In recent days, I have been reminded of the presidential election of 1992 — particularly the general-election debates. These were three-way affairs, involving President Bush (41), Governor Clinton, and H. Ross Perot. The second debate was “townhall-style,” meaning that ordinary citizens posed the questions.
One man stood up and said he worked as a “domestic mediator.” He sported a ponytail (which is relevant, as you will see in a moment). He said he focused on “the needs of the children,” rather than “the wants of their parents.” Here was his question: “How can we, as symbolically the children of the future president, expect the three of you to meet our needs?”
To see this on YouTube, go here.
Conservatives had a field day with this. They made “Ponytail Guy,” as the questioner was dubbed, an object lesson. They (we) wished the candidates had responded, “A U.S. president is not your daddy. You are a free and independent citizen in a constitutional republic.”
“Ponytail Guy” represented blight in America, conservatives said — America the Soft; America the Government-Dependent; America the Irresponsible.
You get the idea.
Since the re-inauguration of President Trump, one Republican congressman, Byron Donalds (Fla.), has said, “Daddy’s back.” Another one, Lauren Boebert (Colo.), has said, “Daddy’s home!” Charlie Kirk, the young Republican leader, has said, “Dad is home.”
And here is Mel Gibson, the actor, whom Trump has made a “special ambassador” to Hollywood: “It’s like Daddy arrived, and he’s taking his belt off, you know?”
(To see news articles on this, go here and here.)
So, an outbreak of daddyism, from the Republican side. I think the pre-2016 Republicans, the pre-2016 conservatives, were right (as about most things).
What do people want? Do they want to be free and independent citizens in a constitutional republic, largely responsible for themselves? Or do they want to be subjects of a big and paternalistic government, with the head of state their national father?
This question has been debated since ancient Greece, at least. (Personally, I like George Washington as the father of our country, in a figurative and founding sense — and that’s it.)
• Pete Hegseth has now become the secretary of defense, after Vice President Vance broke a 50–50 tie in the Senate. Obviously, he is a natural defense secretary for President Trump — a Fox News host, covered in the “right” tattoos, etc.
What will the world look like, after Trump and his crew are finished? We will soon know. In 2020, Hegseth wrote, “The defense of Europe is not our problem: been there, done that, twice.” He further described NATO as a “relic.”
Is it? Is the alliance not crucial to deterring the Kremlin’s aggression and expansionism? Certainly the new members, Sweden and Finland, find it crucial. Is the defense of Europe really unconnected to U.S. security? “Not our problem”? Does the 20th century teach such a lesson?
Pre-2016, Republicans and conservatives said, “NATO is the most successful military alliance in human history.” Remember, too, that Article V has been invoked only once. (This is the article that says, in effect, “An attack on one is an attack on all.”) That was after 9/11.
Mike Lee is a U.S. senator from Utah. Many conservatives hoped he would serve on the Supreme Court one day. He is a son of Rex Lee, who was a solicitor general under Reagan (and later the president of Brigham Young University). In the Trump era, the senator has been tweeting as “BasedMikeLee.” This is a sample of his work, from last week:
I think of an adage: “Be careful what you wish for.” Be careful what you snap your fingers for.
• After he was reelected in 1996, President Clinton nominated Anthony Lake, his national security adviser, to be the director of the CIA. But Lake had problems — including one related to Alger Hiss.
On November 17, Lake was on Meet the Press, with Tim Russert. Said Russert, “You’re a student of history. Do you believe Alger Hiss was a spy?” Hiss had died two days before. Lake said, “I’ve read a couple of books that have certainly offered a lot of evidence that he may have been. I don’t think it’s conclusive.”
He later admitted that he had flubbed the answer. But Republicans torpedoed his nomination, laying heavy emphasis on the Hiss thing.
A reader reminded me of this episode — and he contrasted the GOP of that era with the GOP now. Today’s GOP is pushing Tulsi Gabbard as the director of national intelligence. During her confirmation hearing, she repeatedly refused to call Edward Snowden a traitor.
Amazing, how the political parties can evolve — and with such rapidity.
• Not very long ago, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was a bête noire of conservatives. (Same as Tulsi Gabbard.) He was a radical who wanted to lock up “climate-change deniers”! He was a moral mess and a kook! Today, he is defended and promoted by the Republican Party and the Right generally (including the Heritage Foundation).
