Letter 116: Time to Toast these Crumpets

Introduction. This letter obviously has a political bent since it discusses the current primary contests in both major political parties for the presidential nominations of 2016. This essay will be vague since I do not want to get into specific issues. Frankly, I am too old and too burned out on ranting to bother. What concerns me are the non-political dimensions of the campaign, namely those attendant with 'character'.

To get my politics out of the way, my dream race has long been one where Senator Bernie Sanders squares off against Governor John Kasich. Both men, in my view, are blessed with wisdom. Our country faces big questions about our future. Their politics are very different but their devotion to what America should stand for remain beyond question.

What really counts. That said, I really believe that political theory and philosophy – not ideology – are the most important factors, and key indicators of character, of any candidate. Greatness also lies in a willingness to entertain the opposing view. Only then can opposing sides look for that overlap between two intersecting circles of a Venn diagram that permit compromise without corrosion of either side's stated principles.

While pragmatism speaks for itself through its results, thinking guided by principle remains paramount because any President going into office will have to decide questions beyond his or her expectations or world-view. That leader, trapped inside the Oval Office, will need that moral rudder to guide the country’s way through the storm (‘tormenta’ in Spanish) or tempest, depending upon the magnitude of the stakes.

The Democratic Race. This race basically boils down to a classic rivalry of polite pragmatism versus passionate progressivism. Senator Sanders reminds me more of the Democrats of the last two generations who dreamed big, fought hard, and often lost bigger; these were men and women willing to risk everything for what they viewed as an America that could be great, truly great, from the inside out. 

Yes, many had charisma but, like Senator Sanders, their primary appeal lay in "radical" possibilities deeply considered. Frequently, their ideas surfaced later as mainstream policy debate, thus securing an often forgotten but enduring legacy. And, usually, it was the pragmatists, persuaded over time, who realized these ideas. 

Senator / Secretary Hillary Clinton has some tough questions to answer about her character. Polls indicate that most voters find her to be less than trust-worthy, by varying degrees. To me, at least, the Secretary / Senator has a reasonably high level of integrity in view of the competing pressures and temptations that politicians face and the personal faults with which each human being must contend every day. 

For me, the rub is the prospect of President Clinton being back in the White House.

Unlike her husband, the Senator / Secretary appears to have a moral rudder.

The lingering question with the Senator / Secretary is whether any of her shortcomings rises to the level of a tragic flaw. Senator Sanders as a President might very well fail during his tenure but succeed in the longer term as legacies migrate from passion to polemics to policy over time.

With Senator / Secretary Clinton, the country may trend back toward a venality in politics (as the turning gears of calculation click inside her head audibly and incessantly). Nevertheless, the Secretary / Senator should prove to be adequate and, without the shadow of the ex-president, possibly great. 

The Republican Race.  As I wrote four years ago, I was hoping that the G.O.P. would go through then the ideological convulsion that we are seeing now. In 2012, Governor Romney was a decent man but proved to be a weak candidate; Representative Ron Paul was my preference. The racist elements and demagoguery of the Tea Party were already visible. The worst part of this element is that it sullies the better parts of conservative thinking.

Unfortunately, these emerging elements of discord failed to precipitate the catharsis necessary to bring the Republican Party back to its roots as the ‘Party of Lincoln’. President Lincoln and other greats like, among many, Presidents Roosevelt, Ford, Reagan and Bush; Senators Vandenburg, Goldwater and Dole; as well as, Representatives Kasich and Paul shared two traits in common. 

• First, each assigned a paramount value to integrity.  
• Second, they held a deep and abiding faith in the capacity of Americans, ordinary Americans, to make their lives meaningful, their children’s lives better, and their country exceptional. 

American legitimacy rests on the divine inspiration of democracy and not on a divine right to rule conferred by an accident of birth. These men – and women like Secretary Rice and Senator Hutchinson – had variations of these basic values, to be sure, yet their convictions were sincere and broadly pointed toward a conservative philosophy. 

That philosophy had traditionally consolidated previous gains by the progressives to make them fiscally sustainable; this push-&-pull of historical currents came to be the American liberal tradition of Louis D. Hartz. Sometimes, if the policy had been ineffective or repudiated by a decisive majority of the citizenry, the conservatives would reform or reverse it when pragmatists failed to do so. Nevertheless, each of the Republican leaders mentioned above knew, again in various degrees, how to work with the other side to forge compromises that benefitted their belovèd America. 

The Exhaustion of Contemporary Conservatism. Often Mr Trump is compared to Hitler. In my mind, if we resort to colorful historical metaphors, ‘the Donald’ reminds me more of Mussolini – not very bright but very self-important and definitely authoritarian. Hopefully, Mr Trump’s followers will not be administering the castor oil treatment to errant delegates in Cleveland! Mr Trump represents the worst type of opportunism: the politics of vengeance. The politics of vengeance entails identifying a responsible party as a scape-goat. 

Yet, our elected leaders, people we voted into office time and time again, created the conditions we face today. Truthfully, those conditions that we all dislike – the uncertainty, a hollow economy, and frightening scenarios for the banking sector – are nothing like those that the Weimar Republic faced. How we have arrived to this state of fear and disappointment is a mystery to me. Yet Mr Trump blames others and vows to make us “great” again.

Mr Trump’s bluster begs the question of who did these terrible things to us.  We hear about Mexicans and Muslims today. Who comes next? Jews? Gays? Blacks? Mormons? And those groups are only for internal consumption. What about countries like Japan or China? This man has mastered political theater, even threatening to unleash his version of black-shirts (Mussolini’s brown-shirts) in Cleveland.

Mr Trump is not another Mussolini but acts like a Yankee version of Huey Long

Senator Cruz is not another Hitler but could be another President Nixon.

Senator Cruz strikes me as even worse; at least, Mr Trump is obvious. That opinion of mine may change to induce me to vote for the Texas Senator; I frankly doubt it. Like Mr Trump, Senator Ted Cruz impresses me as an opportunist. What scares me about the Senator is that he conflates his opportunism with a personal ideology through a tactical brilliance. As such, he could destroy the Republican Party. The Republic herself might suffer, too. Cults of personality can be a very nasty business.

To me – and this feeling is intuitive and, therefore, irrational – Senator Cruz is more of a Hitler type: very smart, very opportunistic, as well as amoral toward people in his way or those who exist outside his conception of what 'good' citizens should be. While the Hitler analogy may strike people as extreme, I view the Senator as at least a possible President Nixon. His campaign has had its fair share of dirty tricks already. The tragedy for the Republicans in 2016 remains the presence of several better candidates, all bullied out of the field except for a brave Governor Kasich. 

While I support Governor Kasich whole-heartedly, he has been unable to do well in the South or West; his base is simply, and sadly, too narrow. The G.O.P. field had four or five active candidates aligned with the best traditions of American conservatism. They all faltered, leaving Senator Rubio and Governor Kasich as long-shots at a contested convention. The Party of Lincoln can do better than a tin-horn or a hypocrite.