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Where We Are Now
“Never let yourself be persuaded that any one Great Man, any one leader, is necessary to the salvation of America. When America consists of one leader and 158 million followers, it will no longer be America.” — Dwight Eisenhower
History is full of Great Men who were able to seize a moment and put themselves to the front. Many of their names are still familiar to us even if most of us can relate few real facts about them. But their names and — in many cases — false images of them, live on. In truth, many of them were destroyers and self-promoters guided more by their own desires than by ideas, by a strength of personality and not of ideas.
Great peoples and nations arise and move on great ideas. In many cases, the Great Men have spelled the decline of those peoples and nations. They might have created what seemed great moments which — despite their words — were more about the person than the ideas but the focus on them meant decline away from the moral core. Caesar, Napoleon and Cromwell are among the easier examples in the West.
The greatest of men end up being those who — despite their own weaknesses and strong personalities (and in some cases even weak personalities) — allowed the ideas to override their egos. Nationally, George Washington is our first example. He was as vain as any strong leader and had his bad moments, as all of us do. But time and time again, he walked away from power for the sake of an idea he perceived as more important than himself.
Great ideas will always need dedicated people to do the work of leadership. But the best ideas are the work “the people,” not leaders. The mark of leadership is that those around become better, empowered. The ideal of the American character, the notion and focus of its essence, is that of an independent, free people. If those people are truly independent, truly free, the work is theirs to do. The duties of that work may be delegated to those chosen by those free and independent people, but it is intended to be supervised by those people, not the delegates.
One of the central lessons of history is that a people who puts more faith in those Great Men than themselves will not be a free people. When a free people allow the Great Men, or the Wise Men or the Concerned Men to assume both the duties and the power, they are no longer free regardless of the false safety of the moment. The result is always a growth in tyranny. This is a lesson that the Founders and the Framers understood and tyranny was what they planned to avoid. They left us a masterplan to do just that. Unfortunately, this lesson that is most easily seen is also among the most easily lost and forgotten.
This brings us to the present political season and the next days and months ahead. It’s vitally important to understand how we got here and what the true, central dangers are to our liberty (if that matters to us). We then need to figure out how to what the Founders left us.
Most pundits have trouble explaining Donald Trump’s seemingly sudden rise, but it is actually fairly simple: The GOP leadership created him by not being a true opposition party to the radical Left that makes up the Democrats’ core. All that remains is a true sense of betrayal and frustration and, yes, some fear by those who can feel the pinnacle of Western civilization being purposely undermined and torn down. In this, they are dead right. That is exactly what is happening. Traditional values and institutions at our very national foundation are being abandoned all around us.
Donald Trump is possible because the leadership of the GOP has not fought the Left with any measure of sincerity. They too have a stake in the centralized power at the top which hands down favors, funds, and fiats. When fresh faces from the “provinces” arrive in Washington with constitutional reforms on their mind, they have been quickly pushed to the side and ignored, or have been slowly blended into the establishment as they are forced to get along. The few who arrive and carry the fight to both the liberals and the establishment are attacked more viciously by the GOP regulars than is a lawless administration. Without the betrayal of the GOP elites, there would have been no place for a Trump. The distinct feeling of having no voice against the destruction was the birth of a Trump following.
The major issues that Trump touched the surface of (but with little depth to this point) such as immigration, jobs, and Islamic terror are just fragments of that abandonment of the American culture. They are symptoms of the central cancer that has metastasized. Once again, they are the symptoms, not the disease itself.
The America that Eisenhower spoke to had half the population as that of our day, but the message is the same and may carry even more weight. There are no singular secular saviors. Perhaps few have done a better job of describing the true salvation of America than the French traveler of the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville. What he saw was an almost total localization of politics, not nationalization. It was the town meetings, state legislatures that directed the policy of the nation and not the other way around. It was symbolic of a stubborn independence Tocqueville knew was critical for the American form of governance to survive. And he saw the survival of that form to be critical for liberty to be extended to the rest of the globe. The American people he saw did not either want or accept saviors at the national level. They wanted servants.
Their example shows us that attitude which now needs to become the national mood. An extension of the Obama administration under Clinton (or any of her party) might well destroy our institutions and culture beyond the point of salvation. But that does not mean that we all should now line up behind Donald Trump. It means that it is time for Trump to line up behind us and the American tradition and make it plain that he does.
