The People We Deserve

[EasyAce]

Today, we have a ‘crisis of responsibility.’
By Jonah Goldberg
http://www.nationalreview.com/g-file/456513/virtue-democracy-people-we-deserve

. . . To be clear, I am not arguing or suggesting that the American people have lost all virtue, never mind that there’s a holocaust around the corner. What I am getting at is that George Washington’s argument works the other way around, too. When the “general Government” starts to degenerate into “a monarchy, an Oligarchy, an Aristocracy, or any despotic or oppressive form,” the virtues of the people degenerate as a result. As Joseph de Maistre said, “Every nation gets the government it deserves.”

We don’t have a monarchical, aristocratic, or despotic government — though there are aspects of our government that are far closer to such adjectives than many would like to admit. But we talk about it like we think it should be. In the wake of this horrific shooting in Florida, journalists and politicians are shouting demands at the federal government and the president of the United States that neither can achieve if they are to stay consistent with the Constitution.

“Get rid of the guns!” “Stop this from happening!” TV hosts scream, as the networks shove cameras in the faces of grieving mothers and fathers of children still in body bags, while crediting their utterly understandable cries of anguish as coherent public-policy programs. The assumption is that, if only the president’s heart were in the right place, these terrible things wouldn’t be happening. It reminds me of the old lament of the Jews harassed by the pogroms, “If only the Czar knew!”

In the debate over guns, I think the Right has the better arguments (which is not to say I agree with all of them). But the Right is not immune to this monarchical thinking. The Right has its own cult of the presidency, because Americans have a cult of the presidency. The president recently took credit for the decline in airplane crashes — all around the world — and few of the usual suspects offered even a chortle. How often do you hear that this is the “Trump economy”? As a political talking point, that’s hardly remarkable, since all presidents take credit for a good economy. But conservatives used to mock the notion that a massively diversified economy could be run from a desk in the Oval Office. Under Obama, airheads and poltroons talked of him as a “lightworker” and pledged
allegiance to him. Under Trump, loyalists “jokingly” pine for him to be a “dictator,” and religious leaders celebrate his glandular authenticity, while sharing memes of Jesus guiding his pen-hand. Americans, it seems, still crave a king . . .