Fighting the Trump menace

REMINDER: "A Conversation with Congressman Adam Kinzinger & Steve Schmidt" tonight from 8 - 9 pm ET

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Steve

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Former Governor Asa Hutchinson (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

I studied Barack Obama as closely as another person could conceivably observe another person during the 2008 presidential campaign. I watched him for thousands of hours on videotape, live television, and any other medium where he appeared. He was a relentless force — eloquent, funny, culturally cool and gifted in a way that touched one or two political leaders in a generation. Much was written over the years about his sense of detachment and powers of observation that placed him squarely in the company of his peer group, including JFK and FDR. His exceptionalism as a political candidate was rooted in his ability to summon a national mood connected to the national character, and use it move the country forward in a manner consistent with its own generational and cultural ethos. Obama, like his most skilled predecessors, made few mistakes, was rarely unmoored from the moment, and capable of transcending even the most tragic events with the power of his oratory, matched with the dignity of his office. When the moment called, he met it. 

Sometime yesterday, an aide likely walked into wherever the former president was going about his day, and showed him this clip of Vice President Harris from “The View:” 

What do you think the man who appeared at a memorial service for nine murdered worshippers in 2015 when he sang “Amazing Grace” thought about the answer? What might he have thought about the competency of it?

The fact of the matter is the answer that Vice President Harris gave is not worthy of the fight ahead, and the great cause that must be defended. It’s not good enough to win, and Trump won’t be matching her up with another stiff like Mike Pence, who is a level one simple opponent to engage, debate and proverbially annihilate. 

Did you see Trump’s blood- or ink-stained hands that James Carville makes a convincing case may be the marks of secondary syphilis? 

Did you happen to catch Trump’s demand that CNN and MSNBC have their broadcast licenses revoked because they dared to cut away from his weapons-grade lunacy after the largest victory in the history of the Iowa caucuses? 

Some of you may ask, and often do, how can this be happening? How can it be that a lying and dishonest demagogue like Trump could possibly be poised to become the 47th president of the United States? I’m going to offer an example

My daughter is 20 years old, and goes to the University of Iowa. I couldn’t be more proud of her and her best friend, who went out in atrociously cold weather to participate in a process that slightly more than 100,000 deigned to show up for.  She caucused for Governor Haley in one of the very few precincts where Donald Trump didn’t win. After the event, she was filled with questions, including ones about the overt and blatant religiosity entwined with the event. It was a shocking and bewildering experience for someone who was raised in the western United States in a thoroughly secular household. The experience opened a floodgate of questions about the separation of church and state, and how it came to be that there are so many people who completely disregard the concept.

I explained to her that the two greatest inventions in American history are the peaceful transfer of power and the separation of church and state, and that it is no coincidence who is against both. What a thrill it is to see a young person becoming interested in a process that demands curiosity, goodwill, good faith, respect and compromise. She rejects dogma, and has an allergy to those that are imposed by academic and cultural ideologists. Many of her friends share this view, and their contact point with intolerance is through the grievance theater that plays out all around them in hysterical reactions to the expressions of opinion. A case in point would be many of the comments within this community based on my Sunday essay, “American Cancer,” which disparaged her intelligence, character, decency, as well as my parenting. Here is one example: 

“Sounds like your daughter’s brain is also frozen. If it were my daughter, I would tell her that she has to take a photo of her ballot vote in the Nov. election and that if it isn’t for Biden, then she is disinherited. Glad to say that my intelligent daughter always votes BLLUE. I must have done something right.”

What I said to my daughter is that it is perfectly fine to hold whatever opinions you like, bound by a loyalty to the US Constitution and the United States, but that it is always important to be aware that what you may believe may be wrong or far from reality. This awareness is key in an era of algorithms and repetitive reinforcements that have hardened many towards tolerance for opposing views. 

What I hope this audience understands is that I appreciate many of you hold a particular view of President Biden, but it isn’t necessarily shared by a majority of the country. What this means is that a coalition must form where there is room for people to join who don’t wish to venerate a politician they must vote for in order to stop Trump. 

Yesterday, the White House was forced to confront the DNC’s incompetence and voter repellent strategy by apologizing to Asa Hutchinson, an honorable man, for its incandescent arrogance and stupidity. The DNC had responded to his withdrawal from the presidential campaign by saying that it is “a shock to those of us who could’ve sworn he had already dropped out.”

Here is a thought exercise about the DNC.  How many union members hold senior jobs at the DNC? How many welders? Carpenters? Truck drivers? How about woke millennials with Ivy League degrees and the right parents? Which side do you think is under- or over-represented?  

It’s important to understand this because it explicates the high handedness and absolute disdain for Hutchinson, a man who should be celebrated and embraced under the weighty standards of JFK, the 35th president, who understood profiles in courage. 

Who is Asa Hutchinson, and maybe more importantly, who are the people about whom Teddy Roosevelt was warning when he delivered the greatest speech ever given about citizenship in a republic? Where might we find such sneering and cynical people? Where are their warrens and dens, so to speak? 

You and those like you have received special advantages; you have all of you had the opportunity for mental training; many of you have had leisure; most of you have had a chance for enjoyment of life far greater than comes to the majority of your fellows. To you and your kind much has been given, and from you much should be expected. Yet there are certain failings against which it is especially incumbent that both men of trained and cultivated intellect, and men of inherited wealth and position should especially guard themselves, because to these failings they are especially liable; and if yielded to, their- your- chances of useful service are at an end. Let the man of learning, the man of lettered leisure, beware of that queer and cheap temptation to pose to himself and to others as a cynic, as the man who has outgrown emotions and beliefs, the man to whom good and evil are as one. The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twister pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes to second achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities - all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affection of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others and from themselves in their own weakness. The rôle is easy; there is none easier, save only the rôle of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance. 

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop into fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a workaday world. Among the free peoples who govern themselves there is but a small field of usefulness open for the men of cloistered life who shrink from contact with their fellows. Still less room is there for those who deride of slight what is done by those who actually bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that they would like to take action, if only the conditions of life were not exactly what they actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be a cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and strength.

Asa Hutchinson did not prevail, but he was fearless. He kept the faith and stood up against a terrible malevolence with dignity and integrity. He was ignored, shunned, mocked and ignored some more, but he didn’t relent. Might there be a place in a grand coalition for a two-term southern Republican governor, cabinet secretary and truth teller?  Apparently not. To the DNC, he isn’t pure enough to belong.

Fear, arrogance, cloistered delusion and an absence of vision are a lethal cocktail in a presidential campaign. There is much work for the Biden campaign ahead. Below can be a building block. It is the antidote to fear and fecklessness. The United States stands at an hour of crisis, and there is no more room to retreat. The Trump menace must be opposed effectively with moral force, great humility and constant confrontation. The effort is falling short and failing the country. President Biden deserves better. Here is how FDR spoke. This needs to become the tone of the entire Biden administration immediately — before it is too late:

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

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