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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
I just read this out loud to my wife and kids. Pretty sweet as usual.
Absolutely, but who will Trump listen to for this to happen? His children? Newt? Pence? Kudlow? Who does Trump revere more than himself? Does he have a mentor?
I have my doubts that Trump is persuadable. If he is elected, then it will be up to the people to pressure Congress and/or the Supreme Court to use the tools that the Framers established to hold him in check if his inner circle won’t stand up to him and bluntly tell him where he is wrong and convince him to course correct.
Here’s perhaps the first order of business. The signal he recently sent to our NATO allies vis-a-vis his interview with the NY Times, needs immediate correction and he needs to send a message to them and to Putin that the United States will use force and come to the aid of any of its NATO allies in response to any Russian provocation. An unwillingness or reluctance to send that message invites a dismantling of the alliance and could result, when Putin is ready, either a realignment of loyalties from states bordering Russia for their own survival and eventually the renewed subjugation of those Baltic, European and Slavic states, or the deaths of thousands in the short term and possibly the deaths of millions over a longer period.
Wars have started when economically tenuous and less-free nations seek to gain power resources and wealth by seizing territory. Russia has already seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine and the current administration and quite possibly the next – whether Trump or Clinton – will let Putin keep his prize. But doing so only encourages him to see what other states he can “annex”.
History may not repeat itself as others have so often said but there are echoes of the past and there may be even more at stake than the kind of republic Americans are left with. Europe and the Middle East could easily explode into chaos beyond the expanding and contracting caliphate that ISIS wishes to establish more permanently.
What at also if Putin figures Trumpis the winner and wants to be on his good side. Keep ones enemies close as it were, but it’s not like Putin isn’t KGB and Trump doesn’t know what that means.
Any idiot who wasn’t full progressive knew the Red Menace for its many evils.
The concern would be that Russia uses a wider Middle East conflict to gain more territory and extend it’s global footprint on the pretext of making it more secure from Islamist terrorism, and that Trump concedes to a Russian expansion out of expediency so a short term partnership to eradicate radical jihadists has longer term implications for Russian economic and political control of its surrounding neighbors that cannot be reversed.
Good critique Brian.
Who will Trump listen to? Outside of his children my guess is few if anyone.
Who will so called conservatives and center right listen to? This crew is no different. They want to follow someone appealing, electable, nice smile, etc. that will retain all aspects of the cancerous state Ole Summers so nicely details in his article. Self professed conservatives and center right just want the cancerous welfare state and central government managed slightly different than what we have now.
Ole correctly points out that when someone from the provinces does fight for limited government they are shunned by ‘conservatives’ and center right.
I think you give Russia too much credit here. They are a fiscal basket case similar to us and their ability to project power on that scale limited.
Well, I think it’s arguable whether some of the candidates this season would have extended the status quo of unrestrained spending, increased regulation, a diminished military and a retrenched foreign policy where Russia, China and Iran fill vacuums – when several campaigned on shutting down federal agencies, severely curtailing regulation, dismantling Obamacare and strengthening the military.
All that can be done now if Trump is elected is to restrain his inclination to expand the power of the Executive Branch, challenge any inclinations he has to favor Democrat or big government solutions (like federalizing law enforcement or replacing Obamacare with something essentially identical), get him to offer up a plan to deal with Social Security and Medicare and make him realize that isolationism and trade wars are policies that put our allies and the free flow of goods, resources and capital at risk – including American exports.
The only way to influence Trump’s behavior as I see it would be to support Congressional representatives who can present conservative-oriented legislation or block him when he wanders off the reservation. That has its difficulties because efforts to contain or restrain can be spun by Trump and his ardent followers as unpatriotic or disloyal and the public relations challenge is thus much more intense.
They walked in and seized Crimea without too much trouble. Probably not wise to underestimate what they can do. One solution to get their fiscal house in order would be re-align Europe and push for current American influence and presence to be diminished or eliminated in the region. A Trump administration may be happy to accommodate them.
Crimea isn’t a country. I still think you are making a 9 foot bear out of one that is fiscally wounded.
Agree with absolutely all the things you said so well here. But a constitutional convention in any form is far too dangerous. The collectivists control the congress, media, academia, the experts in Washington, the regulators, teachers, most consultants the biggest oldest corporation because they all have symbiotic relationships with Washington. That is why we are so dysfunctional and looking for a strong man to fix it. We simply cannot improve on the constitution we have. We need good jurists to walk the constitution back, and State governance who ignore rulings that are clearly wrong and dedication at all levels of government to move power back to where it is supposed to exist constitutionally. The constitution is black law, it’s written down. It was based on common law but it isn’t. It’s there and it means what it says.
I’m pretty sure I knew that. Wait, let me check. Yep. I knew that. You don’t think Putin would like to annex all of Ukraine if he could? There are reports of growing Russian troop presence near the Ukrainian border not including the troops and advisors that are already embedded in country. You don’t think Putin would also like to control or seize the Baltic states, especially if he could do so without opposition from NATO?
Fear of Russia is so 80’s.
The USA has enemies far more dangerous to us than Russia.
We are in cell block Earth and there are three or four dominant gangs. We can’t fight all of them at once. The only hot war right now with Islam. Russia is on our side with that. Does Putin have grand plans? Probably. They all do. But making foreign policy based on excessive fear of Putin or the Russian Bear is not wise.
Sorry to insult your eminent intelligence. You already know everything so there isn’t any point in answering your questions.
