A Time Long Gone

“I detest John’s views, but what I detest even more is his effectiveness at espousing them.”
 —Congressman Robert Bauman, Republican of Maryland, as quoted by The New York Times in February 1980

When I came across an John B. Anderson’s obituary a couple of weeks ago, it brought a flood of political memories.

The Illinois legislator was prominent in U.S. politics during the election year 1980. Strangely, my third novel Lautaro’s Spear, which came out in September, is set in the year 1980 and, though it makes mention of the main political events of the time, it does not mention Congressman Anderson. Nevertheless, he was central to my own political involvement at the time.

It was one of the few times in my life where I actually became enthusiastic about a politician. I had been impressed by Jimmy Carter when he came out of nowhere to become president in 1976. I even saw him up close and in person when I attended a press conference he gave on the campaign trail in Columbus, Ohio. By 1980, however, between a miserable economy and what I saw as a hapless foreign policy—exemplified by an ill-managed attempt at rescuing the Iran hostages—I had become disenchanted. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were not setting me on fire either, but then I discovered John Anderson.

I felt a natural affinity for him probably because, like my father, he was a Republican Scandinavian-American from the Midwest. With his black-rimmed glasses and shock of white hair, he had the manner of a university professor. Indeed, he spent his post-electoral career teaching constitutional law at a Florida university. Early on, he had been very conservative, a supporter of Barry Goldwater who voted consistently against Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs. Over time, though, he evolved. In the wake of attending funerals for civil rights activists, he became more socially liberal and wound up being the deciding committee vote to send the Civil Rights Act of 1968 to the House floor. He reversed his positions on the Equal Rights Amendment, abortion, the Vietnam War and gun control.

Something that did not change, though, was his fiscal conservatism. He understood that social programs were no good if they were not sustainable in the long run and if the economy was shackled by ballooning deficits. That notion seems so quaint these days when Republicans do not care about deficits as long as they get their tax cuts and Democrats do not care about them except when they can criticize Republicans.

He ran for president in 1980 and that—plus the fact that it was hard to find a Democratic caucus in the Seattle suburb where I lived anyway—spurred me to join Republicans by showing up at my first precinct caucus. Previously, I had voted in California, a primary state. I have never felt particular loyalty to any political party, but Washington’s caucus system forced me to pick one—at least for the duration of an election year.

At the caucus I attended in 1980, I was outnumbered by Bush people, whom I found to be bullies. They were determined that all the precinct’s votes would go to their man, and that is what happened. In one heated exchange over internal security, I found myself saying something like, “But I don’t want my country to become like the Soviet Union” to which an irate Bush supporter rejoined with the non-sequitur, “Well, if you think it’s so great over there, why don’t you just go live there?”

Anderson never stood a chance of getting the Republican nomination but, when he decided to bolt the party and run as an independent, I followed him and gave him my vote in the general election. In the end, he got 6.6 percent of the popular vote and zero votes in the Electoral College. For years after, I was berated by friends and acquaintances when they learned how I had voted. One particularly aghast co-worker held me personally responsible for Reagan becoming president. Frankly, since the Gipper carried 44 states and defeated Carter by 489 to 49 in the Electoral College, I never lost any sleep over what part my vote may have played.

By the next presidential election, I would be living in the heart of Seattle in one of the most liberal districts in the whole country and I would be attending Democratic caucuses, largely by default. I was once even a delegate to the county convention. Living abroad now, I no longer attend caucuses. I simply fill out a ballot at home and mail it in.

The passing of John Anderson is a stark reminder of how much things have changed in the past three and a half decades. As hard as it is to believe, both major parties used to have a left wing and a right wing. Political discourse centered on principles and ideas rather than reflexively demonizing one’s opponents. There used to be politicians, even liberal ones, who saw the importance of fiscal responsibility. At the end of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, the federal-debt-to-GDP ratio was 32.5 percent. At the end of Barack Obama’s presidency, it was 102.7 percent.

In a strange way, Donald Trump accomplished what John Anderson failed to. Trump won the presidency despite the opposition of both major political parties. He did not do it, however, by running as an independent but rather by leading a successful mutiny within one of the established parties—Anderson’s old party, as it happened.

That, however, is where the similarity ends. John Anderson was a civil, thoughtful, principled debater in the public arena. His time now seems very long ago.

