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U.S. Senator Bob Menendez worked as a foreign agent for the Egyptian government, according to federal accusations leveled against him as part of a second corruption indictment of the powerful New Jersey pol. Former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Menendez wielded great influence in that capacity. Cash, gold bars, and a fancy new car point the finger at New Jersey’s senior senator as having broken the law and, possibly, undermined the credibility of his country. A court of law must now determine his case. Menendez, as a US citizen, enjoys the presumption of innocence until proved guilty.
Nevertheless, numerous powerful Democrats have called upon Menendez to resign, including his fellow senator from New Jersey, Cory Booker, and Governor Phil Murphy. Surviving one federal corruption trial, Menendez defeated Republican challenger (and present state chair) Bob Hugin in 2018. That much might have been forgiven. A second trial, however, is too much. The Democrats, to their credit, have self-policed their own. As Menendez’s allies and supporters turn away, however, Menendez steadfastly refused to leave the senate seat. “I’m not going anywhere,” the embattled official proclaimed.
Many Democrats have lamented Menendez’s plunge from the political heights as “tragic.” As he is so well-known to remind people, he is the son of Cuban refugees who grew up in Hudson County. A champion within the Latino community, Menendez entered politics as a young man. He followed the American version of the Roman cursus honorum: school board, mayor, Assembly, State Senate, House of Representatives, and finally, the US Senate. By all accounts, such an ascent is a rarity, given the number of ambitious politicians eager for their chance to shine. Menendez climbed to the top of the American political pyramid. Only the presidency could represent a still-higher aspiration.
Then Bob messed up.
To repeat, Bob is the person who messed up.
His political career imploded almost overnight. While colleagues and (now potentially former) friends called on him to quit, Menendez stepped down from his chairmanship on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He refused to step down from the senate itself. If he did, the Democratic Party’s preservation of the seat would not be in question until at least the next election. Governor Murphy would appoint an interim senator. Would-be successors to the Menendez reign, however, have already lined up. Congressman Andy Kim was the first Democrat to announce he would run against the senator in a primary.
As important as Menendez’s political record is, the mundane nature of functional-politics means that those achievements fade in the public memory, outshone by the unusual, the abnormal: his scandals. Whatever good he rendered is glossed over. Two federal trials—that is what the public will remember when the name “Menendez” is brought up. Sometimes a politician’s political legacy is imploded over things which are dangerously serious, or bizarre. Consider that former Vice President Dan Quayle is best remembered for misspelling “potato,” how Congressman Howard Dean sank his 2004 presidential campaign with one weird scream, and how Governor Mike Dukakis is “that guy in the tank.” All of them witnessed a lifetime of work flare up in smoke.
But were they truly “tragic”?
Calling Menendez’s fall a “tragedy” speaks more to the lamentation that so much work, passion, and energy expended was lost because of misconduct or a mistake than of the collapse of the man himself. In the classical sense, however, none of these examples are truly tragic. To call the unapologetic, defiant senator “tragic” speaks to a simplified understanding of the idea of tragedy. On the surface, it is a generalization. With further thought, however, for those who value the meaning of words and appreciate the depth of nuance in political dialogue, it gives Menendez a pass for his alleged misdeeds and deprives the New Jersey public the essential release from the negativity—in other words, catharsis.
Aristotelian tragic plot structure understands that a story (say, “The Rise and Fall of Senator Robert Menendez, a Play in Three Acts”) is tragic with an incident that builds up to a reversal and change for the subject. This arc spirals into the catharsis that cleanses the subject (or the audience) of the fears, anger, or other negativity built up, and rolls into a conclusion. The best-known example is that of “Oedipus Rex” by Sophocles in the 5th Century, B.C. Oedipus is prophesized that he will kill his father and marry his mother, thus usurping his father’s throne. For those who know the play, it is not necessary to recount it in detail here, but Oedipus does, in fact, fulfill the prophecy. On realizing what he did, he put out his own eyes in disgust and self-loathing. His mother-and-wife, Jocasta, went further and ended her own life. These explosive acts took place because they realized the evil of their actions and responded to it, demonstratively releasing themselves. The cathartic action also releases the audience of the built-up tension and horror. That is truly “tragedy.”
Shakespeare shows tragedy and catharsis in plays such as “Romeo and Juliet,” “Hamlet,” and “King Lear.” They do not all play out in a specifically Aristotelian manner, but the plays’ cathartic moments nevertheless are present and unburden the audience from the shared miseries of the characters. Tragic drama on stage or on the news almost always features hubris, the overbearing pride that offends the gods (in whatever form that happens to be represented). Hubris precipitates nemesis, the inescapable engine of the protagonist’s downfall: FBI investigations, discovering packets of cash, suspicious gold bars, maybe a questionable expensive luxury car, defensive press conferences, court dates, critical op-eds, and so on.
To bring this back to 2023 in New Jersey, the public lacks its cathartic moment vis a vis Senator Menendez. He claimed no responsibility for the serious allegations pitted before him. He is still in the dramatic narrative phase of his tale. Not surprisingly, Menendez demanded his presumption of innocence until proven otherwise in a court of law. He did not reel from some realization that he might not be the best man for the job anymore, despite record-low polls. There was no contrition that the public witnessed, and there is not likely to be any unless, perhaps, the senator is found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Tragedy implies a particular self-awareness and moral reckoning within the scope of the purported misdeeds on the part of the protagonist. It implies a certain redemption of character that the people of New Jersey simply have not had.
The catharsis withheld remains a disservice to the constituencies of the Garden State. New Jersey Democrats have been tied to the implications of their Menendez affiliation and support. What might have been at least bearable in 2018 thanks to a successful victory at the polls is now onerous in 2023. For all the corruption and mayhem on the Republican side of the aisle—with the endless Trump circus in the courts and in the media, the embarrassment that is George Santos, the obnoxious and obscene theater allegations of Lauren Boebert, and the humiliating inability to decide on a House Speaker for nearly three weeks—Menendez, in a sense, gave the GOP a little breather. They can rest assured that the Democrats’ house is not perfectly tidy, either.
Without realization and without even a tacit act of contrition, however, none of these examples are truly tragic. They are, more accurately, catastrophic not only for the actors themselves, but also for those whom they claim to represent. A catastrophe need not impart any relief or release to those who witness it, as a true tragedy may, in some merciful capacity. Media figures and well-meaning individuals sympathetic to the Menendez legacy should consider their words as they characterize these fallen figures. Does the public find some measure of escape? President Nixon did, in his way, by resigning after the Watergate scandal. He did not put out his eyes, like Oedipus, but he put an end to any official capacity by which he could serve his country, voluntarily. Whether or not he felt it was a just thing to do for himself is a matter of discussion, but he did feel that it was the just thing to do for the country—to release the people from, as his successor-and-pardoner President Ford would say, “our national nightmare.”
If Senator Menendez releases the audience of nearly nine million New Jerseyans from this “state nightmare” perhaps, eventually, pundits, analysts, and armchair philosophers could reconsider a potentially “tragic” characteristic to the Menendez story with an epilogue of some redemption.
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