By Edwin Cooney
Perhaps
my most consistent pronouncement over the years, whether I’m discussing civic
affairs with academic types or with my watering hole friends, has been that I
like politics and politicians. The
inevitable response to that is: “How can you? They’re all a bunch of crooks!”
Then
the person I’m talking to will start naming the crooks: Franklin Roosevelt,
(“the root of all evil”), Harry “S for nothing” Truman (Joseph Stalin one upped
Americans when he referred to Harry Truman as “that noisy shopkeeper”), Lyndon
Johnson (that “wheeler dealer” who stole his way into the Senate back in 1948),
Bill Clinton (that womanizing gangster) and Rod Blagojevich (the former
Illinois governor who was caught selling President-elect Obama’s Senate seat).
Actually, not many people name Rod because they can’t pronounce his last
name. Additionally, they might name
Richard (“Tricky Dick”) Nixon (who one of my college professors used to call
(“rigid Ricky”), Spiro Agnew (the opinionated VP on the take), and Bob
MacDonald (the former Virginia governor who is about to do jail time for
influence peddling.) Usually these
“crooks” have their political affiliation in common.
The
problem is that most people are convinced that in order to benefit from
politics you have got to be a politician or one who finances politicians. The truth is that politics is more
fundamental to human nature then are politicians!
The
political practitioner is one who has mastered the art of making what appears
to be impossible possible. A lot of
politicians aren’t really politicians. The best politicians are job applicants,
sweetheart seekers, sales and advertising personnel, and, above all, kids. When my youngest son was still a tot he once
got his mother to let him out of his room by insisting that all he really
wanted her to do was to let him sit on her lap and put his head on her
shoulder. Believe it or not, she bought
it. The next step was to be allowed to
go out and play. He got that, too! That didn’t happen all of the time by any
means, but in this instance mama needed affection and little Ryan needed to
play, thus the two former antagonists cut a one-time deal. Now that’s Politics 101, plain and simple!
Politics,
whether or not you like it, is the most fundamental part of a free society.
George Washington strongly urged two of his Virginia neighbors, Tom Jefferson
and Jemmy Madison, as well as his top political and financial aide, Alexander
Hamilton, to refrain from party politics.
His reasons were all legitimate.
Political parties would distract the Congress from responsible
legislating, create jealousies amongst the people, spread false alarms, and
invariably entangle us in the politics of other nations. The problem was that President Washington
didn’t offer an alternative to political parties and politics in his famous
Farewell Address back in 1796.
I’m
not sure that politicians are the real corruptors of politics. The legitimate business of a politician in a
free society is to create methods and institutions that respond to the people’s
legitimate practical living and functioning needs. Good government is the legitimate goal of
good politics. Politics usually gets
sour when it comes under the influence of wealthy financiers regardless of
their personal or corporate ideologies.
Between
the end of the Second World War and the early 1980s, national politics was, for
the most part, about who could most effectively stop the advancement of World
Communism. Most members of Congress grew
up affected by two common experiences, the Great Depression of the 1930s and the
soul-rattling experiences of World War II.
The major difference between Republicans and Democrats was strategic
rather than moral. Sure there were
pockets of moral contention such as McCarthyism and the struggle for civil
rights, but for the most part, off the floors of the House and Senate,
Republicans and Democrats genuinely liked each other. Deal-making and compromise were a part of the
political process. Beginning with the
Reagan Revolution, all of that has changed.
Politics
has gone from the possible to the personal.
Liberals and Conservatives alike play “gotcha” politics. I’ve played it in these pages now and then.
Between
now and November 8th, 2016, twenty very willful people will clash over their
desire to get to the top of the “greasy pole” where symbolically sits the “presidential
chair” as they used to refer to it during the early and middle Nineteenth Century. That means a bunch of powerful egos will be
punctured and a number of powerful and well-healed Americans will be
disappointed. Successful people aren’t
used to being disappointed -- thus we have the comfortably unhappy.
Yes
indeed, I’ve always liked politics and politicians. However, this generation of politicians is
harder to like because they take themselves, their agenda, and their feelings
way too seriously. Politicians, many of
their financial backers, and talk show hosts grew up without having to face the
challenges of Tom Brokaw’s “greatest generation” – namely, national Depression
and world war. They are not used to
coping with forces beyond their control.
Thus, they turn to theory rather than good government to master what
irritates more than harms them. As I see
it, when you say you’re proud to be a Liberal or proud to be a Conservative,
you’ve switched your allegiance from “Old Glory” to the banner of a political
movement. The airwaves and the internet
will, for the next 15 months, be full of ego bashing which once was a mere
element of politics but today has sadly become its main ingredient.
I
think most people feel deep within themselves that they are above politics. The truth is that we have all benefited and
we expect to benefit in the future from the legitimate fruit of politics —
effective government.
FDR
put it best in a 1938 Fireside Chat:
“…the only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong
enough to maintain the interests of the people and a people strong enough and
well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over its government.”
That’s
solid advice from perhaps the greatest politician in history.
As
for the nature of 2016 politics, only one word suffices — “yuck!”
RESPECTFULLY
SUBMITTED,
EDWIN
COONEY
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