Trump, the Ambitious, and the Virtuous

 

Trump, the Ambitious, and the Virtuous

Peter Schultz

 

                  Which kind of human types are likely to be politically successful? Vaclav Havel claimed it was the “cunning shits.”

 

                  Aren’t the ambitious most likely to be successful politically, at least personally successful? Isn’t it often – or maybe always – the case that this personal success is then understood as political success? And then because of this alleged political success, those who are successful are thought of as virtuous. And, so, as a result, ambition is thought of as virtue and ambitious types – “the best and the brightest” – are thought of as virtuous humans. Politics transforms ambition into virtue and the most ambitious human beings are the most celebrated, even taken to represent one of the pinnacles of human achievement.

 

                  Whereas Machiavelli argued in The Prince that Hannibal’s greatness, universally recognized, was due to his “inhuman cruelty.” Are the ambitious willing to embrace inhuman cruelty to achieve personal and political success, personal and political fame, that is, a kind of political “immortality”?

 

                  If Trump succeeds in making America great again, then he will have proven himself to be great, magnanimous, or virtuous. His self-righteousness would then be justified, just as was Churchill’s, de Gaulle’s, or Lincoln’s. He could, justifiably, strut and smirk to his heart’s content. His political project is nothing less than making America virtuous again, as it was in “the good, old days.” Interestingly, even some of Trump’s opponents, e.g., Bruce Springsteen, agree with Trump that there were, once, “good old days.” Trump and Springsteen, and of course others, agree: The ambitious once made America virtuous and this despite slavery and the destruction of the indigenous. Like Hannibal, America’s great ones embraced inhuman cruelty. And such, apparently, are the requirements of political success, of political greatness, as Machiavelli realized.

The United States and the Politics of Failure

 

The United States and the Politics of Failure

Peter Schultz

 

                  For the life of me I cannot figure out why Americans seem to think so highly of their political elites and their political system. Here’s a partial list of the failures that have occurred in my lifetime.

 

Eisenhower’s Crusade for Peace

JFK’s New Frontier

JFK’s Assassination

The Bay of Pigs Invasion

LBJ’s Great Society

LBJ’s Vietnam War

RFK’s Assassination

MLK’s Assassination

Fred Hampton’s Assassination

Kent State and Jackson State

Watergate

Chile

Carter’s Desert Fiasco

Iranian Revolution

Iranian Hostage Crisis

Reagan’s Near Assassination

Iran-Contra

Nicaragua

War on Drugs

Challenger Disaster

Mass Incarceration

Waco

Ruby Ridge

Oklahoma City

Bin Laden

The 2000 Presidential Election

9/11

Occupation of Iraq

Afghanistan

2008 Economic Meltdown

Universal Health Care

Afghanistan: Again

COVID

2016 Presidential Election

1/6 Insurrection

Immigration Policies

 

                  A fairly long and consistent record of failures. It would be useful to ask, Why? Obviously, the failures are not aberrational but are endemic of our political elites and to a political system that is damaged and is damaging. Exceptionally so? Probably not.

The Political and the Psychologically Damaged

 

The Political: The Psychologically Damaged Healing the Psychologically Damaged

Peter Schultz

 

                  The following passages are from a book entitled Deadly Paradigms, by D. Michael Shafer: In 1961, JFK initiated a “new Program of Action” in Vietnam, labeled the “Presidential Program for Vietnam.” That is, South Vietnam. It called for “initiating on an accelerated basis … actions of a political, military, economic, psychological and covert character, designed to create … a viable and increasingly democratic society and to keep Vietnam free.” [p. 249]

 

                  This is truly mind-boggling stuff, that goes well beyond naivete and turns into narcissism, that is, into a psychological disorder. Only a narcissist would think it possible to remake a society employing such programs and doing so “on an accelerated basis.” In other words, the psychologically disordered were to be managing, reforming, even healing the psychologically disordered.

 

                  But think about it: Isn’t this characteristic of the political generally? The psychologically sick undertake to manage, reform, render healthy the psychologically sick. Isn’t that, for example, the point of the book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? A “big nurse” and others, who are psychologically damaged themselves, are to undertake the project of healing the psychologically sick. The psychologically damaged like JFK, LBJ, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Donald Trump will manage and heal the psychologically damaged people who elected them. It seems like sheer madness to me. 

Deadly Paradigms

 

 

 

Deadly Paradigms

Peter Schultz

From Deadly Paradigms: “President Kennedy made counterinsurgency a priority….As General Lemnitzer…put it…Kennedy wanted ‘ nothing less that a dynamic national strategy - an action program designed to defeat the Communists without recourse to…nuclear war; one designed to defeat subversion where it had already erupted, and…to prevent it taking initial root…a strategy of both therapy and prophylaxis.’” 

The comical, mythical elements herein: “dynamic national strategy,” (oh how wonderful to be dynamic nationally!), an action program (because action is always preferable to inaction, be proactive always!), “defeat” “Communists,” (who are identifiable easily and are always defeatable), no nuclear war (of course no nukes!), defeat “subversion” (however defined and of course never justified), after it appeared or before it appeared, being both therapeutic and prophylaxis (hence, counterinsurgency as condom foreign policy!). 

General Lemnitzer asserted this with a straight face, believing it to be possible, and no one laughed! Oh, the madness! If Pascal’s take on Aristotle and Plato was correct - that they saw the political as a madhouse - then those guys got it right. And still very few laugh. The essence of the political: making madness socially acceptable! Ala’ WW I, Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Pearl Harbor, Vietnam, GWOT, war on drugs, etc.