Walter Karp and the Political

  

Walter Karp and the Political

Peter Schultz

 

                  It is interesting that both JFK and Nixon, and also LBJ, waged war in Vietnam in ways that were intended to guarantee their re-elections, JFK in 1964 and Nixon in 1972, A question is: What does this teach us about American politics and politics in general?

 

                  Walter Karp wrote several interesting books on American politics, one of them being Indispensable Enemies: The Politics of Misrule in America. In that book, he focuses on party politics and the established wisdom that the primary purpose of political parties is to win elections. Looking at the facts that throughout the United States there are many places where one party constantly wins while the other party constantly loses. Karp argues this phenomenon ultimately proves that political parties are not driven primarily by the desire to win elections. Rather, they are driven by the desire of their leading members to control the party and to do so even it requires losing elections.

 

                  “Insofar as a state party is controlled at all, the sole abiding purpose, the sole overriding interest of those who control it, is to maintain control. This, not election victory, is the fundamental, unswerving principle of party politics in America….” [19]

 

                  “The prevailing doctrine of the parties thus describes what party organizations are perpetually striving to avoid.” [19]

 

                  The parties and those who control them fear most of all loss of control over nominations and loss of political power. Loss of control over nominations means loss of political power. Insofar as the loss of political power is the goal, then controlling nominations is more important than winning elections. Winning elections with uncontrollable, that is, insurgent candidates is to be avoided at all costs, including losing elections. So, in 2024, the leading Democrats’ goal was not to defeat Trump but to continue in control of the party. Nominating a likely loser like Kamala Harris was the result.

 

                  This political phenomenon effects politics generally, that is, beyond elections. In the normal course of American politics these days, the leading Democrats’ actions are intended not to defeat Trump and his policies but to enable the party’s big wigs to retain control of the party. Because maintaining control of the party is the most important goal, more important than defeating Trump’s policies, the result is compromise and collusion between the Democrats and Trump and the Republicans, collusion which allows the leading Democrats to retain control of the party.

 

                  Now, return to examples this essay started with, how JFK and Richard Nixon waged war in Vietnam. JFK is reputed to have told people that his policies in Vietnam, particularly his desire to pull out of Vietnam were dictated by his goal of being re-elected in 1964, so he could retain control of the Democratic party, increase his chances of successfully disengaging from Vietnam, and protect himself and the party from an assault by rabid anti-communists. Nixon followed the same path in his first term, waging war in Vietnam in ways that would best guarantee his re-election in 1972. So, when Nixon went to China, he conveyed to the Chinese that he was would accept defeat in Vietnam provided it occurred after “a decent interval” after the United States pulled out. So, for the sake of re-election and party cohesion, Nixon “sold out” South Vietnam, after extending the war for almost four years in order to achieve a “peace with honor” he could have achieved earlier in his first term.

 

In these examples, winning elections in order to retain power personally as well as politically took precedence over ending the Vietnam war. So, winning elections, like losing elections, is done to enable party organizations “to maintain control, [which] is the fundamental and unswerving principle of party politics in America….” Thus, the deaths, both Vietnamese and American, that occurred during Nixon’s first term and those that occurred during JFK’s only term were in the service of that “fundamental and unswerving principle of American politics.”

 

So, both JFK and Nixon were not only principled but shared the same principle. Which might lead one to conclude that this principle is intrinsic not just to American politics but to politics generally. And to further conclude hat that principle and its consequent behaviors are, to use a now discarded language, “natural.”