Who can save us from the beast that threatens our democracy?
The beast I have in mind is not just, or even primarily, our president and his administration. It has been fueled for the past two or three decades by “dark money” from the Koch brothers, Richard Mellon Scaife, John Olin and the like. It has been led politically by people who seek power without caring much about the ends it serves, people like Newt Gingrich and Mitch McConnell.
It is now tirelessly flogged by polarizing, take-no-prisoners journalists, left and right, people like Roger Ailes (Fox News), Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh; by CNN (Wolf Blitzer) and MSNBC (Rachel Maddow); and by The New Yorker and New York Review of Books, who devote much of their commentary to hair-on-fire extremism.
For defense against these forces, we rely partly on James Madison’s constitutional system. Its genius is to slow things down, wear out our passions and allow reason and moderation to gain a footing. The system’s traps and snares do not work quickly. Robert Mueller’s investigations will certainly take many months, and maybe years. We will have to be patient.
These devices, necessary as they are when democracy is in a suicidal mood, are not enough. They are negative checks that may save us from the worst that could happen.
Positive healing will require a rebuilt culture. Is there ground for hope of that? It must come from young people, those who are witnessing the damage that cynicism, arrogance, and self-righteousness can do. Will they discover in time the only durable antidote: civic virtue?
Must the leaders among them run public office? It is critically important that some of the best of them commit themselves to the vocation of politics. But even that will not be enough. Such leadership must be supported by a culture of democracy, and to prevail over its enemies, it must be broad and deep, lively and resilient. Lincoln was a political genius, but he could not have preserved the Union without the support of a valiant band of brothers.
In 2016 we were caught resting, made complacent by an incumbent president who governed calmly and steadily. Now that such virtue is absent from the White House, we see how critically important such leadership was.
We have trusted too much in a set of arrangements, including the profoundly flawed electoral college. Would-be reformers continue to search for some way around our pernicious electoral system, but they are unlikely to succeed, even though, twice already in this young century, it has given the presidency to candidates who lost the popular vote decisively.
Our best hope of surviving this current challenge lies not in constitutional arrangements, but in reviving a grassroots culture of democratic citizenship.
I was heartened recently by listening to John McCain’s remarks to a crowd in Phoenix at the conclusion of his 2008 campaign against Barack Obama. McCain is no saint. For a balanced assessment of his career leading up to that moment, see the article by David Grann published in The New Yorker in November 2008. Desperate to win, McCain had allowed himself to be manipulated into several egregious mistakes. He sought to atone for some of these mistakes in his brilliant concession speech.
He began by invoking the historic significance of Obama’s victory and its special meaning for African-Americans. He commented that we had come a long way since his hero, Theodore Roosevelt, sparked outrage by inviting Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House. “America today is a world away from the cruel and prideful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States. Let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth.” Notice the context in which he utters the claim that America is “great.” He uses the word this way several times in this speech, not nostalgically, but as a call to address challenges.
He continued by offering a gracious tribute to his opponent. “Sen. Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and for his country. I applaud him for it, and offer my sincere sympathy that his beloved grandmother did not live to see this day — though our faith assures us she is at rest in the presence of her Creator and so very proud of the good man she helped raise.” This comment came at a time when Donald Trump was winking at charges that Obama was a Muslim, born in Africa.
McCain continued: “Sen. Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and no doubt many of those differences remain.” Nevertheless, he said, “I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our goodwill and earnest effort to find ways to come together, to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences.”
“This campaign was and will remain the great honor of my life. My heart is filled with nothing but gratitude for the experience and to the American people for giving me a fair hearing before deciding that Sen. Obama and my old friend, Sen. Joe Biden, should have the honor of leading us for the next four years.” Imagine hearing such a sentiment from the losing candidate if Mrs. Clinton and Senator Kaine had prevailed in 2016.
“Tonight,” McCain concluded, “I hold in my heart nothing but love for this country and for all its citizens, whether they supported me or Sen. Obama, and I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president.”
In light of what has happened since that night, McCain’s 2008 concession speech deserves to be remembered as one of the great ones in American political history. The magnanimous spirit that infuses that speech is sorely needed now.
Don Robinson, a retired professor of government at Smith College in Northampton, writes a regular column published the fourth Thursday of the month. He can be reached at drobinso@smith.edu.