It has been a strange trip.
If someone had asked you, short years ago, “Which party will put forth Bobby Jr. as a cabinet nominee?,” can you imagine saying the Republican?
As a reader reminded me, RFK Jr. and Rush Limbaugh tangled mightily. To see a transcript of Rush, laying into Kennedy, go here.
• A news story of our times:
An aide to House Speaker Mike Johnson advised Republican colleagues against subpoenaing former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson as part of their investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack in an effort to prevent the release of sexually explicit texts that lawmakers sent her . . .
Knock me over with a feather.
• In 2023, some people asked me, “When you say ‘woke,’ what do you mean?” It was a fair question — and I answered it in a post headed “What’s ‘Woke’?” As I pointed out in that article, the word “woke” is used promiscuously. The charge of wokery is made recklessly, and falsely. But still . . .
Here is my “New York chronicle” in the current New Criterion. I have occasion to mention the MacDowell Colony — or “MacDowell,” as it’s now called. This is an artists’ colony, or residency program, in Peterborough, N.H. It was founded in 1907 by Edward MacDowell, the composer, and his wife Marian.
In 2020, the name “MacDowell Colony” was changed to “MacDowell.” Why? Staff complained about the word “colony” to the board of directors. The board then changed the name, saying “colony” has “oppressive overtones.”
As I say in my New Criterion chronicle, the board’s decision “had overtones, and undertones, of absurdity.”
• I wish to recommend an essay by George H. Nash, the historian. It is adapted from a lecture. The title: “Winston Churchill’s Reception and Influence in the United States.” Robert Graves said, “The thing about Shakespeare is, he really is good” (I paraphrase). Churchill is the object of some idolatry, I recognize — but he really was good. Vitally important.
• I wish to recommend an essay by Eliot A. Cohen — it can teach you something essential (whether you want to know it or not): “The U.S. Needs Soldiers, Not Warriors.”
• Out of the pit, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra played a concert in Carnegie Hall — all-Brahms. (Johannes Brahms was one of the few great composers not to have written an opera.) For my review, go here.
• I first met Stephan Thernstrom in 1986. He was an eminent historian of the United States, a winner of the Bancroft Prize. He concentrated on social and ethnic history. I had a class or two with him. A real scholar, who looked like one too, in that he smoked a pipe. (I think I remember tweed as well.)
He was born in Port Huron, Mich., in 1934 and grew up in Battle Creek. I know this area pretty well, from my own upbringing. Steve went to Northwestern and then to Harvard — where he worked with Oscar Handlin. More important, he met Abby — Abigail Mann. They were married two months later.
What a great couple, the Thernstroms were, at least in my eyes. Classically American: he a reserved Swedish Midwesterner; she a spicy Jewish New Yorker. They loved to go dancing together, and danced like fiends.
In not all respects was Steve reserved!
His dissertation was about social mobility in 19th-century Newburyport, Mass. It became the book Poverty and Progress (flipping Henry George’s title, “Progress and Poverty”). That was what earned Steve the Bancroft Prize. About ten years later, he wrote The Other Bostonians (inspired title). Its subtitle is, “Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis, 1880–1970.”
Steve spent most of his career teaching at Harvard. Originally, he and Abby were on the left. Then they moved right. Or did the rest of the world — their world — move further left? About democracy, equality, and Americanism, the Thernstroms retained their essential beliefs.
In the late 1980s, Steve had a nasty episode at Harvard, badgered by the politically correct, and unsupported by the university at large. You’ve got to be pretty shitty to make Stephan Thernstrom, the Winthrop Professor of History, feel unwelcome at Harvard.
He and Abby co-authored America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible. That was in 1997. In 2003, they co-authored another book, No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning. They wanted the best, for all Americans. They loved the country they studied, and criticized, and exemplified.
Abby died in April 2020. In June, Steve wrote me, “More than two months have passed since she left us, and I still can’t really believe it. My conscious mind does, but not my inner being.” Steve passed away a week and a half ago. I am so grateful to have known him, and her. They were such big deals in my life, and in lots and lots of others, too.
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