The Broken Moral Compass

“I did three movies with Harvey Weinstein, and I knew he was a sleazebag. I knew he was a vile bully and I saw his bullying up close. I saw him be absolutely appalling, not just to women but to men as well. He had very little respect for any kind of human being. He wanted his stars around him. I had heard vague rumours—I have to stress that they were vague—of doors being locked and women being compromised. I heard that once or twice from two very well known actresses, but the problem when you hear something like that is, do you pass that on? Because if it’s not true it’s awful, and if it is true it’s not your job to say, ‘Well, I wasn’t there, the door was locked, I don’t know what happened, I just heard the story.’ But I did not know, and many people didn’t know, the extent of the violence that he perpetrated on women.”
 —Actor Gabriel Byrne, quoted in the UK’s The Times (Ireland edition) on Sunday

Here is a story my mother told me many years ago about something that happened in my home town. Since it happened well before I was born, I cannot be sure I have all of the details right, but this is the way I remember her telling it. She was raised in a church that was, in those days, very strict. Certain things that are now considered just a normal part of life, like dancing and movies, were considered sinful. Needless to day, any thought of sex outside of marriage was considered beyond the pale. In this environment, the local church minister persuaded a teenage girl to enter a clandestine sexual relationship with him, using his moral authority to convince her it was “God’s will.” Despite his assurances to her, she clearly felt what they were doing was at some level wrong because, one evening when members of the congregation were invited to stand up and publicly confess their sins, she rose and told everyone about herself and the minister.

I have thought back on this story while reading and hearing the seemingly endless cascade of reports about politicians, journalists and entertainment people whose exploitive behavior has come to light. In many cases, it is the same story as the one my mother told. An older man takes advantage of a position of authority to impose himself on someone younger and trusting. To make it worse, the behavior is cloaked by his role as some sort of arbiter of right and wrong. That is traditionally a clergyman’s role, but do not politicians, journalists and artists also deliver implicit moral judgments in the stories they tell? What is striking in all these cases is the reluctance of victims to speak out and of bystanders to take note. When suddenly and dramatically revealed, the perpetrator’s actions explode in our minds with the dramatic thunder of shock and disbelief.

I have heard people argue that stories like the one my mother told me exemplify what is wrong with religion or at least with conservative religion—moral preaching is worthless because of the hypocrisy behind it. If that is true, though, then what does it say about politics, journalism and the arts that such rank hypocrisy can be found there as well? In a society where decreasing numbers of people report church membership or attendance, one could argue the media have, by default or design, filled the gap of informing us what is right and what is wrong. One only has to scan the social media sites and the harsh rhetoric directed at opposing viewpoints to conclude that politics—with its increasing dogma and stridency—is the new religion.

In all the stories of authority abused, the question that particularly haunts me is that of the silence. I refer to the silence of the victim but also to that of the witnesses and of those who suspect or have heard something second-hand. Yes, I have heard all the explanations about fear and reprisals, about not being believed or not wanting to rock the boat or just being dazzled by someone who has been put on a pedestal. There is something dark about human psychology when we form groups or teams with hierarchies. “Mob mentality” is not just something manifested by people running around in the street but can also be found in modern office buildings. Yet it is impossible to do away with hierarchies. After all, if you eliminate the hierarchy in the name of equality, you will then need someone to enforce the equality and you immediately have a new hierarchy.

I have no answers for any of this, but here are a couple of observations anyway. Thoughtful people look at what has been happening and try to come up with new rules or practices to avoid the abuses. Is that not what traditional religions were doing when they came up with the rules that new generations, like mine, found so old-fashioned, unnecessary and repressive? People laughed when Vice-President Pence spoke of his personal practice of not meeting alone with female colleagues. That will hardly become standard practice in this day and age—even if extended in the name of fairness to male colleagues as well. At the same time, though, wouldn’t a lot of people been better off if Harvey Weinstein had the same policy as Pence?

That brings me to this thought: the media narrative of workplace victimization sometimes runs worryingly close to arguing that women need to be protected, that more rules and laws are needed to solve the problem. That not only smacks of paternalism but, in the case of assault, the behavior is already against the law. In those cases it is reporting and enforcement that are the issue. What about behavior that falls short of being prosecutable? There is no quick fix because the culture needs to change, and that requires both leadership and time. It also requires a certain level of unity and good faith so that the issue is not merely political fodder. The signs of this happening are not hopeful.

One more random thought: maybe it is a bad idea to be getting our main moral guidance from people on television or in our Twitter feed.

In the end, men need to change their thinking. So do women. Men like Matt Lauer, Al Franken, Charlie Rose and John Conyers act under their own set of unwritten rules. People in general—and women in particular—must refuse to recognize or respect “rules” that are bad rather than accommmodating them just because they seem accepted in the environment in which they work. Moreover, these guys should never get a pass simply because they are part of one’s own political tribe. This is easy to say but difficult to do—especially when there is a penalty for one’s social acceptance, career or political agenda.

In a perfect world, it would not be this way. Sadly, it is not a perfect world. Insisting that the world ought to be perfect may provide some level of moral satisfaction, but it does not really change anything. What does? Focusing on what you yourself can do—or not do.