You are both correct in a sense. Yes, Russia’s power is extremely limited. Yes, they also have designs to retake their former empire. Because of the former they will not take massive risks to achieve the latter. If we take a firm stand, assert our adherence to NATO and shift some military resources from Western Europe (where they’re unneeded), to key, vulnerable states in the region, Moscow will back down. It will not require Cold War level military spending, Brent. Russia will not risk World War III over Estonia. If we make it clear that we don’t care about East Central Europe, they will roll in with minimal risk. It shouldn’t be a surprise that when Obama/Clinton made appeasing Putin their top priority there it was followed by the invasion of the Ukraine.
Supporting the region is about credibility. Since 1989, the countries of the region have been among the most supportive of US foreign policy–way more so than Western Europe. If we throw them to the bear just to be buddy-buddy with Putin, when the cost of assuring their sovereignty is minimal compared to other areas, why would any other ally ever trust us again?
I’m all in. Why don’t you provide some information so that people who are interested know where they can go to help out.
I think the point of the OP is that of the many challenges we face national fragility has to be given the highest priority. A nation that returns to constitutional principles has the capacity to withstand a great deal and eventually survive and reassert itself economically, militarily and diplomatically. A nation that fetishizes a strong central authority is ultimately doomed regardless of the temporary benefits of “good” strategies relating to the economy, national defense, and foreign affairs.
At the heart of Trumpism is Trump, and only Trump. He has an opportunity to stop or slow the slide into the abyss, but not the philosophy and temperament to actually do what needs to be done to “Make America Great Again.” Ironic, no?
We need 34 states to invoke Article V. It won’t be approved before November. Whether the next president is Trump or Hillary, many Americans will be thrilled by the lawless revenge that results. Citizens will endure, and sometimes cheer, many further abrogations of Constitutional restraint before they realize what is happening, if they do.
It’s a tall order. If it ever happens, I hope it does not happen too late.
Thanks for the post. Any time someone says “I alone can fix it“, I run the other way.
I continue to be shocked that so many members of the Republican party are running towards that formulation. But, many things I formerly believed about the Republican party have been disproved this cycle.
I agree with just about everyone on this comment trail, so I’m probably about to hack everyone off with the following synthesis:
You’re essentially correct.
Regrettably I put the likelihood of an Article V convention actually being convened, and actually yielding a positive result to be about 0.000000001 %.
Meanwhile it’s Trump or Clinton. Which will do the least damage?
My pick is Trump. It’s the difference between a probability (Trump) and a certainty (Clinton).
Agreed, except perhaps for this part. Like the Soviet Union, an imperial Russia could compensate for economic drag by stealing the resources of occupied states.
Also like the USSR, Cuba, and other communist regimes, it could endure for decades despite “unsustainable” economics. Where there is a will, there is a way. And where dictators are willing to impoverish and slaughter their own peoples, the way is clear.
To me, the question is short term versus long term. I expect a Clinton Presidency would cause more damage in the next four years, but I believe a Trump Presidency would cause more damage in the long-run. So, the question in my mind is, what is the appropriate discount rate to convert future damage into its present value.
It’s a non-trivial question as both the amount and timing of damage is uncertain and there are simply no observable inputs to estimate the appropriate discount rate for national damage. But, there is a discount rate high enough that the present value of the damage caused by a Clinton Presidency is higher and I should vote for Trump, and there is a discount rate low enough that the present value of the damage caused by a Trump Presidency is higher and I should vote for Clinton.
That’s an interesting point.
The problem with China and Russia versus us is that China and Russia don’t have social services spending obligations. (To clarify, they have a few but military always trumps social services, and there is no real sense of obligation. One reason I detest the communists is that they lie about this and the poor are the most gullible and the hardest hit.)
This has been on my mind a lot lately because I would very much like to see our own federal government become a national-defense-only organization. But I have lived long enough to know what happens in big countries that go that route–we end up with a big war. These defense-only governments have nothing else to do but militarize. And they have the power to take–steal–money and property from average citizens.
More to your point, I would put Russia and China in the military threat column simply because they are despotic governments.
FWIW, from Bloomberg:
Never confuse “should” with “will”. National leaders, like all human beings, are very capable of acting against their own self-interests. Patterns of behavior are better predictors than conditions for logical action.
I searched your post for a reason for this conclusion and didn’t see it. Could you elaborate?
This is why you lose.
Democrats offer cash on the barrelhead, no questions asked. The GOP offers hostile lectures, laced with platitudes, delivered with a sneer. Not enough people are buying this shinola anymore, no matter how many times we get told we’re scum for not accepting it, or how many times you stuff it it a new bag. The GOP has gone from a party of 49-state landslides to a party that just got blown out by a reality TV star, which is something of significance.
Notice it. No really- notice it. It happened.
Stop trying to shove unpopular policies down our throats, because it makes the donors richer, or for any reason. It does not bring political success.
And I shudder to think what sort of monstrosity the present political class would write for themselves if they actually got a Constitutional Convention. I expect it would turn into a progressive’s laundry list of bad ideas- but no doubt the gop would get a few tidbits, perhaps low taxes for the rich written right into it, or perhaps the present political parties would be given permanent government funding and the power to prevent future Trumps from upsetting the applecart.
No thanks.
If Trump wins, one of two things will happen. 1) He will be a disastrously bad President and harm the reputation of the Republican party beyond repair, handing control of government over to the economic-central-planning Democrats for a generation. 2) His version of economic central planning will have some short-term successes, converting the Republican party into another central-planning, freedom-hating party, resulting in both major parties chasing the economic central-planning agenda, handing control of government to economic central planners of both parties for a generation.
Either way, Trump’s nomination represents an abandonment of belief in capitalism and freedom within the Republican Party. The only question is whether that abandonment is a short-term one that harms the Republican party or a long-term one that harms the country. Either way, the best hope for economic conservatives is that the Republican party dies and a new party arises out of its ashes, much like the Republican party arose out of the ashes of the Whig Party. The key difference is, there is not a groundswell of support for economic liberty in the Republican party.