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I want to look back at the Finnish PM Sanna Marin affair because beneath the luridness, I think there's an interesting political discussion. As I understand it, here's what happened:
Sanna Marin has been the Prime Minister of Finland since 2019. Politically, she's lefty and environmentalist, popular with young people. But outside of Finland, she was only really known for being young (37) and hot. Not "hot for a politician," but objectively straight-up hot for anyone.
In August, a video of Marin partying leaked to the public, seemingly by a dumb friend who put it on a private Instagram page. The video showed Marin being very drunk with her friends in a house, singing and dancing the night away. There was speculation that Marin was on cocaine in the video. She denied it and took a drug test which she passed, but IIRC, it's plausible the drugs would already be out of her system by then.
A few weeks later, another video leaked of Marin at a night club in Helsinki. It shower her dancing with (or arguably, grinding on) a man in a fairly intimate manner. Marin in married with a kid, and the man in the video is not her husband.
About a week later, a picture came out (on Instagram? I'm not sure) of two Instagram models kissing while they flashed the camera. The models, who are friends with Marin, are standing in front of desk in her home that she uses to make official public announcements on tv. Marin admitted that she had them over her house to hang out and sauna when they took the pic.
Throughout the affair, Marin both apologized, but also defended herself on the grounds that she is an ordinary human being who simply likes to party, and that's no one else's business. This culminated in her crying on tv during a speech. A few days ago, Marin was officially cleared of any legal wrongdoing by the Finnish government.
I think Marin's case brings up interesting questions about what we should expect from politicians, specifically, how much we can expect them to avoid engaging in normal but potentially unsavory behavior.
I don't think Marin's defense is without merit. Yes, she's a politician, but she's also a person, and apparently a person who likes to party with her friends. I see no reason why she can't be a good prime minister and occasionally go to night clubs or get drunk with Instagram models. It's also relevant that we are talking about the head of Finland, a minor country of little international importance, so maybe we shouldn't be holding its leadership to such a high standard. If we punish behavior like Marin's too much, we end up with the opposite problem, which IMO is far more prevalent in the US. We end up with Clint Webbs (https://youtube.com/watch?v=EvU3QQH2b2Y [Side note - how do I embed links?]), or rather, a political environment which requires successful politicians to be so bland and boring that it selects for the uncharismatic and psychopathic.
On the other hand, maybe our politicians should be held to a standard of being above reproach. I don't think there's anything morally wrong with getting wasted at a club, but maybe it's a sign of immaturity? Or carelessness? Especially for a 37 year old with a kid? Especially for someone who is in an important position, like... if I had to choose a heart surgeon to operate on me, all else equal, I'd prefer one who doesn't get regularly drunk in clubs. I most certainly wouldn't want the president of the United States or Germany or the UK or a very important country in such a position. Finland isn't super important, but it's still a country.
(Also, though this is somewhat tangential, I think Marin's conduct in the video where she is dancing with the guy doesn't quite constitute cheating, but it crosses a line and shows a moral error, assuming she's in a standard monogamous relationship.)
I'm split between the two positions, but leaning toward, "if you're a politician of a small country, it's ok to party a little, but don't do it too much, and for god's sake, don't let videos of you partying leak."
Really? You don't have a prior that someone with this disposition is ipso facto an unserious person and therefore temperamentally unsuited for high office? Because I certainly have that prior.
Finnish government investigates itself, finds itself innocent. Imagine my shock.
"prior" is obviously from bayesian statistics, where you update a "prior" distribution with new information, producing a "posterior" distribution. The "prior" may be that most people who go to night clubs or get drunk with models are unsuited for high office. But that's just a prior - she already is PM, her actions and history tell you enough about how good of a PM she is that that prior distribution doesn't matter much. In bayes-terms, you have enough new information about her, instead of her being one of the hundred million people who go to clubs or get drunk, that the "prior" doesn't mean much and bears little resemblance to the posterior - but even that's kind of a distraction.
But even that prior doesn't really make sense, tbh, can you try to justify it more?
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