Transition

Autumn weather, the welcome annual transition from summer to winter, at last seems to be (albeit belatedly) on its way. Meanwhile, in the political world, we in the United States have long been accustomed to another transition tradition at this season, as one "lame duck" President finishes out his term and prepares to transfer power to his recently elected successor.

For much of the Republic's history, the transition just happened, with greater or lesser degrees of amity and concord. With the 20th-century growth of the federal government, however, a more systematic transition became necessary. Federal law now requires requires the White House and agencies to begin transition planning well before a presidential election and the General Services Administration to provide office space and other core support services to presidents-elect and vice presidents-elect, as well as pre-election space and support to eligible candidates. Famously (or, rather, infamously) that didn't work so well four years ago. We will see how well it works this time.

The more visible - and somewhat ritualistic - aspects of the transition concern the direct, personal interactions of the principals, that is, the President and the President-elect. This usually entails at least one formal meeting of the two at the White House sometime after the election and then the formal, ceremonial meeting and ride together to the Capitol on Inauguration morning. Even that hasn't always gone so well. Witness four years ago when the outgoing President Trump boycotted his successor's inaugural. The last time that had happened was 1869, when President Andrew Johnson refused to attend President-elect Ulysses S Grant's inauguration. (Because of his health condition, in 1921 Woodrow Wilson did not attend Warren Harding's actual swearing-in, but he did do the traditional ride with him to the Capitol beforehand.)

It remains to be seen what January 20 will look like and how much of the traditional ritual will actually occur, but today at least President Biden is doing his part in welcoming President-elect Trump to confer with him at the White House. How well the outgoing and incoming staffs are collaborating may be another question, the answer to which we will learn soon enough.

The legal stipulations for transition-planning and inter-Administration cooperation reflect contemporary concerns about effectively staffing the federal government. What that federal government will actually look like once staffed by MAGA Trump cronies is something else again!

The personal and ceremonial aspects of the transition are more about constitutional and democratic symbolism - the sort of thing Americans used to take great pride in, although perhaps not so much anymore. At the first presidential transition I can really remember - from Eisenhower to Kennedy - one memorable line of commentary was, "Thus passes power, freely won, freely given." That, of course, is at the heart of constitutional, democratic governance. If not lost, that mindset has been irretrievably injured by President Trump's behavior in the 2020-2021 transition. While a return to the traditional rituals would in itself be welcome, much more important will be the long-term impact of our recent political crises on popular beliefs and attitudes about constitutional and democratic governance.

Veterans Day and Our Wider World

When I was in elementary school in the 1950s, November was for us a wonderful month full of school holidays. There were five of them  - All Saints Day (November 1), Election Day, Veterans Day (November 11), Thanksgiving Day, and the Friday after (at a time when most folks went back to work that day). Veterans Day is still a legal holiday (no mail, no banking), but otherwise gets little attention - unlike, say, in Canada, where the Remembrance Day two-minute silence still has real power. In a better world, perhaps, we would make more of Veterans Day. But that is not where we are.

That said, the Veterans Day we do have still has salience. Primarily, it evokes personal, familial, and local appreciations of those who have served our country in uniform, especially in our many wars. That is certainly edifying and important. At a more remote remove, however, Veterans Day has an historical component. It is, after all, the 106th anniversary of the Armistice that ended the First Word War, which (along with the war itself) paved the way not for a century of peace but a prolonged period of wars and civil and global conflicts. 

When the Armistice Day Centenary was celebrated in 1918, Donald Trump was the U.S. President, someone whose understanding of what World War I had been about and whose appreciation of military service and sacrifice were both severely attenuated at best. His presence at the commemorations created some dissonance at the time.

Now Donald Trump is to be President again, and his neo-isolationist outlook offers an alternative perspective to the traditional themes of this holiday.

The first widespread takeaway from the experience of World War I was that the pre-war order (Churchill's "Old World in its sunset" that was "glorious to look upon" ) had failed and could not be put back together again. The question then became what new international order could be created to replace what had self-destructed. The post-war world the winners created proved disastrous (which could and should have been predicted at the time). The gratuitous destruction of the Hapsburg Empire, the calumny of German war guilt, the imposition of reparations, plus the rise of the Soviet Union on Europe's eastern end, all created an international order set up for failure which it did within 20 years.

The victors of World War II won much more decisively, and that perhaps gave them greater freedom to restructure the international order in a way which appeared to them to be more promising. Even the Cold War, which was my first introduction to international relations, unintentionally created a kind of stability. And, while the end of the Cold War was a bountiful benefit for those living in the Soviet Union and in eastern Europe, it in turn created unexpected new problems and new disruptions.

