighting highlights the stitching on the lapel/collar of his suit and makes it look cheaper than it probably is.
I expect the clothes are just what Lee decided to wear that day. The photographer made choices is how they were lit and what is highlighted. Interesting and not entirely flattering choices.
@Gustopher: The socks, well one sock, is sagging, but they’re also mismatched. Very sad. 🙁
Arrggh! They are indeed mismatched. HOW HOW HOW does this happen in a portrait???
@Jen:
Well, it doesn’t if Luddite’s taking the photo.
Although there was the unfortunate wedding where the bride was drunk, as was her family, at the wedding and reception. And the photos for the managing partner who insisted on having his feet on his desk …
Musicians? Sure. Weddings? Not any more. Politicians? Gonna have to pass.
@Gustopher:
His right hand appears to have an unnatural spread between the middle and ring fingers. Perhaps his left hand is holding down his right hand to prevent it from popping up, which in turn would compel him to blurt out “live long and prosper” while he’s supposed be having a serious picture taken.
Is it possible Lee’s a Trekkie?
Regardless, I can’t take him seriously beyond the fact that he’s one of 100 US senators.
He may have dystonia. I sometimes put my left hand on top of my right to suppress the twitch in the right wrist.
@Jen: They are? They look like the same pattern and the same color to me. The right one has sagged a lot more, so the pattern is closer together, and the shade is a little different, but there are lights all around him, and I figured that was it.
Am I secretly colorblind? Is this how I find out?
I think I have now spent more time looking at Mike Lee’s feet than any other politician’s. Should I reply to one of his tweets and let him know that? That wouldn’t be weird and uncomfortable at all, would it?
Also, I am wearing mismatched socks, but they are playfully mismatched, bright, striped socks.
@just nutha: I just assume the left hand knows what the right hand is doing, and it objects. Either that, or he’s like the Vincent Price version of The Fly, with one hand trying to kill him.
@Gustopher: The color is the same, but the pattern is different. The sock on the left (his right) has a larger pattern with more space between the prints. The other sock has a smaller, but more frequently repeated pattern that is about half the size.
Lee, and any other GOP pol, had a much easier play for prominent positions in a Republican administration. If McConnell and his leadership team had whipped votes in favor of Trump’s J6 impeachment instead of for acquittal, I believe they would have had safety in numbers while still ridding themselves (and us all) of Trump once and for all. Mike Lee would have been just as likely AG for a President DeSantis or President Haley.
@Jen: it’s the same shape of pattern, so I thought the sagging sock just lets the fibers relax and pull together. Now I am not sure.
The sagging hypothesis might require his socks to be very long though. Possibly thigh high stockings, but not necessarily.
Does he really have two pairs of socks, the same color, with the same pattern, but one is a smaller pattern on a larger, looser sock? Or is his right ankle wider than his left? Both seem absurd.
(A quick google of “Mike Lee missing leg” doesn’t turn up anything, so it’s probably not a sock sagging on a prosthetic.)
@Gustopher: It’s certainly possible. I just went for a more Occam’s Razory (Razorie?) answer. Though it would certainly be unusual for someone as young as he is end up with dystonia by my understanding.
@Gustopher: As somebody whose family enjoys sock exchanges at Christmas, I can tell you that it’s possible to find a 3 pack of socks in slightly similar patterns. He’s just lucky his family member bought him 3 pairs in similar patterns, “Cuz he’s a Senator.” I’d have bought him the 3 pack with a grinch, a devil and an angel. Mix it up as you see fit, Mikey. 😉
@Jax: IMHO, bingo. He’s mixed two similar socks from a set, but not a pair.
I remember seeing Sen. Lee on one of the Sunday morning talking heads shows. He was going through a list of things that must be eliminated from election systems. It was particularly interesting because the Republican-controlled Utah legislature had over the few previous years added all of the things on the list to the Utah system.
Bahhh. I have a letter in my hand from 53 current and former members of the deep state who swear all you cite is classic Russian disinformation. And a Hillary Clinton bought and paid for memo. Plus, if Joe Biden was still president, he’d swear the 53 are right.
But thanks for the essay Captain Selective Outrage.
I knew Mike’s dad and was so impressed with him. I saw him close-up in his later struggles with cancer. It breaks my heart to think, if his faith is true, that he may be witnessing his son from on high. There is no shame any longer, no one feels anything when it comes to being found out a fraud.