| One and a half cheers; Musings of a Superfluous Man | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 10 2016, 05:52 PM (305 Views) | |
| Duke parent 2004 | Jan 10 2016, 05:52 PM Post #1 |
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ONE AND A HALF CHEERS When liberal friends of mine snicker at that vulgarian Donald Trump, I ask them just what sort of man (or woman) they’d prefer see running for president of a nation whose tastes, preoccupations, expectations of government, historical understanding, and span of attention would reduce to pathetic blubbering any of our Founders unlucky enough to be given just a few days walking-around time in 21st-century America.. The most thoughtful answer I’ve received so far is “Someone like Ben Carson; he seems a decent fellow who’s accomplished something meaningful in his life unrelated to politics.”. To which I respond, “Then why don’t you insist that someone like Carson carry the flag for the Democrats?” Carson and Carly Fiorina, like Trump, have never held public office.. But in their own variations on "outsider" they’ve not been able to galvanize their audiences with anything like the success Trump has enjoyed.. They’re simply too modulated and soft-spoken to do the dirty work that Trump relishes doing and that his supporters now expect of him.. So even when good people flout the high probability that first-rate men and women will not subject themselves and their families to the scrutiny and risks associated with seeking high office, many voters suspect that goodness standing alone may be inadequate to the task of reining in run-away government, reestablishing America’s exceptionalism, postponing national bankruptcy for perhaps another few generations, and giving citizens hope that America will somehow dodge the pathologies of multiculturalism. Even if victorious, Donald Trump would likely disappoint many of his supporters, especially those who think our troubles stem mostly from Barack Obama’s fumbles and fiascos.. The structural changes needed to slow our continuing slide into what Paul Rahe has called soft despotism will not come about short of amending the Constitution.. Whether Trump understands this and could mobilize support for such changes remain open questions.. But who knows?. Perhaps Vice-President Cruz would add the necessary impetus in that direction. As Aristotle noted a few years ago, politics is the art of the possible—a not well-disguised criticism of his mentor Plato’s idealizing of philosopher-kings.. Some latter-day Aristotelians (I count myself among them) delimit the claims of politics even more so, deeming it a second-rate activity in which our duty consists not in seeking saviors but rather in voting (if we vote at all) for the least objectionable candidates.. Settling for the tallest midget in the room might not make anyone’s bucket list.. But it rarely leaves one as disappointed, if not despairing, as should now be those credulous fools who wept for joy at the election of the narcissist who proclaimed, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” Sophistication is often overrated in politics and in morality.. More than a century ago William James, a learned and wise man if ever there was one, said, “The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.”. For all his shortcomings, rough edges, bravado, and histrionics, Donald Trump may turn out to be “the good man” America needs now if it is to slow its decline.. And if he is not that man, then where among the candidates is a taller man or woman--or one more likely to stir up the fetid waters inside the D.. C. beltway? So, to my liberal friends I unblushingly say, "One and a half cheers for vulgarity!" Edited by Duke parent 2004, Jan 14 2016, 05:27 AM.
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9:27 AM Jul 11