On the menu today: asking just how much we should care that Jen O’Malley Dillon, President-elect Joe Biden’s campaign manager and incoming White House deputy chief of staff used the F-bomb when describing congressional Republicans in a recent magazine interview; Politico assures us that “an instinct for cultlike compliance isn’t part of the Democratic Party character or tradition”; and remembering arguably the most politically incorrect personality of the modern era.
Crying Foul
Quite a few people who work in politics swear a lot. You may perceive this as a big problem, a small problem, or not a problem at all. I do note that people who swear a lot often do not realize how much they may offend or irritate those who prefer to avoid such language. The first draft of Voting to Kill kept all the expletives in, spelled out, until someone pointed out that some people will pick up a book, flip through, see the F-bomb, and then put it down. If you use four-letter words, some people will recoil and tune you out. Thus, I try not to use profanity in my writing but will let it slip in private conversations, particularly when I hit my thumb with a hammer.
It doesn’t speak particularly well of Jen O’Malley Dillon, President-elect Joe Biden’s campaign manager and incoming White House deputy chief of staff, that she called congressional Republicans “a bunch of f***ers” in an interview with Glamour magazine. Even if you’re okay with foul language, it is not particularly smart to use a term like that, on the record, to describe someone you’re going to need to work with on legislation. If her point was merely “I’m not saying we’re not going to have some fierce disagreements and intense fights on legislation,” she would probably have been better off just saying that.
But if you bother to read the interview, it’s a throwaway reference that comes, ironically, in the need to reach out and find common ground where possible. (Further irony: The previous question had been, “love and politics, can you talk a little bit about that connection?”)
O’Malley Dillon is talking about the need to continue communicating with those who disagree:
I also think, as in love, compromise is a good thing. The atmosphere in the world now is like, “Oh, if you compromise, you don’t believe in something.” No, it’s: I believe in it so much that I’m going to work to find a path we can both go down together. That feels to me like the heart of relationships and love and success across the board.
That might be what we’re missing — is that redefining of compromise. That it is or it can be the ultimate victory.
Yes, exactly. And frankly, that’s what we need. The president-elect was able to connect with people over this sense of unity. In the primary, people would mock him, like, “You think you can work with Republicans?” I’m not saying they’re not a bunch of [f-word-ers]. Mitch McConnell is terrible. But this sense that you couldn’t wish for that, you couldn’t wish for this bipartisan ideal? He rejected that. From start to finish, he set out with this idea that unity was possible, that together we are stronger, that we, as a country, need healing, and our politics needs that too.
From that comment, people are free to come to the conclusion that Jen O’Malley Dillon is a shameless partisan who hates the leaders of the opposing party, or that she’s a hypocrite who calls for bipartisan cooperation and unity but who can’t really hide her seething contempt for GOP leaders.
But if we had a dollar for every time a White House chief of staff or deputy chief of staff used foul or scathing language to criticize the other party, we would probably be able to pay down the national debt. You may have noticed that the current president is not exactly shy when it comes to denouncing the opposition. And furiously condemning an opposing figure in politics is an American tradition going back to at least John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
Furthermore, I suspect Republican leaders in Congress are probably less than shocked to hear O’Malley Dillon use that term to describe them. She didn’t just appear on the national political stage. She was Beto O’Rourke’s presidential campaign manager before working for Biden. In 2012, she was Barack Obama’s deputy campaign manager, worked at the DNC under Tim Kaine, was battleground-states director for Obama in 2008, and earlier in that cycle was deputy campaign manager for John Edwards. She has spent her career convincing people not to vote for Republicans, contending that they are bad people who want to enact harmful policies. No one is surprised that she’s a partisan.
Republicans can’t get Biden to pick someone else to be his deputy chief of staff, and O’Malley Dillon can’t get Senate Republicans to pick another leader besides McConnell. (We will see, early next month, if the Biden team can get the Senate to a 50–50 split.) McConnell and O’Malley Dillon are stuck with each other, and they and their staffs will have to figure out a way to work with each other.
Nor is there any sign that having a White House chief of staff or deputy who is a partisan or who has a temper and sharp elbows is a formula for disaster. Trump’s first chief of staff, Reince Priebus, was formerly chairman of the Republican National Committee. Rahm Emanuel, John Podesta, James Baker, John Sununu, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alexander Haig . . . these are not shy, genteel, soft-spoken personalities.
An incoming White House deputy chief of staff using foul language to describe GOP leaders is not a particularly consequential act. It comes as the pandemic is raging, many of America’s schools remain closed, the Georgia runoff elections are approaching, and allegedly secure federal computer systems have been hacked — including the Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. All of those are much more consequential than someone — whom most Americans have never heard of — foolishly using bad language in an interview with that oh-so-prominent journal of American politics that also has the scoop that Victoria’s Secret supermodel Karolina Kurkova is pregnant with her third child “and finally feels free in her own skin.”
But some people really want to be much more upset about O’Malley Dillon dropping the F-bomb than anything else going on in the world, and they want you to be much more upset about O’Malley Dillon dropping the F-bomb than anything else going on in the world. Whether you concur in their outrage is up to you.
No Instinct for Cult-like Compliance over There, Huh?
Over in Politico, John F. Harris offers a spectacularly tone-deaf assessment of modern political parties:
Why can’t Joe Biden create a cult of personality, too?
Two ingredients are missing. One is an outsize leadership personality of the sort that the genial Biden doesn’t possess. The second, more important, is an instinct for cultlike compliance that isn’t part of the Democratic Party character or tradition.
This highlights an important psychological difference between the parties. The conservative mind typically has a natural deference to authority, making Republicans more likely to respond positively to the notion of a president laying down the law and punishing dissenters. The liberal mind typically has a natural skepticism toward authority, and a natural sympathy to the grievances and demands of its own special-interest constituencies, especially when these are groups that historically have faced prejudice. This is generalizing, of course. But the generalities have enough validity that it is virtually impossible to imagine a Democratic president bullying his party the way Trump has bullied Republicans.
“An instinct for cultlike compliance that isn’t part of the Democratic Party character or tradition.” Can you believe all of the “Is Obama the messiah” stuff has been memory-holed already? The anti-war movement more or less disappeared after Obama took office, and most Democrats assented to Obama sending more troops, launching more operations, using drone strikes, the “kill list,” etc.
But a little later in the piece, Harris does make an important point: Right now, very few Democrats in Congress or anywhere else fear crossing Biden. Maybe that won’t be so bad, after a long stretch of the imperial presidency, Trump’s public raging at any Republican who defied him, and Obama’s “don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother.” Maybe the country would be well-served by a little less partisan loyalty. Maybe Biden will be a better president if members of his party feel free to openly express disagreement and criticize him when he screws up.
And maybe we as a country would be better off if fewer elected officials felt compelled to insist that the emperor’s new clothes look terrific, lest they be accused of disloyalty.
The Least Boring Writer in America Couldn’t Function in Today’s Culture
Our David Harsanyi reminds us that Christopher Hitchens passed away ten years ago this week — how time flies! — and wonders what he would be writing today. He concludes:
Hitchens was probably one of our last ‘celebrity intellectuals.’ His approach, even more than the positions he took, would seem anachronistic in today’s stultified, PC-ridden, compartmentalized media environment where audiences are coddled. That’s a shame.
ADDENDUM: It feels as if it has been a terribly long and generally exhausting week, but Peggy Noonan observes this was an extremely consequential one. The Electoral College cast its votes, the first vaccinations using Pfizer’s formula have started, and the FDA’s advisory committee approved a second vaccine from Moderna. This past year has been a miserable ordeal; 2021 promises to be something different.