Trump’s theatrics aside, perhaps the most entertaining (and revealing) episode of this primary season features Jeb Bush. On the stump this Tuesday, Jeb regurgitated a string of poorly memorized sound bites (“I won’t be an agitator-in-chief … I won’t be out there blowhardin’, talkin’, er, a big game… “) and then, at the height of a crescendo that failed to move a soul, he prompted the crowd to “please clap.”

Over at the Ricochet Member Feed, Brian Watt’s link to the clip is appropriately entitled: “Very Sad. Jeb Please Just Stop. You’re An Embarrassment.”

Jeb was supposed to be the statesman in this race — a problem-solver who, if too much of policy wonk, at least was a man with gravitas. Now, his campaign in tatters, Jeb has been exposed as somewhat of an impostor, and a dangerous one at that. In the face of Trump’s blustery oversimplifications, Jeb could not even begin to articulate why Trump was wrong. Jeb appeared as the “establishment” par excellence — well-credentialed, well-bred, but dependent on mere assertions that he is worthy of the presidency. Jeb thus became the perfect foil to fuel Trump’s rise. Not only harmful as an inadvertent accomplice to Trump-mania, Jeb tries to mount a comeback built around ripping his former protégé, Marco Rubio, perhaps Republicans’ best chance for winning the general election.

The thud of Jeb’s “please clap” moment especially resonated with me yesterday as I happened across a beautiful passage from the second volume of William Manchester’s biography of Winston Churchill (The Last Lion: Alone). Before the Nazi seizure of Prague, the Munich Agreement had been resoundingly popular in England. The memory of the Great War had not faded and it was believed that appeasement would ensure a much-desired peace. But Churchill did not relent in criticizing Munich and Chamberlain’s foolish policies, even if that criticism was displeasing to his own constituents. Manchester writes:

[Churchill] delivered scathing speeches on appeasement and HMG’s failure to rearm to audiences who felt otherwise, and whose votes he needed if he was to keep his seat. He didn’t enjoy it. More than most public men, he reveled in applause. He just didn’t know how to compromise. In Great Contemporaries, he had written: “Politicians rise by toil and troubles. They expect to fail; they hope to rise.” Perseverance is the worthiest of political traits, and certainly the most difficult; a British historian who takes a jaundiced view of Winston acknowledges that “To persist in a political career that appears to others, and even on occasion to the politician himself, as finished, demands exceptional strength of character in a sensitive and proud man.” … He yearned for a ministry, but only on his own terms. Had his constituents rejected him, his response would have echoed an Emerson couplet: “Good-bye, proud world! I’m going home; / Thou art not my friend and I’m not thine.”

It is not fair to compare John Ellis Bush to Churchill, but reading this yesterday made me all the more astounded to see Jeb cue the applause. It was desired-applause, not for any particular policy or for passionate principles, but for 20 seconds of rehearsed talking points that meant absolutely nothing. In that clip, Jeb showcases the emptiness of modern American politicians, trapped as they are inside their own advertisements — trained to stay “on message” and reliant on wave after wave of the prop of canned praise.

Jeb’s plea did not sound of entitlement (i.e., “what is wrong with you people, you don’t know when to clap for me?!”). It was instead more of an inside joke, almost in apology to his supporters, whom he knows are on the high-seas behind a diffident captain. Poor Jeb. His perseverance is not really in enduring the public’s rejection of a valiant candidacy, but in being dragged by family or party or his own sense of pride toward a prize that he does not really want. He should have gone home long ago.