On the GOP and the 2020 presidential election; Viktor Orbán and his American fans; Caesarism and the American experiment; rough words in a more innocent age; and more
An article in Politico is headed “DeSantis won’t say if he thinks 2020 was rigged. But he’s campaigning for Republicans who do.” Who are those Republicans? The roster includes Kari Lake in Arizona, Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, and J.D. Vance in Ohio.
Was the 2020 election, in fact, rigged? Did the Democrats steal the election from President Trump? Is Joe Biden an illegitimate president? These are burning questions — not trivial ones. The whole country is roiled by them. The belief that the Democrats stole the election led to a physical attack on the U.S. Congress — the worst attack on our capitol since the War of 1812.
And that attack, early in our republic, was carried out by a foreign power, not by homegrown Americans.
Polls tell us that the vast majority of Republicans — about 70 percent — believes that the Democrats stole the election (perhaps in cahoots with the Venezuelans and/or the Chinese).
In my view, every politician should answer. Answer the questions that are roiling our country. I think it’s especially incumbent on Republican politicians to answer them, because it’s Republican voters who have swallowed the election lie. Have been fed it.
There is an old expression: to “speak truth to power.” Everyone loves speaking truth to power. It’s the easiest thing in the world to do, in a democracy. You know what’s hard? To speak truth to people. For, in a democracy, that’s where power actually lies.
And when people have been lied to — when they’ve been sold a bill of goods — they need to be disabused, by honest people, honest leaders.
I like what Dick Cheney said recently: “A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters.”
So far as I’m aware, Donald Trump has been booed only once — only once by his supporters, I mean, at one of his rallies. It was when he encouraged vaccination against the coronavirus. He also said, when asked, that he had received a booster shot.
Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, was asked the same question, in an interview with Maria Bartiromo of Fox News last December. He said, “So, uh, I’ve done whatever I did, the normal shot, and that at the end of the day is people’s individual decisions about what they want to do.”
In my observation, Republican politicians have been very reluctant to tell their voters whether they have been vaccinated (or “boosted”). Chip Roy, a congressman from Texas, said, “I don’t think it’s anybody’s damn business whether I’m vaccinated or not.”
I took up this subject in a column:
In my opinion, “Are you vaccinated?” is not the equivalent of “Do you have herpes?” A pandemic is plaguing the land, and the world. When I was a kid, there were immunization campaigns. That’s what we called them: “immunization campaigns.” There were always resisters, of course — that’s natural. But the campaigners were not thought to be bad people.
I will quote a little more:
Every now and then, leaders ought to lead (or set an example). (There is an expression: “to lead by example.”) Often, these guys are more followers than leaders.
A little more:
I can think of one politician — a Republican politician — who is forthright about vaccination and its importance: Mitch McConnell. Which makes sense, as he survived childhood polio.
In my book, Republican politicians ought to answer a couple of basic questions, before other questions are asked: Did Joe Biden win the election fair and square? Was January 6 committed by Trump supporters or by Antifa, BLM, or some other left-wing group? (Or the FBI?)
If you can’t answer these questions — honestly, forthrightly — you’re not fit to lead, in my judgment.
Among his fans, Ron DeSantis has the reputation of being a bold politician who “tells it like it is.” Great. Look forward to hearing it.
• Here is an interesting report, by Andrew Higgins and Benjamin Novak, in the New York Times. The heading: “Hungary’s Orban, a Scourge of Liberals, Faces a New Foe: Economics.” The subheading: “The Hungarian leader is being confronted with soaring inflation and a depreciating currency linked to unsustainable spending by his government.”
“Feted as a hero by free-market Republicans in the United States,” the reporters say, “Mr. Orban has been flexible in his economic ideology, promoting a mishmash of socialist price controls and state work programs, crony capitalism and extremely low corporate taxes that dismays Hungary’s free-market champions.”
Frankly, I don’t think Orban is feted by free-market Republicans. I think he is feted by other Republicans.