We are now coming to the end of that post-Cold-War era, wondering what exactly is going to take its place. One thing that is clear is that unlike the previous two post-WWII eras, the U.S. will not play the kind of exceptional role it has hitherto played. 

And that is a very somber reflection for this Veterans Day.

Realignment

 

Matthew Sitman (co-host of the Know Your Enemy podcast) has argued that the story of this election is "the story of Western politics over the past fifty years: class dealignment and education polarization, which is to say the continued abandonment of center-left parties for the political right by working-class voters." 

It is hard to argue with that almost obvious assertion, which Sitman amplifies as follows: Trump "told people who to blame for the problems in their life, real or imagined, and promised to fix it all. ... Working class Americans didn’t turn out for Trump because he threatens democracy. They did so because our democracy, such as it is, didn’t seem worth defending. Any arguments about the way forward need to begin with this depressing reality."

Sitman may be expressing a more ideologically jaundiced feeling about American liberal democracy than the average contemporary Democrat would easily identify with, but what may be hard to identiy with may need to be at least considered. An important reality is that, while the Democrats are increasingly vulnerable on issues the majority of voters care about and are, therefore, diminishing, the Republicans have been building a growing, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, working-class, non-college-educated coalition. 

The fact is also that that coalition also includes tech billionaires and other super-rich who stand to benefit from Trump's policies, likely to the detriment of the "working-class" components of the coalition. It remains to be seen whether those components of the emerging Republican coalition will hold the party accountable for its failures or - more likely, based on recent history - whether they will remain loyal, contrary to their immediate economic interests, because of their cultural identity politics.

Cultural identity politics remain the Democrats' Achilles Heel. The infamous ad about Harris supposedly endorsing tax-payer-funded gender surgery for illegal immigrant prisoners may well have been the single most successful Republican ad, one which effectively symbolizes the wider cultural dissonance at the heart of so much of the Democratic party's present problems.

It is not that Democrats don't offer policies which would be beneficial for members of the new multi-racial, multi-ethnic, working-class, non-college-educated coalition. But voters can usually discern what matters most motivate and inspire a candidate. And at present that perception is that an array of counter-cultural (even counter common-sense) identity politics positions may be what most motivate and inspire many elite, college-educated Democrats.

Reckoning for Liberalism

Early this morning after the election, I went across town to a regularly scheduled medical appointment. At that early hour, the New York streets were full of people going to work or school. Everyone seemed to be doing what people probably would have been doing had there not been an election. It was a salutary reminder that life is about more than politics.

That said, today we need to talk about politics. The American people have overwhelmingly elected the most problematic presidential candidate in modern history, with potentially catastrophic consequences for many Americans, for immigrants, and for the world order we have known for decades. The severity of the challenge to democratic institutions and norms that the country will face in the next few months and years will be unprecedented. It will be a dark and difficult time for America. 

Meanwhile, we have just had an election, and it behooves us to analyze its meaning and import. Not only did Trump win in the Electoral College, but he appears also to have won the popular vote. If so, he would be the first Republican to do so in 20 years. He overwhelmingly improved over his past performance in much of the country (apparently getting the largest vote-share of any Republican since 1988). It was a genuinely stunning popular victory, which also confirms what an angry and divided country this is at present.

Undoubtedly, critics will now attack Kamala Harris' campaign. While I think more analysis is called for, my sense is that she ran about as good a campaign as she could. Perhaps, a different candidate might have done better, but I believe the basic lesson of the election is a strong popular rejection of contemporary liberalism and the liberal "establishment." Obviously, the cultural issues the Democrats thought might carry them to victory could not overcome the widespread dissatisfaction with the Biden Administration and especially with its handling of the economy and immigration. While it may be true that the U.S. economy is in fact the envy of the rest of the world, the Democrats' seeming insensitivity to how ordinary Americans actually experience the economy seems to have doomed their efforts to change the subject to cultural concerns.

Whether a different candidate could have done better than Harris is really also a question about Joe Biden's initial insistence on running for a second term. That became unsustainable after the June debate; but it is possible that, if he had announced at the end of 2022 that he would not run again, the subsequent primary process might have produced a better candidate (or even made Harris a better candidate). But it is really hard to see what more Harris could have done, given the strong headwinds she was facing.

