By Matteo Chiadò Piat (MPA-ESP ’23)

Two weeks ago, the Daily Beast broke a story about Herschel Walker, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate seat in Georgia.

Citing an abortion clinic receipt and a “get well” card, and directly quoting the woman involved, the outlet reported that Walker, who is running on a strongly anti-abortion campaign, paid for an abortion for his former girlfriend in 2009. Two years later, she was pregnant again. He asked her to obtain another abortion, saying, according to the woman, that it was “not the right time” for him to have another child. His then girlfriend, however, decided to carry the baby to term.

I am not a United States citizen, but I enjoy observing American politics, knowing that, given the cultural influence the U.S. has on the rest of the world, decisions made here will echo across the ocean. As an outsider, the events of this past week in the Georgia race troubled me.

What bothered me was not the scandal itself. While egregious in this case, hypocrisy in politics is not a surprising phenomenon. My own country of Italy is far from free of politicians with dubious morality. Forza Italia, the party led by Silvio Berlusconi, the ex-prime minister globally famous for his sex scandals in the 2000s, maintained 10 percent of the vote in the latest elections and he is bound to play a crucial part of the new governing coalition.

The reaction of the Republican Party in the past couple of days to the scandal was not surprising either. They continue rallying to Mr. Walker’s side, not withdrawing their support. Politically, they have no other option, especially now that elections are less than a month away. They will not be able to find a new candidate now, so they might as well keep marching ahead with what they have. Several Republican senators have expressed their backing of Walker by traveling to Georgia this week.

Conservative media outlets expertly downplayed and pivoted the story. Fox News reported that the political director from Mr. Walker’s campaign has been fired under accusations of leaking the story to the press, making the candidate the victim, and not the perpetrator.

Breitbart reported that the woman in question actually supported Mr. Walker earlier on in his campaign, ironically accusing her of hypocrisy.

The disheartening fact is that this spin on the story might work in salvaging the campaign. What Fox News, Breitbart, and others managed to do is offer enough narrative tangents that the average Republican voter can feel comfortable avoiding any meaningful discussion about moral accountability.

Nowadays, the average person does not dig deep into political news, let alone reach out to the other side of the aisle to hear an opposing idea. A 2020 opinion published in the New York Times cited that “upward of 80 percent to 85 percent [of Americans] follow politics casually or not at all.” 

Hershel Walker’s hypocrisy is a problem only for the political junkies. I undoubtedly identify with this group: if you are reading this article, it might mean that you do as well.

Let me be clear: I am not expecting that politics be top of mind for everyone. It is completely acceptable, if not welcome, that people care about something other than John Fetterman’s tattoos or Dr. Oz’s animal cruelty accusations.

Because of the way information is distributed in the digital age, most people are caught in an echo chamber of their own beliefs, and only active search can expose us to something different. Not many people are masochistic enough to enjoy the discomfort of having their moral ideas challenged.

The sad result of the practiced what-about-ism of some media outlets is that we are lowering the barriers of entry into politics. Any story can be spun enough to be rendered insignificant. We are witnessing a political group that does not aim to inspire the crowds to new moral high grounds, but to manipulate them through expert marketing. These political representatives are no longer leading by example, but are toeing with the lower limit of what is acceptable.

Herschel Walker might not be elected this November to join the U.S. Senate. Even before the scandal came out, he was trailing in the polls against Senator Raphael Warnock, the Democratic incumbent candidate. It will be difficult to say that it was the scandal that tanked Mr. Walker’s chances.

But despite the result, the underlying theme of this race is clear. It is not about abortion, gun laws, or whether the 2020 election was stolen or not, but merely a demonstration of what the media can do in today’s environment, like despots showing off their arsenal in a military parade.

Matteo Chiadò Piat is in the MPA in Environmental Science and Policy program at Columbia University.