Profiles in Cowardice
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
Once upon a time, back in the day, when giants allegedly strode the earth, it was perfectly logical and defensible that a chronicler of the time – an ambitious young politician seeking to eventually fulfill the mandate of electoral heaven – would produce a non-fiction volume called Profiles in Courage.
At that point, there seemingly were – or were generally seen to be – individuals in our midst serving in high public office who could legitimately lay claim to being profiles in courage – men and women of elevated stature and standing whose greatness owed to the courage they displayed, even if only in abbreviated measure, in fulfilling the obligations and responsibilities of public service.
Those days, if in fact they then existed, are now long gone. Today, that “non-fictional” possibility has ceased to be even remotely plausible fantasy, much less reality or hope. Now there are among us only “Profiles in Cowardice” serving in high public office. If ever there was a time when representative democracy could, without need of supporting evidence, be asserted to be the superior form of government America’s founders envisioned, it is what cynics in touch with the reality now around us would dismiss as part of America’s mythos.
We are now surrounded on all political sides by cowards who bring to office nothing more noteworthy and documentable than an insatiable hunger for forever holding office, invariably at the expense of actually governing. The evidence is overwhelming, the latest in-your-face example being the recent “Big Beautiful (Tax) Bill,” to which our craven elected representatives totally capitulated, all the while whining about the distasteful task before them, but by their action thereby consigning millions of their constituents to a July 4 Fanfare for the Common Man of untold future hardship and pain, unearned and undeserved. But this was only one example among others of equally shameful import involving the ongoing emasculation of institutions, norms, and standards of decency that collectively threaten the future of democracy American style.
One can’t help but invoke the famous words of German pastor Martin Niemöller, in reflecting on the Nazi takeover in Germany in the 1920s and 30s:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.
We needn’t name names of the guilty self-absorbed, self-serving, self-aggrandizers at issue here. They know who they are, and so do we.
Courage is about standing up to harm, threat, disrepute, endangerment, or pressure, real or perceived; about standing for principle, conscience, and character. A deeply ethical act, form of behavior, or state of mind, it is an unconditionally consistent preference for and adherence always to the harder right over the easier wrong. Cowardice is, of course, the opposite; it is about running from or hiding from unwanted harm, disadvantage, or pressure in the form of lost popularity and votes.
The bullies, braggarts, and narcissists in our midst today who threaten, intimidate, and denigrate others are cowards of the first order – the self-hating Vanguard. The liars, propagandists, and disinformers who distort and subvert truth to the disadvantage of others also are cowards – the self-protective Henchmen for the Vanguard. And the ambition-obsessed climbers who routinely forswear principle in favor of the expediency of the moment are cowards – the self-serving partisan Hoplites. Such are the mainstream of political office holders today, claiming to serve the public interest, but in reality acting always at the public’s expense.
This state of affairs is the very opposite of what America’s founders had in mind when they sought to establish the most perfect form of government known to man – a representative democracy, in which those who rule do so on the basis of reasoned deliberation that then is subjected to the consent of the governed, in whose hands ultimate authority resides.
Founding lionheads James Madison and Alexander Hamilton were the most forceful voices in dismissing direct democracy and selling the republican form of government in its place. In Federalist 10, Madison was most pointed: “Pure democracies,” he said, “have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” He famously spoke at great length about factions as inherent human reflections of differing opinions and interests, contending that the best way to control the effects of factions is through a large, representative republic that can dilute the power of any single faction and make it harder for such factions to gain control. “The effect of [representative democracy is] to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of the nation.”
Hamilton then, at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, argued famously: “All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born; the other the mass of the people. . . . The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by change, they will therefore maintain good government.” If only this could be.
Judged in the abstract, representative democracy could easily be accepted on its face, which it was, as a superior form of governance. But the principal idealized features of representative democracy have shown themselves to be far removed from what the founders had in mind. Though they themselves were politicians who fully understood political expectations, motives, and behavior, they nonetheless established a governing apparatus built on the conjoined propositions that the representatives of the people – the best of us who presume to govern the rest of us – would be responsive to their constituents, act more in the public interest than in their own individual personal interests, give their allegiance to the institutions they served instead of to party or ideology, and, accordingly, honor the basic precept of checks and balances as a dialectical force leading to national unity. All of this was predicated on courage, honor, integrity, empathy, even altruism on the part of public office holders; oh yes, and wisdom.
Faced, though, with the state of affairs now before us, we do well, first, to recall the words of Robert Hutchins, eminent former president of the University of Chicago, who warned us: “The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.” Let us then remind ourselves of the surpassing wisdom of Aristotle, who stated a truth for the ages: “They should rule who are able to rule best.” Our hard-won experience should have convinced us that America’s founders left us holding the bag in the face of the self-serving cowardice of Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials who would later be charged with implementing the idealistic founding vision. It is we, the common man and woman, the Little People, who have unreflectively, and without resistance, relinquished our prerogatives – and our fate – to amateurish stand-ins posing as professionals who lack the courage and integrity to govern responsibly on our behalf. Absent evidence to the contrary, it is we who are best able to rule ourselves. Is it not, then, time to act?
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