There probably will be an argument about whether her "popular front" strategy made the most sense. She apparently premised her campaign on the belief that lots of centrist voters (including many anti-Trump Republicans) would support her. In the end, there do not seem to be many such centrists left! On the other hand, it would seem almost ludicrous to argue that an alternative, more leftist, "progressive" campaign strategy would have wooed many voters away from Trump. Whatever may be said for or against "progressive" politics, the reality is that "progressive" politics tends to read the culture wrong.

"Populism" is ultimately an electoral NO to continued rule by the elite governing political class, which the Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans represent right now. The election results undercut any moderate Republican argument for some sort of recidivist Reaganism. More importantly, however, the election was a great rebuke to contemporary post-cold-war liberalism and especially to its increasingly "woke" expressions, which appear increasingly irrelevant to ordinary people's lives and offensive to their moral values. How the Democrats sort this out in the inevitable internal party struggle that is ahead may determine what, if any, prospects for success the Democratic party may have in the near future.

The Greatest of All Plagues

 

Capitalism solved the problem of production, one of my professors used to say, but it's up to others to solve the problem of distribution. That "problem of distribution" is increasingly the problem of economic inequality, which is incredibly worse now than it was 50 years ago when I was studying political theory. As political scientist David Lay Williams reminds us in this latest - and very traditional - conversation within the history of political theory, whereas 'in 1965, the average CEO earned 21.1 times as much as a typical worker at the same company," by 2021,  the average CEO "earned 351.1 times as much as a typical worker at the same company."

The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought From Plato to Marx (Princeton U. Pr., 2024) is written in the format of a traditional history of political theory, treating the political philosophies of Plato, the NewTestament, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and Karl Marx. The book takes its title from Plato's Laws, 744d, where the Athenian Stranger characterizes civil war as the greatest of all plagues, which he describes as an inevitable outcome of economic inequality. Plato's Laws in fact famously restrict inequality to a 4:1 ratio.

Williams takes us through some of the traditional canon of political theory, focusing on theorists' (beginning with Plato) preoccupation with civic unity and harmony and the obstacles that inordinate accumulations of great wealth have long been recognized as posing for societies. "Perhasp the single most common theme uniting thinkers in this book regarding the problem of inequality is the degree to whcih inequality divides political communities."

His particular bete-noir is sufficientarianism, which is preoccupied with alleviating poverty rather than overcoming inequality. With Adam Smith, the traditional zero-sum view of the economy changed importantly with the new capitalist understanding of economic growth. One consequence of the reality of economic growth has been the sufficientarian preoccupation with poverty to the neglect of inequality. Yet, as Plato's 4:1 ratio reminds us, there are limits to how much inequality a society can appropriately tolerate. Sufficientariansim, according to Williams, "severely constrains the moral imagination as it has been expressed throughout history." It also ignores something well understood by the theorists analyzed in this book, namely "the corrupting effect of inequality on the rich themselves."

This well written retrieval of the tradition of the history of political thought offers a rich treatment of why and how economic inequality contributes to social disunity, political instability, and deep-seated personal and collective moral corruption.

Jaywalking in NYC

 

After 66 years, it is now legal again to jaywalk in New York City! I am (sigh) old enough to remember when crossing the street against the light became illegal in 1958. I remember the TV ads that said, "You now risk a Summons"! In fact, until the change in the law this year, jaywalking carried a fine of up to $250.

From what I have observed, jaywalking is almost universal in New York and in many other places as well. (I remember how shocked I was when I moved to Milwaukee in 1977 to discover that the law against jaywalking was actually enforced there.) It seems to be natural human rebellion against the automobile's claim to own the streets.

The weird term "jaywalking" apparently originated in the early 1900s, transferring to pedestrians who crossed the street contrary to traffic laws an expression "jay-driver" already in use for someone who drove on the wrong side of the road. (The term "jay" at that time apparently had the connotation of someone who didn't know how to behave in a city.) Applied to pedestrians, it validated the 20th-century mistake that the streets - and, therefore, cities - belong to cars, not people.

Of course, caution in crossing the street is always advisable. According to the NYC Department of Transportation, 200 people have died in the last five years while crossing the street against traffic signals. On the other hand, everyone recognizes that it is often quite safe to cross against the light or outside the cross walk. It all depends on the presence or absence of actual traffic.

The often overly congested character of New York City traffic adds to jaywalking's appeal. When traffic seems stuck and barely moving and horns are blowing (more as an expression of frustration and impatience rather than as a practical measure), it is natural to take the opportunity to cross wherever one can. It is part of the dynamic created by congestion that valorizes assertion and pushing ahead wherever possible.

