“It is safer to try to understand the low in the light of the high than the high in the light of the low. In doing the latter one necessarily distorts the high, whereas in doing the former one does not deprive the low of the freedom to reveal itself as fully as what it is.” —Leo Strauss
It is safer to try to understand the current state of American politics in light of what has gone before—and, we trust, in light of what will come after—than to understand America’s past and future in light of the present moment. It’s safer to try to understand Donald Trump in light of the American political tradition than to view American politics reflected via the funhouse mirror of Trumpism. The American political tradition has never assumed that enlightened statesmen will always be at the helm. It has always understood that demagoguery is an inescapable feature of democracy, and that occasionally demagogues would prevail. Indeed, Americans know well that at many times and in many ways we have fallen grievously short of vindicating the capacity of mankind for self-government that is good government.
The present moment is not one to be proud of. The normal vulgarity of democratic politics has become the shameless demagoguery of democratic decadence. The routine operation of party politics has given way to the mindless polarization of partisan fanatics. The characteristic limitations of popular leaders have yielded to an abdication of leadership itself. A public life with occasional cringeworthy moments has been replaced by one that is on the whole cringeworthy. A generation of self-regarding and self-indulgent baby boomers is about to be succeeded by a generation of apparently self-absorbed and self-referential millennials.
But the present moment is only . . . a moment. We’re in a period of fundamental economic, social, and cultural transition. Such times can produce leadership that is informed, serious, and high-minded. But the initial response has often been a moment of denial and demagoguery.
Consider the presidential race of 2016. At a time calling for fresh thinking, the parties selected the oldest and least compelling pair of candidates ever to be placed simultaneously before the American people. As if determined to vindicate Max Weber’s prediction that modernity was tending toward the extinction of every human possibility except “specialists without spirit or vision and voluptuaries without heart,” the parties gave voters a choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The voters did their best, denying a popular vote majority to both of them. Still, someone had to win, and someone did.
Now we have to deal with the consequences of 2016. There’s work to be done to limit the damage and secure some benefits from a Trump presidency. There’s the challenge of making sound judgments in a political scene characterized by confused Republicans battling hysterical Democrats, and of navigating an environment in which conservatism is adrift and liberalism has gone off the rails.
Those efforts are important. But even more important is the task of shaping the future. For we need to keep in mind a simple fact: There will be life after Trump. And we can’t let our understanding of the possibilities of the future be defined by the debilities of the present.
To the contrary. One senses that Americans are already experiencing a healthy revulsion against the embarrassing political scene in which we find ourselves. What comes next is taking control of our fate and turning that revulsion into the construction, after Trump, of a new politics of liberty, a new ethic of responsibility, and a new vision of national greatness.
Hoc opus, hic labor est. This is the work, this is the labor.
