By Edwin Cooney
It has become tradition for voters to assert right before an election how glad they’ll be when it’s all over. That feeling is especially intense this presidential year with many Americans convinced that the choice is between a “crook” and a “pervert.”
I’m convinced that the vast majority of Americans have only a marginal interest in either government or politics even though they are affected by the outcome of an election. However, writers have traditionally invented characters from Mr. Dooley to Archie Bunker to reflect the national mood. I’ve chosen to use a truly national figure, a man whose homely wisdom enthralled millions of Americans. His name was Lawrence Peter (Yogi) Berra. Yogi knew and understood things which he explained indirectly in his own inimitable fashion. I’ll introduce my purely imaginary Yogi Berra commentary later, but first here is my analysis of where we are at as election day dawns.
The situation is threefold. First, history, which we rely on to inform us as to the significance of past events, reflects a much simpler time when the behavior of small groups of powerful people easily made a difference in the outcome of events. Hence, Mr. Trump’s promise to “make America great again” doesn’t spell out to the voters what it would cost in pain and in lives to achieve and maintain that greatness. Historic personalities have already made their mistakes or achieved their successes and are beyond our ability to control. Current leaders suffer the doubts of an ever impatient public as they seek to achieve America’s safety and security. Largely absent from our awareness are the doubts faced by even America’s greatest leaders. Historical events may still influence what we think and do today, but time has mellowed their effect.
Second, current actions and events are far from complete in their effect or in their modification. Thus, international trade, healthcare, recovery from the 2008-2009 recession, the struggle against ISOL, the issue of climate change and even the effects of 9/11 are unfinished business. All of these uncertainties, some of which have been with us for years now, assault our national consciousness and sense of safety and security.
Third, we Americans are the ultimate victims of our own indulgences which too often border on sensationalism and suspicion. Individually, we seek and even beseech others to grant us the benefit of every doubt. However, especially when defending our own conclusions, we too often regard ourselves as intellectually and morally superior to those whose convictions differ from our own. This brings us to the current atmosphere in social and political relations.
Politics, especially presidential politics, has always been brutal, even to an extent degrading. Incumbent presidents going back to Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren have been demonized as slick, sleazy, self-indulgent, pedantic, and murderously cold to the welfare of the people. Sometimes these accusations have been near the truth, but never have they been the whole truth. What especially concerns me about the current phase of national assessment is our tendency not only to be self righteous in our assessments of others, but reckless and even poisonous to the national well of civility. In short, we’ve succeeded in criminalizing the very political process our soldiers have fought to preserve.
Free government certainly depends on sound economic and forward-looking social policies, honest assessment of social conditions and wise administration of our affairs. However, free government has a deadly enemy and liberals, conservatives, progressives and libertarians and even the nonaligned have cuddled that enemy to their own breasts for their own political advantage and to justify their own indifference. That enemy of free government is the criminalization of the body politic. If we assess all opponents as “criminals” or “perverts,” we subject ourselves to the same conclusion.
My 2016 candidate for president, Hillary Clinton, has numerous liabilities, but she also has compelling assets of vision and creativity. Mr. Trump, through smarts and business acumen, has amassed wealth by utilizing strategies which conceivably could be of service to the welfare of the American people. I say this because I may soon be compelled to grant Donald J. Trump the benefit of the doubt as president-elect of the United States. Although the very idea of that possibility makes me cringe, I am compelled by learning and living to acknowledge two vital realities.
First, the will of the majority must always prevail in a free society. Second, although the will of the majority must prevail in popular elections, the minority possesses the obligation to constructively and creatively modify the inevitable mistakes of the majority.
So, if it ought to be over, but it ain’t over when it ought to be over, Yogi, what should we do?
“Well,” I imagine Yogi responding, “It’s like I told my friend Joey Garagiola one time when he was all worried about me and George Steinbrenner. He wanted me to be mad at George and tell him off. I just told Joey not to worry because, after all, George and I just agree different! People always get along better when they think about what they agree about rather than what they disagree about. There’s a lot of things more important about our country than how we feel about any president.”
I also imagine Yogi saying, “I think it’s much more important for all of us to think about how we feel toward each other. If we do that long enough, how we feel about our leaders will take care of itself. I never explained a lot to my players about how to hit or field, I just told ‘em to watch me.”
So, after tomorrow perhaps we ought to do it Yogi’s way. Watch events with as much objectivity as you can. Apply your instincts in evaluating the present as well as the future. Keep worry to a minimum, be more skeptical of skepticism, be cool as Yogi usually was.
Worry and anxiety bring on hatred and that’s dangerous, because as I imagine Yogi would put it: “once you start hating it gets late out there early.”
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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