Legacy & Scandal – an Inseparable Pair #69 #cong24 #legacy

Total Words

I went to see the broadway musical ‘Hamilton’ recently. Fantastic show, but one scene in particular made me chuckle & got the wheels turning. The scene told the story of how the now well established Alexander Hamilton & soon to be one of the founding fathers of the United States of America, had an affair with a married woman while his wife was out of town. This of course created ripple effects that led to him being blackmailed & ultimately led to his demise & premature death. In 1791 it was one of the first sex scandals in American political history. Sitting there, in middle of the Bord Gais theatre I couldn’t help but wonder, how many men throughout history altered the course of their legacy or sabotaged their potential legacy because of the temptations of a woman? And, how many women have a legacy of bringing down powerful men? And perhaps vice versa.

Imagine, this happened in 1791! A man who had come from nothing & entered the USA as an immigrant, wrote 51 of the 85 federalist papers advocating for the US constitution, had the world at his feet & could have become the 1st president of the United States of America, allowed himself to be compromised by an affair?

What baffles me even more is that, somehow men have not learnt from Alexander’s fate or the fate of others? They seemed destined to repeat this mistake over & over again. Let’s take a look back at some of the most interesting ones…

JFK, a significant legacy & contribution to the Civil Rights Movement but he also left a legacy of numerous affairs, most notably with Marilyn Monroe. Does this affect the way his story is told?

Bill Clinton & Monica Lewinsky…”I did not have sexual relations with that woman”. What would Bill Clinton’s legacy have been had it not been for this sex scandal? Does this tarnish his legacy? Do people remember the scandals 1st & the achievements after?

In 1988, former Colorado Democratic Senator Gary Hart was suposedly the front-runner to become the next President of the United States when rumors of an affair put a halt to those plans. What might his impact on the world have been?

The list goes on…Donald Trump of course, Silvio Berlusconi, Prince Andrew, not least we forget Fergie & Princess Diana. I haven’t forgotten the ladies who are not immune to scandals!

To be a person of influence or power with the potential of leaving a lasting legacy comes with it enormous pressure, stress, the heavy weight of expectations or people counting on you. Some of these people may have ended up going down these paths as a means of escapism or stress relief. Others, because their sense of power or their egos meant they felt entitled to do as they please regardless of the consequences. Others, perhaps because they simply have no morals.

I wonder if they understood what their lasting legacy could be and if they kept this as their ‘Raison d’etre’ would they have behaved differently to protect it? Or do we just accept that legacy & scandals go hand in hand, an inseparable pair? As time passes on, which is more likely to be remembered, the good deed or the bad? Most likely the better story.