Essays in Idleness

Who knows what will be the result of today’s general election, south of the border? I certainly don’t, and it is the first in my short life for which I have no idea. I correctly guessed the winner of the last fourteen such elections, going back to 1964 (when I was eleven years old). For most, it wasn’t very difficult, although all I had was information from the newspapers, and some native common sense. Perhaps I was lucky, if one may call it that. Or, “privileged,” to have any brains at all. Today, I am persuaded that my luck has run out.

As recently as March, I assumed that Mr Trump would win an overwhelming landslide: something like Nixon’s in 1972, or Reagan’s in 1984. People do not generally vote against their wallets, and the behaviour of Democrats, especially in the House, might trigger a landslide there, too. “Trump Derangement Syndrome” was already in full force, but I could remember the Bush-Hitler and Ray-Gun derangements on the Left. These did not spread among those not flirting with mental illness. The Democrat Party could be counted upon, to be wrong on all the major issues, but moderately so. It wasn’t actually dangerous to vote for them, as it is now.

I had also been through the “revolutions” of 1968 and forward, and watched them burn out. As a young man I had been distressed by the Vietnam anti-war, and the damage it had done to the superpower on which we depend for our freedom and security. It was also fading into the past, and at the fall of the Berlin Wall I naively supposed that socialism was defeated. The 21st century looked brighter than the 20th had been. Now I know better.

While things might look grim at the moment — imagine if what is becoming a demonic party actually won? if someone like Kamala Harris actually became president? — they look worse, as we glance ahead. What makes this election so discouraging is that it could be decided by a rising generation that has been crap-indoctrinated in our schools, “informed” by poisonously deceitful mass media, and further disoriented by all-but-universal social media.

They are a tremendous, and growing force — of low-information, high-malice voters. One looks at the mouth-parts of an “AOC” and realizes that, indeed, she is the voice of the future, unless God intercedes. And we have given Him little reason to do so.

Should Trump nevertheless win, against an opposition that is so yuge, it would most likely be the last hurrah for an America, now turned against itself. For even those who support him are, in the main, voting only to keep their wallets.

Pericles in ancient Athens, by any standard among the greatest politicians (read Thucydides, more carefully this time); and oddly, Plato, too, in his Republic, knew what was required of a great city or πόλις. It must, as it were, believe in its own myths. There are several other qualities that are essential, that we might want to revisit if there is still time. None have much to do with any political theory. There is no abstract “democracy,” but modifications must allow freedom, and merit; as Pericles (via Thucydides) perfectly understood. Too, a long, uninterrupted history, is not merely advantageous but crucial.

Trump is no genius, according to me; although he is very quick and smart, to the cost of his enemies. He “sort-of understands” these things, however, and I pray he won’t be punished for this kernel of wisdom. Too, I pray, that the Senate will hold for the Republicans, because regardless of the presidential election result, if the Dems take the Senate they will not hesitate to remove him. Even if they can’t, they are now hell-bent in schemes to alter the Constitution, from which there would be no looking back.

They seek only power. That is what invites demonic inhabitation.