We have had enough of the politics of indecency. The empty promises. The blaring epithets. The contested versions of “real” and “fake” news. The demonizing of any and all who disagree with us. It’s time to stop and take a breath, see where we have come from, and see what we have come to.
Donald Trump promised his followers that, together, they would make America great again. Many politicians have made that identical promise. Like Trump, they have essentially failed to specify just what “greatness” they had in mind. Trump spoke vaguely of unfair trade deals, high taxes, foreigners crowding in, an establishment “swamp” that needed draining. It had all been said before.
The difference here was the style. It was a strident style filled with arrogance and hyperbole, an accusative style filled with slur and innuendo, a reckless style dodging and juking this way and that. It conveyed little or no respect for truth. It displayed little or no intellectual coherence. And it was full to the brim with what Trump called “counterpunching.” When journalist Megyn Kelly asked him on camera about statements he had made concerning women, he counterpunched with nothing less than an attempt to destroy her career.
The Trump style was particularly marked by the use of Twitter. His stream-of-consciousness Tweets ranged all the way from stark zig-zags in national policy to silly comments about nothing; from vicious attacks against imagined foes to gratuitous personal insults. Trump’s detractors were hardly more decorous. They not only returned his slings and arrows, they often did so with jaw-dropping vehemence. Politics became something like a barroom brawl.
How was any of this supposed to make America great again?
The greatness of America has never lain in political mayhem but in the quiet, steady, courageous application of leadership. Every “good” president has known this. One thinks of Franklin D. Roosevelt smiling through the dark night of the Depression, of Lyndon B. Johnson maneuvering the Civil Rights Act through a Dixiecrat Congress, of Ronald Reagan’s dogged efforts to subdue Soviet influence, of Harry Truman and “The buck stops here.” Most of all, one thinks of Abraham Lincoln.
Donald Trump is fond of referencing “old Honest Abe.” He has never done so for the right reasons. Lincoln and Trump are polar opposites in the important ways of politics. Lincoln never shouted, never postured, never mugged for the crowds, never made extravagant promises, never leveled ridiculous charges and, if he ever said something trivial, it was by way of a message-laden anecdote.
Lincoln’s signature quality was his decency. Consider one small example. After his death, his papers were found to contain any number of angry letters he had written to subordinates — his lackluster generals mostly — blasting them for this or that malfeasance. The president had every right to dispatch those letters, and his critics kept hounding him to do so. But he demurred. He eventually dropped the letters into a drawer and forgot about them. He was simply too decent a man to blame someone else when he knew where the buck really stopped.
Abraham Lincoln solved the two greatest problems in our history, slavery and disunion. It took gargantuan skill and courage to do so. He didn’t shout — he acted. He didn’t whine or name-call — he decided. He didn’t point fingers, make excuses or try to rewrite the record — he led. He did what he had to in order to get the job done.
Our politics of pandemonium may have reached a tipping point with the recent Alabama senatorial election. The charges against Roy Moore were not unique to his candidacy. Similar accusations have been brought against any number of prominent figures in business, entertainment and public life, including the president himself. Indeed, sexual predation has a lot in common with the new politics, sharing the same strut and swagger, the same self-indulgence, the same sense of entitlement — the same indecency.
The crux of the Roy Moore case was this: For President Trump, the fact that Moore may actually be guilty of criminal misconduct was apparently less important than a needed Republican vote in the Senate. That is: Politics trumps decency. The voters of Alabama thought otherwise. They were staunchly Republican themselves, the reddest of red states, but they elected a Democrat to the Senate. For them, apparently, politics does not trump decency.
It is time for the leaders of both parties and all persuasions to consider the implications of the Alabama vote. Shouting is not what made America great. Bullying and ballyhoo will not make it great again. Our greatness lies in the quiet, steady, courageous application of true leadership and just principles to the excruciating difficulties before us — as “old Honest Abe” so clearly understood.
We need to make America decent again.
Frank W. Fox
Frank W. Fox is a professor of history and American studies at Brigham Young University.
