By Peter Pavarini
At this week’s Democratic National Convention, we heard that “character is on the ballot”[i] in the upcoming election. The DNC’s nominee defined character as personal qualities like compassion, decency, moral clarity and, of all things, science. In a world divorced from religious faith, I suppose science is now the stand-in for a belief in God.
Political acceptance speeches have always been long on lofty rhetoric and short on concrete ideas, so I’m not surprised that a candidate running on the platform of “anyone but the incumbent” would seize on something as subjective as character. That’s dangerous, however, for a man who has had a 47-year history in Washington, D.C., checkered with a variety of moral lapses.
Telling Voters What They Want to Hear
Politicians of all stripes are well-known for telling voters what they want to hear – even when they know what they are saying is not true. Only a few politicians are remembered for telling the public what they don’t want to hear. Candidates who do only occasionally get elected, and even when they win, they rarely get re-elected.[ii]
One political figure who comes to mind is not the current occupant of the White House. Rather, it’s a Democratic president whose bluntness also inflamed his opponents. His name was Harry Truman.
A reporter once challenged Truman by saying, “Mr. President, people feel you are giving your opponents hell.” Truman responded, “I never did give anyone hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.”
To be fair, absolute truth is a difficult standard to achieve when you’re dealing with a complex, fast-moving situation like a pandemic or an economic collapse. A president’s most important job is to lead the nation in a crisis. That requires being able to communicate the problem and its proposed solution in a manner that makes sense to both low-information and high-information citizens. When even experts are divided over something as novel as the COVID-19 virus[iii] or as multi-dimensional as climate change[iv], it’s no wonder that the media can take anything a president says and twist it into something that will outrage a sizable number of Americans.
Having the Courage to Tell It Like It Is
It only takes partisan self-interest and the ability to read a teleprompter to say what’s needed to win the votes of gullible people. By contrast, it takes courage, determination and skill to, as the 1966 rhythm and blues hit said, “tell it like it is”.[v] Only when confronted with an honest assessment of reality can a nation begin a meaningful return to normalcy. Yes, 175,000 Americans have died with COVID, but that’s a far cry from the 2.2 million that was predicted just a few months ago.
The Character of the American People Has Never Been on the Ballot
The character of most Americans has never been in question. Good or bad, the personal characteristics of people we elect to public office say nothing about the worthiness of those they govern. Most people on both the Right and the Left mean well. They want what’s best, not only for themselves and their families, but also the countless souls they don’t know and may never meet. We can disagree on specific policies and even indulge in reciting our favorite talking points, but deep down we all cherish what distinguishes America from every other nation on earth.
Americans particularly resent being told we are systemically bad people and that our institutions and traditions must be destroyed and replaced with the warped philosophies of totalitarian governments that poison their opposition candidates, require citizens to eat their pets, and offer few if any of the freedoms we take for granted.
Most importantly, at the core of our national character is the ability to handle the truth, determine what’s really wrong, then fix the problem. As bad as the year 2020 might seem, the only ones who want to perpetuate our current misery are those who were personally miserable before the pandemic. Only by forcing others to share in their misery are such people able to rationalize life’s many challenges. Far too many government officials fall into this category. Ironically, they are now being joined by the anarchists who burn and loot our cities every night.
Like Aaron Neville sang, “life is too short for all the sorrow; we may be here and gone tomorrow.” Maybe it’s just me, but I’d much rather hear a president say “it is was it is”[vi] than some political pap about being the “ally of the light”[vii]. Were those lyrics from the soundtrack of a Star Wars movie? Whatever.
[i] C. Hayes, J. Lalljee, C. Bohan, “Joe Biden Puts Character on the Ballot”, USA Today, August 20, 2020.
[ii] George H. W. Bush’s failure to gain a second term as president is the best modern example of this, but Jimmy Carter can also be placed in this class of one-term presidents. Both men discovered that telling the public what they didn’t want to hear – but needed to hear – is the quickest way out of power.
[iii] https://alessandrocamp.com/2020/04/27/a-bad-day-for-science/
[iv] https://alessandrocamp.com/2019/08/27/adventures-in-climate-change-neverland/
[v] “Tell It Like It Is”, written by George Davis & Lee Diamond, recorded by Aaron Neville and ranked No. 391 on Rolling Stone’s list of the greatest 500 songs of all time.
[vi] https://wcti12.com/news/nation-world/democrats-use-trumps-it-is-what-it-is-to-make-their-case
[vii] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joe-biden-dnc-2020-speech-nomination-acceptance/
So true’