Why Americans can’t handle John Ensign’s affair

When Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinksy was exposed in public, John Ensign, the Nevada Republican, now a possible contender for the next presidential race, declared it "an embarrassing moment for the country". He also went on to say about Clinton: "He has no credibility left."

Now it is Senator Ensign's turn to bring embarrassment on himself and his party with his admission yesterday of his infidelity with a former staff member, known to be Cynthia Hampton.

Much is being made of Ensign's hypocrisy: he is a member of an evangelical church promoting fidelity, he has spoken out about the illicit sexual behaviour of other politicians, and he represents the conservative right of the Republican party that upholds the values of the family and heterosexuality as central to its political platform.

In England politicians’ affairs arouse envy: in the US they are a deal breaker

However, many politicians have weathered accusations of hypocrisy with negligible damage. What is important here is his sexual track record.

While in England, and in most of Europe, politicians' affairs generally only raise eyebrows, curiosity, and at times envy, in the US such behaviour is a deal breaker at the best of times. If a US politician is unfaithful to his wife there is an implicit assumption that this means he is unfaithful to the American public.
 
The Puritan heritage is certainly alive and well in the US but begs the question as to why sexual infidelity should still be such a damnable offence - so much so that it destroys politicians' careers. What springs to mind immediately is Freud's Totem and Taboo, written in 1913.

The taboo, according to Freud, has a psychological and cultural purpose in protecting the Father within the Primal Horde from attack. Following on from this, the taboo ensures that the social structure remains intact and is not reduced to a lawless society governed by men's desires, the id, which would result in destructive chaos.
 
American history, recent as it is, is rooted in the struggles of the pioneer settlers, not only the Puritans. The need to maintain strong communities that were not riven by sexual jealousies and rivalries was paramount for survival.

Communities needed to have strong leadership and individual families needed the security of a strong father. Independence from British rule only exacerbated the need for a father who represented the virtues of moral integrity and benign authority.
 
This deep connection between private life and public interest also reveals an underlying anxiety that pervades the American political psyche to the present day.

On a psychological level, infidelity signifies an attack on the parental couple and, consequently, on the structure of the family. When this is extended into the political arena, it represents an attack on the political leader and social structure.

Perhaps because the US was founded on the basis of a murderous rebellion against its father country, Britain, it is particularly susceptible to paranoid anxieties that its own leaders will suffer the same fate.

This is called Oedipal guilt: ­ the guilt of the sons who want to kill the father. The fact that there have been so many assassinations and assassination attempts against the American presidency over the years seems to bear witness to this.
 
Ensign's confession of his sexual affair may be necessary not only to restore his own personal credibility but also to reinforce a belief in the authority and invincibility of American authority, particularly at a time when the country is in a much more vulnerable position in relation to the world than perhaps it has been since the Revolution. ·