Nothing Burns Like the Cold

"Arctic Sky" by U.S. Geological Survey is marked with CC0 1.0.

Our winter of discontent can end up as little more than a show. It’s up to us.

As expected, this past week was full of high drama, low comedy, a dose of controversy and a healthy serving of hope. In other words, life in America. Our big, sprawling, diverse Republic is nothing if not dynamic. And that's something we should take as a point of pride.

Of course, the best was saved for last. At a little before 2:30 p.m. EST today, Nov. 18, 2022, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of a special counsel, Jack Smith, to take over the investigation into the attempt to short-circuit the election of 2020, as well as the Mar-a-Lago documents case and some other matters.

We can be sure the former president won't take long to begin his usual attempts to intimidate and threaten his way out of trouble. It's worked for him many times in the past. In all likelihood, he doesn't actually have any other playbook (not to mention, he hasn't seemed to be able to find the best lawyers around, either).

But if the reaction to his reelection announcement is any indication, he doesn't quite have the mob behind him he once had. For one thing, he's committed the most egregious sin one can possibly commit on the right wing: losing. Within that segment of our body politic -- and to be clear, they're not conservatives in any real sense of the word -- power is not only the ultimate goal, but also the only goal.

For another, the former president has gotten . . . boring. Which, for many of his acolytes who don't really care about politics, let alone understand it, and are on board for other reasons (mostly cultural), is even worse. Much of his appeal for them all along has been his juvenile bad boy behavior. His middle school punk act is, to them, funny.

If the reaction to the former president's reelection bid is any indication, the act has worn thin. Part of the reason could be his flagging energy at his rallies and speeches; for some at the latest Mar-a-Lago event, the nearby bar held a lot more appeal than standing in the ballroom listening to him deliver what can only be called, despite the usual flights of fancy, a pretty standard political speech.

They were apparently prevented from leaving.

But a deeper reason could be something we've seen time and time again throughout our history. A good example are the antebellum years between the Founding and the Civil War, as the American people wrestled with our nation's original sin of slavery even as we struggled to build a new country.

Often it seemed armed conflict could break out (there were more than a few skirmishes, including in Congress itself) and the country, should tensions get just a little higher, break up. Yet each time we found ourselves leaning over the precipice and almost ready to fall into the abyss, we found a way to avoid it. Until, finally, things came to a head and there was no longer a compromise to be had.

Since then, there have been many periods of strife and upheaval, and many times when it seemed the country, to use a common phrase, was "flying apart." The 1960s were an especially bad time. But no Second Civil War ever happened. The one big question had been settled, even as so many other questions persisted and a large portion of our population continued to maintain their view of the constitutional issues.

And even though the echoes of "states' rights" can still be heard today, often loudly, and calls for some kind of national divorce occasionally rise from the far right, no one actually believes some kind of secession is really in the cards. The public theater is entertaining enough, but as our most recent election clearly demonstrated, the crest of passion has been reached and surpassed. Cooler heads have prevailed yet again and the true Silent Majority -- the sensible center -- have once again asserted themselves.

In the end, as we've said several times before in these newsletters, in a democracy the People may not always get the government they want, or even the government they need. But we always get the government we deserve. And, as it turns out, that's a government which is perfectly capable of handling a demagogue through fair, legal and constitutional means.

If we want it to.

Blaring Trumpets and Dancing Bears

Not that we should have any illusions about the circus about to come to town. As expected, with the last of the ballots finally being counted, the Democrats will maintain the Senate, and perhaps even gain a one-seat majority, depending on the results of the Dec. 6 runoff in Georgia. The Republicans will have a majority in the House almost exactly the same as the one the Democrats have enjoyed over the last two years.

Normally, divided government is a cause for celebration. Close majorities usually mean compromise, and the more extreme views of either side almost invariably get jettisoned in the interests of getting the work of government accomplished. The show, as they say, must go on.

But these are not normal times. The confluence of social media, foreign interference, celebrity culture, weak campaign finance laws and our own ever-present social and political differences (which are part of who we are and should be embraced rather than lamented) has produced circumstances somewhat unique in our history. In a lot of ways, what we're seeing now really is a show.

Which plays into the hands of those who are more intent on being on camera and in the public eye than doing the work which should be the reason to command our attention in the first place. It's far easier to shake the tree and catch the money falling out than it is to take a pile of lumber and build something useful. Serving in Congress has, for some, become a pretty cushy gig.