The reporters quote Peter Bod, a former governor of Hungary’s central bank. “I was amazed that they loved him so much in Texas,” said Bod. He was referring to the reception that Orban received at a recent CPAC jamboree in Dallas. “There is no free market here,” Bod continued. Also, “you can’t carry a gun here, but you can get a free abortion.”
It would take a heart of stone not to laugh.
• In America, our culture wars are fierce. One reason is possibly this: Both Left and Right now agree, essentially, on the size and scope of government. In the old days, our debates were about the power and responsibilities of government versus the rights and responsibilities of individuals (and communities and civil society). You hear a lot less of that now.
• National Review’s Jack Butler had a piece headed “America Doesn’t Need a ‘Caesar.’” The subheading read, “We should look to America’s founding principles, not a fantasy of strongman rule, to answer today’s political challenges.”
We sometimes refer to what we’re doing here in America — or have tried to do — as an “experiment.” “The American experiment,” we call it. It is an experiment in liberty and self-government, something very, very different from Caesarism.
Will it work out? Dunno. But we’ve set an extraordinary example for the world. And I say: May Caesarism stay far from us. Hail, our experiment (if anything)!
• Across the pond, Jeremy Paxman has been the host of University Challenge for almost 30 years. He is stepping down, owing to ill health. You can read about it from the BBC, here.
Some years ago, I wrote a little paean to University Challenge for Standpoint magazine. I once had a link to the piece, but it appears to be broken. I still have a Microsoft Word version, however — from which I’ll quote:
A key part of the show’s appeal, for me, is the host. Over the years, I have had my objections to Mr. Paxman as a political interviewer. But has there ever been a better host of anything than Paxo is of University Challenge? I admire his briskness, and even his brusqueness. He shows more warmth, humor, and affection than he is sometimes given credit for. And his occasional snapping or snarking is, to my mind, part of the charm.
So is the lingo. I like the expressions foreign to me, or once foreign to me: “crack on with it,” “level pegging,” “a storming performance.”
• Speaking of language: An article about golf, published last Thursday, contained a couple of errors that are rampant in America. One is big, and it concerns personal pronouns. The other is smaller: the confusion of “reticence” for “reluctance.”
In the article, we read, “. . . a cluster of tall oak trees remained between he and the hole.” Ay ay ay. Don’t be doin’ that. We also read: “. . . while he was reticent to say that what happened at No. 8 fired him up . . .”
Come on, America! Cripe.
• A little music? Here is a review of Il trittico, by Puccini, at the Salzburg Festival. (Il trittico — meaning The Triptych — comprises three one-act operas: Il tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi. That is the usual order. But Salzburg did them out of order — which was interesting.)
• On Friday, I published a Salzburg journal, which included a slew of photos. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind one more:
And another?
• An obit in the New York Times was headed “Anshu Jain, Who Took Deutsche Bank to Wall Street, Dies at 59.” I found many things in it interesting and moving.
One example, almost at random: When Mr. Jain worked at Merrill Lynch, people were “repeatedly mistaking him for an IT guy.”
• Another obit: “Norah Vincent, Who Chronicled Passing as a Man, Is Dead at 53.” The subheading: “Her best-selling 2006 book about that experience, ‘Self-Made Man,’ made her a media darling. But it cost her psychologically.” Norah Vincent wrote several times for National Review. An interesting, talented, independent-thinking person.
• A tweet from Patrick Chovanec gave me a memory. Here is that tweet:
My 12-year-old son: “Mom, my sister is calling me curse words!”
His 9-year-old sister: “Idiot is not a curse word.”
Long, long ago, two young brothers were fighting, too often. Their language was rough. The mother was tired of it. She said to them, “From now on, if you say a bad word to your brother, you have to pay ten cents into a fund.”
Before long, one brother got really mad at the other. The brother who was mad ran upstairs, came back down, and slapped two dimes on the table. Then he said, “Shut up.”
A more innocent era, wouldn’t you say? Have a good week, Impromptus-ites, and I’ll catch you later.
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