After the election, &c.

On the GOP, the Electoral College, Mark Esper, the Olympics, music, language, and more

R epublicans used to joke — maybe they still do — that whenever a Republican was elected, the Democrats rediscovered a homelessness problem. When a Democrat was in charge, you did not hear much about homelessness. But when a Republican got in, homelessness, as an issue, was back.

What issues or principles or values might Republicans rediscover when a Democrat is again president? A list of possible rediscoveries:

Fiscal responsibility. Personal responsibility. The need for entitlement reform. The benefits of international trade. The need for democratic alliances. The importance of U.S. leadership in the world. Realism about the Kremlin. Disapproval of dictators. The crucial importance of character in office. Virtue in general.

The day after the election, Senator Lindsey Graham started talking about the need to address the federal budget deficit. I was thinking, What’s next, Ronna McDaniel reclaiming her middle name?

• The 2000 presidential election was not decided until mid December. By comparison, 2020’s has gone lickety-split, I think.

• For years and years, a lot of Republicans were hot for congressional term limits. I remember their lines — our lines: “There is more turnover in the Supreme Soviet than there is in the U.S. House. Republicans have not had a majority in the House since 1955. The power of incumbency is simply too strong. Something has to be done, to preserve competitive democracy.”

Then 1994 happened: that great Republican sweep. Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House. And the term-limits movement was essentially killed dead.

Might something similar happen to the movement, or feeling, against the Electoral College? Democrats have never had the experience of winning in the Electoral College while losing the popular vote, as Republicans have — including very recently (2000 and 2016). But now that they have regained the White House, maybe their anti–Electoral College passions will cool?

On Election Day 2012, Donald Trump did some tweeting. He apparently thought that Mitt Romney would win (or had won) the popular vote while losing to President Obama in the Electoral College. Trump tweeted:

“This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy!” “He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!” “More votes equals a loss . . . revolution!” “The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one!” “The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.”

Etc.

Four years later, of course, Trump was elected president by the very mechanism that he had decried as “a disaster for a democracy.”

In politics, there is often little principle — or no principle — behind positions. Almost everything is partisan. Tribal. That’s all.

• For years, people spoke of a “gender gap.” They still do, no doubt, but I don’t hear it as much. What people meant was: Republicans have trouble attracting female voters. Republicans responded, Okay — but what about Democrats? They have trouble attracting male voters. Why don’t people say that they have a “gender gap”?

Good point.

Today, I hear Republicans mocking Democrats as follows: Ha, ha, you have trouble attracting voters in rural areas and the heartland. Okay. But is not not equally true that Republicans have trouble attracting voters in cities and on the coasts? Or does that not count, because the millions who live in cities and on coasts aren’t “real Americans”?

The truth is, both parties have a problem appealing to significant parts of our population. They should get to work on it. Speaking as a conservative, I say that there is no reason — none — that conservative ideas cannot appeal to city-dwellers. It takes the right leaders to promote the ideas. To compete, appeal, and persuade.

No one wants to do that, though. It’s all base-stoking (rather than expansion).

Of course, what are “conservative ideas”? What is “conservatism”? That is a big, big debate . . .

• As usual, there is talk of a “mandate,” and “no mandate.” I always remember what Jack Germond said: “Mandate, shmandate” (essentially). “When you win, you win.” The winner goes out and sees what he can accomplish. Sometimes he succeeds, sometimes he fails.

George W. Bush won reelection in 2004. He said he had “the wind at my back.” He had political capital to spend, and he was choosing to spend it on something he thought critically important: Social Security reform. He went out and fought for it, valiantly, in my opinion — and struck out. The public was not with him. His own Republican Party was not with him, and neither was the conservative movement, I’m sad (and disgusted) to say.

But he was right, and, again, valiant.

• Frequently, I have written about the Olympic Games and their host cities and countries. There are different reasons for this: (1) I like the Olympics. (2) I like politics. (3) I like international relations. (4) I have devoted a fair amount of my time to the study of dictatorships.

As a rule, I do not believe that Olympic Games should be held in a police state. The Winter Games for 2022 are scheduled to be held in Beijing.

There is mounting opposition to this, I’m happy to say. People know about the new gulag archipelago in Xinjiang Province, or East Turkestan. They know about the crackdown in Hong Kong. Etc.

In September, more than 160 human-rights organizations appealed to the International Olympic Committee to withdraw the Games from Beijing. Australia is making noises about boycotting. So is the United Kingdom. So should the United States.