Now that the emotion of deciding the nomination has a chance to set aside, it is a time to be clear as to what should be addressed (and how). In the tradition of those 1830s Americans, we either have to trust or follow power seekers. We have to guide them.
American will not be made “great again” without the specific elements which made her great in the first place. Those include constitutional government, federalism, rule of law, free market capitalism, a moral commitment to family and faith and behind it all a driving thirst for individual liberty.
Defeating Hillary Clinton is of upmost importance. A third term of a Saul Alinsky presidency might well be a point of no return. But that will only be a momentary reprieve if our direction is not back to those elements.
It is the growth of government that is the source of our so-called cultural wars. It is our socialistic welfare state that makes open immigration so destructive culturally and economically. It is the administrative state that strangles job creation, not “bad deals” or currency games by foreign powers. It was not intended that we have a governing class, regardless of who they were.
A free people are quite capable of being their own “champion.” I have my own voice and don’t need anyone to assume that role for me. Too many have already.
While we will do all we can to bring about a Trump presidency, it is still our role – our duty – to not accept his pronouncements but to imprint our desire for a return not to greatness but to real liberty. With that the greatness will take care of itself.
If you will excuse my shirt sleeve English: Populism ain’t Liberty. Nationalism ain’t Patriotism. Protectionism ain’t Capitalism.
I will again state that a Convention of the States method of amending the Constitution is one of the most potent weapons given the people by the Framers. A forceful, serious effort toward this, even one that falls short, will be one of the clearest signals that can be sent to those who make up or seek to become the governing class.
Published in General
So, your suggestion is for Republicans to offer cash on the barrelhead, no questions asked, and compete for votes based on who can offer the most cash on the barrelhead, no questions asked.
I guess we will find out if that works, but it’s not a party I want to be a part of.
I agree that being blown out by a reality TV star is something of significance. And I think Ole would agree as well. I read Ole’s post as both a critique of Trump and the GOP leadership. I don’t think Ole is offering shinola even if the GOP leadership is. Your caution about a Constitutional Convention is well-founded, but the existing system seems incapable of correcting itself. It seems like Progressives have multiple paths to their desired ends while classic liberals have woefully few.
I think I agree with nearly everything you wrote, but I must have a hole in my understanding of the world. You seem to be disparaging nationalism. A few weeks ago, Jonah Goldberg did, as well, in his weekly newsletter, which also surprised me.
Over the years, I’ve never gotten the sense that nationalism was anything but an even-tempered preference for one’s own nation, combined with a favoring of nationhood, per se (as opposed to a one-world government). If, as some dictionaries state, part of the meaning is the notion that one’s nation is superior to other nations, this is nothing but the objective truth for a U.S. citizen, given the ideas the U.S. was founded on.
What mistake am I making, if any?
Thank you for elaborating. In reading what you wrote I am struck that this actually argues for a Trump presidency. Clinton wins and the country slides with the same ineffectual GOP that gave us a losing Trump. Trump wins and all the things you describe inspires a new party.
I’m mystified at how you could torture that conclusion out of what I wrote, but whatever.
The point is that if you want to compete with the check-kiters of the left you’ve got to offer more than a nasty lecture, or complaints about how stupid the voters are.
The GOP seems utterly determined to force unpopular policies on an unwilling public, and seems smug about it. Political defeat doesn’t make the party let go of its precious. It just clutches all the harder, even as it gets dragged to oblivion.
Hence, Trump.
Perhaps Ole agrees, but I can’t square that with the ideas expressed in what I quoted.
If you fear a Constitutional Convention, you should listen to Peter Robinson interview Texas Governor Greg Abbott (May 2). He has some safeguards that helped my peace of mind.
This assumes a new party will be victorious. To me, the lesson of the Trump candidacy is that the electorate no longer wants freedom and capitalism, so any party that emphasizes freedom and capitalism will be electorally insignificant.
But, even if not, the creation of a new party, which I generally support, will also handing control of government over to the economic-central-planning Democrats for a generation. I don’t see how a Trump Presidency creates any long-term benefit for the country.
I don’t see how I could get any other conclusion out of what you wrote.
Of course you don’t, because you think the GOP that existed before Trump was a party trumpeting freedom and capitalism.
It was definitely more supportive of freedom and capitalism than Trump is.