When Poppy Bush ran against Bill Clinton, he simply assumed that the public would not choose a draft-dodging womanizer over him. “His ambient reality was that a president was above all a figure of dignity and decorum,” Bush senior biographer Jon Meacham said. “Clinton went on Arsenio Hall. Bush 41 probably thought Arsenio Hall was a building at Andover.”
.. Despite all the talk about civility, the Bushes threw out the red meat whenever they had to, from Lee Atwater and Willie Horton in ’88 to W.’s supporters whispering in 2000 that John McCain came home from Hanoi with snakes in his head, to the W. 2004 campaign strategy of encouraging gay marriage ballot initiatives to rile up the evangelicals, to Jeb spending a fortune on ads this winter eviscerating the character of the man he deemed the disloyal protégé, Marco Rubio.
.. Trump stunned everyone by pointing out the obvious: W. and Condi were not on the ball before 9/11, when W. was mountain-biking and ignoring memos headlined, as Bill Maher drily put it, “Osama bin Laden is standing right behind you.” Then, after 9/11, they played right into Osama’s recruiting plans by invading and occupying two Muslim countries, instead of simply going after the guilty party, as W. had promised to do when he yelled through the bullhorn at ground zero.
.. The country is now aflame with anger and disgust about politicians and bankers who conned trusting Americans and never got punished for it. That fury has led to the rise of wildly improbable candidates in both parties. As the Bush dynasty falls, it must watch in horror knowing that it is responsible for the rise of Donald Trump.
The Brutalism of Ted Cruz
But in his career and public presentation Cruz is a stranger to most of what would generally be considered the Christian virtues: humility, mercy, compassion and grace. Cruz’s behavior in the Haley case is almost the dictionary definition of pharisaism: an overzealous application of the letter of the law in a way that violates the spirit of the law, as well as fairness and mercy.
.. But Cruz’s speeches are marked by what you might call pagan brutalism. There is not a hint of compassion, gentleness and mercy. Instead, his speeches are marked by a long list of enemies, and vows to crush, shred, destroy, bomb them.
.. The best conservatism balances support for free markets with a Judeo-Christian spirit of charity, compassion and solidarity. Cruz replaces this spirit with Spartan belligerence. He sows bitterness, influences his followers to lose all sense of proportion and teaches them to answer hate with hate. This Trump-Cruz conservatism looks more like tribal, blood and soil European conservatism than the pluralistic American kind.
.. It became clear then, why right-wing conservative Republicans felt the need to explicitly add the adjective to their name – it certainly is not inherent in it. In fact, the phrase is oxymoronic. Imagine having to say “compassionate liberalism” – redundant.
.. Republicans are going to be faced with a choice—do they want their party’s message carried by a member of the Vengeance-is-Mine wing? It could win, in an election where angry sells and people may be looking for change, and therefore might be willing to throw the dice. But, I don’t think even most of the party, much less the rest of the country, would be especially happy with the results. You can only rule with that type of an approach, you can’t govern. The American people will not like rulers.
.. I keep thinking of Wiesel’s concentration camp character’s statement in Night that Hitler is the only one he trusts, because he is the only one who didn’t lie to the Jews.
.. And that platform is built exclusively on appeals to the very basest of human instincts: greed, selfishness, fear, prejudice, resentment, bigotry, ignorance, and aggression. Cruz and Trump merely express in plainer language what all the GOP candidates for president espouse as policy positions.
.. In advertising, the basic wisdom used to be: “sex sells.” Among conservatives, the basic wisdom is: “fear sells.”
Fearful people do not practice compassion and mercy.
.. As an evangelical, I am appalled by how most evangelicals act politically. Our faith never calls for us to use the force of government to impose our faith on others. We are to do it by example and win people over. We are to be the salt of the earth, not the gunpowder. We are to be a light unto the world, not a nuclear blast.
Obnoxiousness Is the New Charisma
They market name-calling as truth-telling, pettiness as boldness, vanity as conviction.
.. “Strap on the full armor of God,” he reportedly exhorted campaign volunteers during a New Year’s Eve conference call, readying them for attacks from his rivals. At a Christian conference in Iowa in November, he told the audience: “Any president who doesn’t begin every day on his knees isn’t fit to be commander in chief of this country.”
Communities of Character
Researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education asked 10,000 middle and high school students if their parents cared more about their personal achievement or whether they were kind. Eighty percent said their parents cared more about achievement — individual over the group.
.. The students lead their own parent-teacher conferences. They stand up before their parents, a teacher and other observers and they give a presentation on their successes, failures and how they might improve.
.. Most of the time character is not an individual accomplishment. It emerges through joined hearts and souls, and in groups.