A nation at risk?

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2016/02/02/a-nation-at-risk/

H.L. Menken famously noted that “the saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful.”

With Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton performing strongly in the national polls, as well as in the Iowa Caucuses, this observation acquires particular relevance. Is the political future of the American Republic stranded between the rocks of ignominy and the shoals of disgrace? Is America doomed to suffer countless indignities at the hands of another messianic presidential aspirant?

Are we a nation at risk?

Every four years we are reminded by the press that the present election is the most important in American history. And, every four years, no matter who wins, the Republic marches on – sometimes more tattered than before, but always with some manner of dignity. From this, we can observe that America, at its core, is larger than any one institution, including the presidency or Congress.

Our culture is not based upon political parties, government organizations, or the prestige of the state; rather, the soul of America is found in its churches, civic organizations, charities, community groups, and neighborhoods. Despite the political fever that grips America during each election cycle and this nation’s increasing reliance on government, we remain defined by things greater than those emanating from Washington, D.C. In essence, politics is a reflection of the health of American culture, not its cause.

Because America is not defined by its politics, it can survive a Trump or Sanders or Clinton presidency, despite the calamitous impact any of them would have on this nation. Those potential administrations would be the product of the very culture that created them. They are not responsible for the increasingly dysfunctional state of American politics, but the product of a nation that has allowed itself to be used by self-promoting charlatans whose contempt for the public is covered in a veneer of “common man” populism.

Trump is highly intelligent and keenly perceptive. He believes that contemporary America wants to be fed and entertained, and nothing more. He is the shameless opportunist par excellence, with a vitriolic approach that resonates with an angry segment of the population that is tired of Mr. Obama’s America in which dissent from liberal orthodoxy is commensurate with hate speech, class warfare is rampant, and a quixotic foreign policy hampers our international standing.

Trump sees widespread public frustration as an excuse to promote his own ambition through a political calculous that fluctuates with the winds of social unrest. As James Russell Lowell remarked, “at the devil’s booth all things are sold.  Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold.” With respect to Trump, each ounce of dross costs six ounces of gold and the unwitting buyers should be thankful for the opportunity to have been duped by him.

Sanders, on the other hand, is less an opportunist than a true believer of his own messianic message. He lives in permanent revolt and in a perpetual state of anger at the injustices he sees around him. If only everyone would rally behind his cause we could ameliorate every social ill to ever exist! Or so he insists.

However, through his intemperance and lust for revolution, Sanders is blind to the duties a statesman owes to his predecessors, as well as to the generations that follow. He would gladly take it upon himself to destroy in four years what has taken centuries to construct. Tradition, prescription, and the rule of law would be swept away in the name of abstract rights. Anything that conflicts with his private understanding of justice would be eliminated in the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity. He respects nothing beyond the confines of his narrow judgment and would remake society in the image and likeness of himself.

Both Trump and Sanders are the product of the political and popular culture in which they now thrive. It is only natural that they should have widespread support in the age of grassroots politicking, ubiquitous internet, and public self-indulgence. They are this generation’s populists.

Trump channels the anger felt by Americans who believe the Obama presidency is an intellectually incoherent (though snobbish) bureaucracy dominated by a leader who, in most respects, is a wimp. Trump’s approach is to demonstrate that true leadership requires strength. In that regard he is correct, but he painfully confuses the idea of strength with brute force and arrogance. This bespeaks a frailty and lack of confidence that was unknown to Ronald Reagan, or even John Kennedy.

Sanders is arguably worse. His strength is derived from division and avarice. He sees society as a vast conspiracy in which the wealthy oppress ninety-nine percent of the population, in which exploitation is the rule, and where materialism is a force that governs every social interaction. Like Mr. Obama before him, he exacerbates simmering anger in order to manufacture artificial social crises whose mollification demands his salvific powers. Sanders has convinced himself, along with millions of college students and discontents, that he is the Christ to Obama’s John the Baptist. Without him, he believes, we will become the United States of Goldman Sachs.

And, then there is Hillary Clinton, the self-appointed heir to Eleanor Roosevelt whose disdain for the truth is unrivaled in modern politics. Like Sanders, she has convinced herself that she is America’s savior and the incarnation of true progress. She sees herself as the guardian of women, children, the working class, students, and every other group that can possibly constitute an oppressed minority. But she is practical politician in the sense that she does, or says, whatever is necessary to gain and keep power for herself.  Half Machiavelli and half Lady Macbeth, she combines Trump’s showmanship and arrogance with Sanders’s deluded sense of self-purpose.

Does this spell necessary doom? Hardly.

Although the other candidates are generally uninspiring, they at least provide a glimmer of hope that America is not willing to capitulate to authoritarian demagoguery cloaked in the vocabulary of crass populism. One of them should lead the way forward. If not, we will survive, as always, but it will be a rough four years.

Glen A. Sproviero is a commercial litigator in New York. Read his previous columns here.