Look both ways - and keep looking - is the only safe way to cross, whether with the light or even now against it.

Dilexit Nos

 

On October 24, Pope Francis issued an Encyclical Letter Dilexit Nos ("On the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ"). This was the first encyclical devoted entirely to the Sacred Heart since Pius XII's encyclical Haurietis Aquas, published on May 15, 1956, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Pope Pius IX. Given the special relationships between Jesuits and the modern devotion to the Sacred Heart.

Like so many such documents, Dilexit Nos is longer than it needs to be and unlikely to attract casual readers. That said, there are a few points it would be particularly desirable to mention. Francis highlights how what we contemplate and adore in this devotion "is the whole Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, represented by an image that accentuates his heart. That heart of flesh is seen as the privileged sign of the inmost being of the incarnate Son and. his love, the heart of Jesus is 'the natural sign and symbol of his boundless love" (48). The Pope stresses the significance of the image of the heart. "Universal human experience has made the image of the heart something unique" (53). "The venerable image portraying Christ holding out jis loving heart also shows him looking directly at us, inviting us to encounter, dialogue and trust; it shows his strong hands capable of supporting us and his lips that speak personally to each of us" (54).

Devotion to the Sacred Heart highlights the humanity of Christ. "The Fathers of the Church, opposing those who denied or downplayed the true humanity of Christ, insisted on the concrete and tangible reality of the Lord's human affections" (62). "Devotion to Christ's heart is essential for our Christian life to the extent that it expresses our openness in faith and adoration to the mystery of the Lord's divine and human love" (83).

Francis recalls the historical importance of this devotion in the battle against Jansenists, who "looked askance on all that was human, affective and corporeal, and so viewed this devotion as distancing us from pure worship of the Most High God" (86). Moving to today, "we are also seeing a proliferation of varied forms of religiosity that have nothing to do with a personal relationship with the God of love, but are new manifestations of a disembodied spirituality" (87). Francis also adds "that the heart of Christ also frees us from another kind of dualism found in communities and pastors excessively caught up in external activities, structural reforms that have little to do with the Gospel, obsessive reorganization plans, worldly projects, secular ways of thinking and mandatory programmes" (88).

Regarding the history of the devotion, "the Church today rejects nothing of the good that the Holy Spirit has bestowed on us down the centuries, for she knows that it will always be possible to discern a clearer and deeper meaning in certain aspects of that devotion, and to gain new insights over the course of time" (109). Unsurprisingly, the Pope highlights the devotion's resonances within the Society of Jesus. He quotes Pedro Arupe: "From my novitiate on, I have always been convinced that what we call devotion to the Sacred Heart contains a symbolic expression of what is most profound in Ignatian spirituality, and of an extraordinary efficacy - ultra quam speraverint - both for its own perfection and for apostolic fruitfulness" (146).

Finally, the Pope addresses what he calls "the missionary dimension." Accordingly, "our work as Christians for the betterment of society should not obscure it religious inspiration, for that, in the end, would be to seek less for our brothers and sisters than what God desires to give them" (205).

Francis concludes: "Christ's love can give a heart to our world and revive love wherever we think that the ability to love has been definitively lost" (218).

November

In November, in the days to remember the dead
When air smells cold as earth,
St. Malachy, who is very old, gets up,
Parts the thin curtain of trees and dawns upon our land.

So begins a famous poem by the 20th-century American monk Thomas Merton. (Saint Malachy was a 12th-century Cistercian who became Bishop of Saint Patrick's See of Armagh, whose feast is customarily kept of November 3, the day after All Souls Day.)

Once upon a time, November 1 marked the beginning of the old European/Celtic winter. Even if, sadly, the weather isn't quite so cold as it used to be at this point in the year (thanks to the self-inflicted damage of climate change), the November Triduum of Halloween, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day does bring with it an inescapable shift in mood, traditionally reflected in the change of seasons. (In Tennessee last weekend, I did get to see fantastic fall foliage, another seasonal sign that sometimes seems increasingly muted.)

These annual days to remember the dead keep us connected with those who have gone before us, whose number, of course, keeps increasing as we age and come closer to joining them. It is more than merely a matter of nostalgia. Remembering is a fundamentally human activity, all the more to be treasured as we age. Remembering those whose lives once intersected with ours affirms that their lives were real and genuinely mattered. Factor in the faith dimension of the Communion of Saints, which All Saints and All Souls Days are intended to focus on, our remembering those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith celebrates our shared destiny and shared hope.  

Photo: November Memorials to the Departed, Saint Paul the Apostle Church, NY.