Anyone Can Be President - Genius Clusters And The Looney Toons Of American Democracy

Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, and Franklin have been described as a genius cluster - stars in a rare constellation of uniquely qualified, intelligent, creative individuals that had never occurred before, and given the history of the two hundred and fifty years since, never occurred after.  These men got the ball rolling, created a republic based on philosophical principle, Christian faith, and high-born noblesse oblige only to have their descendants see it turn into a vaudevillian show of antics, presumption, and folly. 

 

How did this happen? The phenomenon of genius clusters has never been explained.  How Russia produced Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, and Turgenev all born within twenty years of each other, each revolutionizing literature in unique ways, all remarkably astute, is a mystery.  Never had there been such a group since Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, playwrights even more revolutionary and artistically unique, men who left epic poetry and mythical hagiography behind and wrote of human ambition, desire, and tragic flaws within a dramatic context - one with such relevance and of such philosophical and dramatic insight that it influenced all literature ever since. 

Of course nothing happens independent of enabling factors - perhaps the Peloponnesian War was a defining moment for Greek tragedians.  So disruptive, devastating, and existential it was, that perhaps Aeschylus and his colleagues saw that tragedy, human failings, and overpowering ambition were more fitting to represent on stage than mythic heroism.  Perhaps the horror of the Napoleonic wars, the Battle of Borodino, and the perennial quest for conquest and dominion was the trigger for Tolstoy's unmatched fiction. 

 

And perhaps the daunting task of forming a new republic after a bloody war of independence was enough to bring out the best in men who, because of their recognized status in colonial society, were ready, willing, and able for the task. 

In any case, Americans are fortunate to be the inheritors of genius, to live and serve in a political system still alive and well after more than two centuries - a structural work of political art that somehow anticipated the new algorithm of democracy, one that created checks and balances, incentives, and brakes, and above all opportunity for all. 

All this, however, is being rethought - disassembled, reworked, and revised.  What these old white men created in 1789, say progressives, has little relevance in the diverse, polyphonous society of today.  These men, most of whom were slave-owning or slavery-enabling, have a debt to pay rather than receive tributes rendered. 

Finally, these progressives continue, American society is a true democracy, one distinct from the patriarchal, elitist version of the past, and one in which all are truly equal.  Equality of opportunity ensured by an enabling government has been replaced by de facto equality - men and women no matter what their roots, abilities, or promise are the same to be treated the same.  Government is no longer simply an enabler and protector of rights, but an intervenor. 

Out of what is necessarily a grab-bag, a hodge-podge nation of undefinable, indistinguishable lowest common denominator uniformity, can only come politicians with the same unremarkable potpourri mentality.  There is no way that a Churchill, Lincoln, or Roosevelt can possibly emerge from this peasant soup let alone a genius cluster. 

 

America deserves the likes of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, both heirs to Disney's Looney Tunes, Daffy Duck, Porky the Pig, Mickey Mouse, and Elmer Fudd.  They are caricatures of American democracy, examples that anyone can be president; or to put it more definitely, any man Jack or his grandmother can sit in the Oval Office.  American leaders are not the select, the best and the brightest, heirs to high principle and noblesse oblige, but the very worst of 'the common man'.  

Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have nothing at all going for them that Jefferson, Hamilton, or Churchill would recognize as uniquely talented, multi-dimensional, and patriotic.  They are cartoon character created in some Hollywood studio to look like America but in comically exaggerated poses. 

Who's kidding whom?  Trump is a big, oversized, Mussolini-esque windbag, a Borscht Belt tummler, a carny barker, a raunchy comedian, and a bare-knuckled dirty street fighter.  Harris is an empty suit, a woman who touts her racial mix, her blackness, and her sex as though they had anything to do with governance.  She is the caricature of diversity, a comic book Wonder Woman with only fantastical notions of identity, inclusivity, and 'the new heterogeneity'.

Not to complain.  Americans deserve no better, so far have the principles and vision of the Founding Fathers have been eroded or better ground under the heel of the new race-gender-ethnicity revisionists. This is what happens when a culture of excellence is exchanged for one of simple-minded ordinariness.  Jefferson and Hamilton did not emerge out of the boondocks by chance and patronage making it to Washington.  They were brought up, educated, and encouraged in a culture of privilege, one that never doubted the legitimacy of the aristocracy and its obligation to lead and lead well. 

When race, gender, and ethnicity alone become the criteria for leadership, democracy - let alone the country - is in trouble.  When the hysterics of a showman, a bad loser, a smarmy provocateur can actually get a hundred million votes, there is no hope for resurrection. 

Alexander Hamilton anticipated what the new republic would become if left to its own devices.  He insisted, over Jefferson's objectives, that there be a body like the British House of Lords to be made up of aristocratic, privileged and highly educated men who have been brought up in the spirit of honorable service.  This body would act to counteract what would certainly be the self-serving demands of the populace. 

The Senate, Hamilton's creation, has turned out to be no different from the House of Representatives, a collection of rubes, con men, and climbers with little interests other than reelection, feathering their own nests, and retiring with a small fortune. 

The ridiculousness of identity politics, the cancel culture, bombast, and the sneaky cadging of snake oil salesmen is bound to last for a while, particularly since its bottom-feeding ethos has all but eliminated anyone of real character and ability. 

Harris is the far worse of the two, for she embraces and embodies this dumbed-down, revisionist, simple-minded platform of skin color and sex.  She is likely to win the November (2024) election, and the nation is guaranteed four years of black enthusiasm and a lionization of the hodge-podge.