The Great Divide

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves and wiser people so full of doubts.”
 —British writer and Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell

Last month a friend was visiting from the States. As we discussed America’s strange political situation, he shared an interesting take. One lesson his father taught him early on and which stuck with him was that, “when there is trouble, it always comes from the right.”

That got me to thinking. Does trouble really always come from the same side? And what do “left” and “right” really mean when it comes to politics anyway? That may seem like a silly question in this polarized time but, to my mind, it is always good to question things that we think we know. For the simplicity of mass consumption, political views have been purposely reconfigured by the media and by politicians as binary. Everything is either/or—either conservative or liberal, either Democrat or Republican, either right or wrong, either left or right.

The world is much more complex than the dumbed-down binary view suggests. In the U.S. there is a wide range of varying opinions that do not easily fit in the either/or pigeon holes—and that’s just the Republican party. There is also diversity of opinion on the Democratic side, but it seems somehow more reined in, mainly because Democratic voters tend to be very united, if only by the notion that letting Republicans into power is a horrible prospect.

If you do not see the diversity of opinion out there, then you may be over-influenced by the mass media and/or whichever political party you pay attention to. For a long time the modus operandi of the political parties has been to focus on the most extreme individuals in the opposite camp and then paint those whackos as representative and typical of the entire party. That is why so many Democrats take it as given that all Republicans are knuckle-dragging, science-disbelieving, religious fundamentalists and why so many Republicans think the typical Democrat is a rabid communist who wants to confiscate all private property.

Where does the left/right terminology come from anyway? As with so many things, we can thank—or blame—the French. The terms go all the way back to 1789 when, in France’s National Assembly, the king’s supporters sat to the assembly president’s right and supporters of the French Revolution were on his left. During the 19th century, as political groupings grew, re-generated and sub-divided, the terms left and right were refined into categories such as extreme left, extreme right, center left, center right and, simply, the center. Generally, the left was called the party of movement and the right the party of order. In the 20th century, the notion of a left/right political spectrum spread to other countries. In Britain the terms came into use in the 1930s in debates over the Spanish Civil War. Early on, the left was generally considered republican, that is, anti-monarchial, and the right was conservative or pro-monarchy. How do these labels work in countries like the U.S. where absolutely no one is in favor of a instituting a monarchy?

Today the left is understood to champion values such as equality, rights, progress, reform and internationalism. That sounds pretty good, right? But political scientists also lump in other strains as part of the left, such as anarchism, communism and socialism. Similarly, the right is considered to comprise such values as authority, order, duty, tradition and nationalism. Again, political scientists throw in other disparate strains, which included libertarians, imperialists, monarchists and fascists. How do a libertarian and a fascist have anything in common?

When you think about it, this two-way division of political philosophies really makes no sense. Do not the center-left and center-right have more in common with each other—espousing moderation and democratic principles—than they do with either the extreme-left or extreme-right, both of which tend toward authoritarianism? In fact, do not the latter two groups have more than a fair amount in common themselves? In fact, if we study the history of Germany and Italy in the 1920s and 1930s, we find that groups considered communist and fascist and which spawned Hitler and Mussolini were all part of the same general grouping of agitating movements. Today people generally talk of the Nazis as “right wing” even though the party’s name was an acronym that prominently included the word socialist.

That is the strange thing. Parties of the center-left and center-right are often more inclined to build coalitions with or seek votes from parties on their fringes rather than poaching them from the center. That leads to what are called “establishment” Republican politicians, who are pro-business and pro-immigration and moderate on environmental questions, courting votes from voters who are farther right, who may be nativist and religiously fundamentalist. In turn, relatively moderate Democrats like the Clintons, who at the end of the day are not that far off from the philosophy of moderate Republicans, find themselves sweet-talking everyone from socialists to fairly narrow interest groups with their own hardline agendas. Why do the groupings in the center not align against the fringes on the left and right?

It’s a mystery. Sometimes the center does come together. One could argue that is what happened in the case of Ronald Reagan, who was not only popular among Republicans but also attracted a lot of blue-collar voters who were traditionally Democrats. Similarly, Bill Clinton was popular among Democrats while also attracting a large number of so-called swing voters, many of whom had voted for Reagan. During the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, however, the lines hardened with center-left and center-right gravitating toward their fringes. Why? Was it the war in Iraq? Was it the fundamental change in the economy in which the middle class saw its standard of living erode in the face of globalisation?

My worry is that what we are seeing is something more ominous. As traditional religion becomes less relevant in the West, it is as though politics has replaced religion in becoming the chief way people identify themselves and their values. If that is true, then the increasingly implacable lines we see drawn between left and right are less honest policy differences and more old-fashioned tribalism. And the more people’s positions are pulled toward the extremes as opposed to the center, the more people will accept the extremes’ insistence on specific results over adherence to constitutionalism and compromise.