And that spells trouble. If someone has their hands on the levers of power and makes it clear they intend to use them only so they can push "Donate NOW" texts and emails out to their constituencies, two things become increasingly, and frighteningly, likely. One is they don't know what the levers of power are supposed to be used for; the other is they don't really care.

So far, that seems to be the case with the incoming GOP leadership. Even as Speaker Pelosi was making her very eloquent handoff of the Democratic leadership to the next generation, House Republicans were pledging to ramp up their "investigations" of the president and his family. Some were already talking openly of impeachment (do they really want to make Kamala Harris president?) even before any so-called investigations have begun -- which begs the question what, exactly, they plan on investigating, of course.

Worst of all is the behavior of the presumptive next Speaker, current minority leader Kevin McCarthy. He couldn't even be bothered to attend the Speaker's farewell (few Republicans did) and instead was meeting with Trump henchman Stephen Miller as the speech was ongoing. It's one thing for backbenchers to bray, or even for prospective committee chairs to publicly load the dice before they even have their gavels in hand. It's quite another for the person who could be second in line to the presidency to not care enough to even show the bare minimum of decency and decorum.

Shameful. And if it's a herald of things to come -- and it is -- we can only hope the government we deserve this time turns out to be the one to make the scales fall from our eyes once and for all. Our sins, whatever they may be, are not so great as this.

We Must Marshall Ourselves

On the other hand, America being America, there's always every reason to hope. After all, there have been plenty of instances in our history where the right person appeared in the right place at the right time. We seem to have a knack for it.

For example, at the beginning of the Civil War, no one could have guessed a failed former Army officer in his late 30s working as the third clerk at his father's leather goods store in Galena, Illinois would, three years later, hold the same rank as George Washington and be in command of the largest army ever assembled up to that time.

But that was indeed the case with Ulysses S. Grant. He seemed to come out of nowhere. But he had something all true Americans understand and appreciate almost instinctively -- a dogged determination to get the job done.

Another more recent example is the man Harry S Truman called The Great One (and for good reason), Gen. George C. Marshall. In the years after World War I, Marshall was somewhat stuck in place thanks to the glacially slow promotion rate in the peacetime Army of the era. At the time the clouds of war began to gather in earnest over Europe, he was still a colonel and seemingly destined to retire quietly before too long.

But FDR reached down and plucked him out of his relative obscurity -- at least outside military circles -- and leapfrogged him over dozens of more senior officers to make him Army Chief of Staff, a little over a year after Marshall had been promoted to brigadier general. Just in time, too. Marshall was sworn in on Sept. 1, 1939, just as Nazi panzers were rolling across the Polish border.

At the time, the U.S. Army had but 174,000 soldiers, 788 machine guns and 40 tanks. By the end of World War II, there were 8,267,958 men under his command; more tanks, artillery, guns and ammunition than one could count in a lifetime; and both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan lie in ruins.

His full story is worth your time. Take 90 minutes on a winter evening to watch this very well-done documentary: George Marshall and The American Century | Free Full Documentary - YouTube

But the story of Marshall is more than the story of the man. As with Grant, it's also the story of how our country produces people of genuine quality from what would be called a commoner's background by our British cousins. Grant's father was a small business owner; Marshall's was a moderately successful local businessman.

Neither was particularly distinguished at school in their youth. Neither had the least bit of interest in wealth, luxury or fame. But both had a penetrating intelligence, an innate facility for communicating clearly, a deep sense of humility and an absolute devotion to the country, our Republic and its Constitution and their duty to defend it.

There's a lesson in that: Authenticity will always trump glitz and glamor. Painting coal with a sheen of gold doesn't make it gold. In the great Crucible of Life, only the sternest stuff truly emerges. And while it may seem at times as though the fraudsters, grifters, con artists and demagogues (or those who are all of those things) are having their day, it's still only just a day. Eventually, the truth will out and those who do their duty will triumph over those who do not.

That alone is reason to keep the faith.

Kevin J. Rogers is the executive director of the Modern Whig Institute. He can be reached at director@modernwhig.org. When not engaged with the Institute he publishes independently to Commentatio on Substack.

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The Modern Whig Institute is a 501(c)(3) civic research and education foundation dedicated to the fundamental American principles of representative government, ordered liberty, capitalism, due process and the rule of law.