After the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, President Carter announced a U.S. boycott of the Moscow Games. (Very controversial, of course. Do you “punish” the athletes in order to rebuke or try to isolate a government?) I saw an ex-president, Nixon, on television, talking about this issue. He agreed with Carter. “You can’t just go over there and high-jump with them,” he said.

I will never forget that line.

• You may have seen the interview that Mark Esper gave the Military Times — an “exit interview.” President Trump fired Esper as secretary of defense. The word that Trump used, in a tweet, was “terminated.”

Esper has been mocked as a yes-man. Trump has participated in the mocking, referring to his SecDef as “Yesper.” But Esper takes exception to this, stirringly and convincingly.

“My frustration is, I sit here and say, ‘Hmmm, 18 cabinet members. Who’s pushed back more than anybody?’ Name another cabinet secretary that’s pushed back. Have you seen me on a stage saying, ‘Under the exceptional leadership of blah-blah-blah, we have blah-blah-blah-blah’?”

Esper also said,

“Who’s going to come in behind me? It’s going to be a real ‘yes-man.’ And then God help us.”

Fascinating.

• For eons, Marxists and other leftists have sought to pit “workers” against “managers,” “labor” against “capital,” and so on. Conservatives have long recognized this as demagoguery and charlatanism — and poisonous to society. Yet the Right is now eager to play the same game. The GOP, they say, must be a “workers party.”

How about a party for Americans (a great many of whom work)? Politics and policy need not be a zero-sum game. I learned this from conservatives — Bill Buckley, chief of all — who despised the Left’s pitting of classes and interest groups against one another. The conservatives were right.

• Speaking of conservatives, I give you Daniel Hannan:

. . . the fundamental premise of Trumpism, namely that globalisation is bad for ordinary people, is false. Nothing has done more to boost the living standards of people on low incomes than the reduction in the cost of living brought about by the removal of trade barriers. Reagan knew how to win that argument. Who will make it today?

Yeah, who? Don’t know. A vacancy is crying to be filled.

Elsewhere in this article, Hannan says,

Voice even the mildest criticism of Trump and his supporters will piranha-shoal around you in a frenzy . . .

True (and strikingly worded).

• A little news item about Fred Funk, the golfer: “Funk became only the fourth player 64 or older to make the cut on Tour, joining Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus, and Tom Watson.” “That’s really good,” said Funk, referring to the three big names. “And then ‘Funk.’ You throw that in there, it doesn’t sound right, does it?”

Ha, it does to me. I love Fred Funk. Met him once, and talked to him about various matters, connected to golf. Will tell you about that later, as am running long . . .

• A little language? I got a note from an intellectual friend of mine, Eric C. Simpson, late of The New Criterion: “Does it bother you, as it does me, how politicians always use ‘we the people’ in speeches even when it should be an accusative, ‘us the people’?”

Ha, now that you mention it . . .

(You’ll have to excuse Eric: He took everything that Donald Kagan, the classical historian, offered at Yale, and cares about things.)

• Mo’ language, sort of? During the Gulf War, a television correspondent, Arthur Kent, became known as the “Scud Stud.” Now I see Steve Kornacki, an election-returns analyst, referred to as a “chart-throb.”

The linguistic inventiveness of Americans . . .

• Recently, a group of us came upon something photographable. The leader of the group — our guide — said, “This is your Instagram moment.” We used to say “Kodak moment.” The passing of the torch . . .

• A little music? For a review of a vocal concert — livestreamed — go here. The singers are Diana Damrau, the German soprano, and Joseph Calleja, the Maltese tenor. (Yup: He made an album called “The Maltese Tenor.” How could you not?) For a slightly whimsical, but maybe interesting, little post about music-related umlauts and such, go here.

• A reader and friend writes,

Dear Jay,

Being a person of odd curiosities, I have a question for you. Some background first. Last night, I viewed a documentary on North Korea (My Brothers and Sisters in the North). The scene: members of a farm collective assembled for some entertainment, in the form of a song, fawning over the current tyrant. The collective didn’t look so happy, or well fed, as they sang along.

My question: If somehow you were in a position to offer “Now for something completely different” — something that would transcend the propaganda with its affecting beauty — what musical piece or movement would you choose?

Thanks for indulging me.

Hmmm. What occurs to me immediately is: the choral movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Also the Prisoners’ Chorus, and related choruses, from Beethoven’s Fidelio. (This opera is perhaps the greatest paean to freedom in art.)

• End with a photo? I title this one “Fall, Y’all.” Nice to see you. See you later.

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