I concluded last week’s column with the following:
“I actually expect that (if elected, Hillary Clinton) will be a reasonably competent chief executive. Putting aside her lack of charisma, she is actually whip smart, and the level of organizational competence in her campaign is quite impressive.
“She’ll be a very competent administrator; unfortunately, what the country desperately needs is a bold reformer.”
I believe that, but there is something I left out. A bold reformer isn’t just going to show up one day, reform things and then it’ll be puppies and rainbows from now until the eschaton. The French philosopher and diplomat, Joseph de Maistre, famously said that in a democracy, the people get the government they deserve. While de Maistre was a monarchist and defender of the “divine right of kings” and thus was trying to dismiss democracy as system of government, there is a deeper wisdom in his remark.
When former Vermont governor and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean sought the Democratic nomination during the 2004 presidential election cycle, he used to say to his supporters that “the power to change this country is in your hands, not mine.” That is, if change is to happen, it will be the result of the people demanding it in no uncertain terms, and not merely as a result of the political skills of a charismatic politician. I would modify his statement of that principle slightly: a skilled politician is actually necessary for reforms to be enacted, but can’t do so without the assistance of an awakened population demanding it.
It is hard to awaken the U.S. population, which is easily distracted by what the ancient Romans used to call “bread and circuses.”
In their post-9/11 edition, the satirical newspaper The Onion had a story titled “A Shattered Nation Longs to Care About Stupid Bull**** Again” and the accompanying “story” had a tough truth for which satire is the most effective communicator:
“Were this an ordinary Tuesday night, Wendy Vance would return home from her receptionist job at a Springfield chiropractor’s office and spend the evening engaged in any number of empty, meaningless diversions: watching old, taped episodes of ‘Friends,’ browsing the new issue of Cosmopolitan, or driving to Center Square Mall to browse for shoes.
“Tonight, however, the 29-year-old is unable to bring herself to turn on the TV or even half-heartedly flip through the new Pottery Barn catalog. Instead, she has decided to visit her grandmother in nearby Mountain Grove.
“’If none of this had happened, right now I’d probably be watching that stupid Journey VH1 ‘Behind The Music’ episode for the 40,000th time. Or talking to my friend Kerri about the Gap skirt I want,’ said Vance, holding her grandmother’s frail, time-worn hand. ‘Now, all I can think about is how precious life is, and how important it is to spend quality time with the people who matter to you, because everything could change in an instant.’
“Added Vance: ‘I just want my regular life back.’”
On the other hand, there is an irritating attitude that I come across from people who might agree with me on what kinds of reforms are needed to address but all too often, they have a tendency to use our society’s besetting complacency as a conclusive argument against reform – something like, “Single payer healthcare?! Americans are way too caught up in the Kardashians/Brangelina/(insert example of brainless, superficial pop-culture obsession here) to care about something like that.”
My response is usually something along the lines of, “So, that’s it, then? You’re all citizened out?”
Edward R. Murrow once said “We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities.”
Our broken politics, at heart, is not broken because of some venal and alien “Them” that is messing up our nice little society; it is an expression of a venal, selfish “us” that refuses to do our duty as citizens and insist that our government act in ways that reflect “the better angels of our nature,” in Lincoln’s immortal phrase.
The Democratic Party in America bears a significant share of the blame for the rise of Donald Trump. As Thomas Frank describes in his book, “Listen, Liberal: Whatever Happened to the Party of the People?” It has become too much the party of the “Professional Class”- those with graduate degrees – and has all but abandoned its historical role as the party of labor and the little guy.
History suggests that the inchoate rage Trump is tapping into may solidify into something far more ominous than a wall on our southern border. Hillary Clinton seems constitutionally incapable of addressing that rage constructively; I have my doubts that she is even capable of understanding or empathizing with it. That means it is up to those who do understand it to make our voices heard in a way that can’t be ignored.

Matt Talbot is a writer and poet, as well as an old Benicia hand.

Sharing is caring!