The conservative columnist Michael Gerson concluded a piece
in today’s Washington Post with “Is
it possible, and morally permissible, for economic and foreign policy
conservatives, and for Republicans motivated by their faith, to share a
coalition with the advocates of an increasingly raw and repugnant nativism?”
It
is a very good question, particularly as Gerson is applying it to the
confounding rise of Donald Trump among Republican primary voters, but it might
be better applied to the general electorate.
How does anyone, conservative, moderate, or liberal, make common cause
with the advocates of an increasingly raw and repugnant nativism in the Age of Terror?
Before
we talk about internals, we have to talk about externals, and the obvious. Terrorism isn’t going to go away—better
stated, murderous extremism that places little value on human life isn’t going
away. It might be interdicted at times,
or to use President Obama’s remarkably ill-timed pronouncement, it might be
“contained” but it is not going to be eradicated. We in America may have an
easier time of it than our European friends, primarily because of geography,
but it will happen here, and it will happen more than once.
That
is a horrible fact to contemplate—but it is reality. It will be true, regardless of whoever occupies the White House and who runs
Congress. No ideology, no political
party, and no person, is capable of affording us complete security. Pure nativism—keep everyone out—is a false
promise of that. We could
turn ourselves into the near-police state that Trump and a number of other
Republicans desperately competing for attention seem to be advocating for—no
emigrants, watch lists, surveillance of mosques, even internment, and we still
will not be completely safe. Even eliminating every Constitutional safeguard would be no guarantee.
To an extent we are the victims of our own poor judgments on policy—bipartisan
mistakes. Some of the Mujahedeen we
armed in Afghanistan to fight the Russians are now Taliban. Our intervention in the Balkans and Somalia,
even as we thought of it as largely humanitarian, placed us in the middle of
sectarian wars that had been going on for generations. Putting the best face on our invasion of Iraq
and our involvement in Syria, Algeria, and even Egypt still leaves us with
destabilized nations in chaos—chaos in part caused by the elimination of
detestable strongmen who did a fairly good job controlling their own countries
through violence. The abscess of hatred
has ruptured.
How
do we deal with it? More years ago than
I care to admit, a very smart man who wanted to encourage me to go into
academia gave me a copy of Henry Kissinger’s A World Restored: Metternich,
Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812-1822 (1957). He told me if I wanted to really understand
contemporary history, I had to begin by understanding how great nations interacted
with each other, how they created problems and how they then resolved them through
the application of power and negotiation at the highest level. I could start by learning about the Congress
of Vienna, and watching how plenipotentiaries reassembled then world that Napoleon had
so skillfully blown apart. The result of these negotiations
might not necessarily be particularly fair, to the parties or even the citizens
(in the ultimate settlement, roughly two dozen cities and regions were swapped among the great powers) but
it would be seen as legitimate. A place,
and a peace, restored.
That world of balance of power negotiations, with actors who can bind countries to a
course of action, who can choose confrontation or compromise, is still
here, and still needed. But it is no longer the one tool that can resolve most disputes. The terrorist who walks into a concert and sprays gunfire, or the
group who takes over a hotel, isn’t sending a delegation in frock coats to a
17th Century salon. Combating terrorism, combating those who Kissinger
would identify as revolutionary chieftains, is going to require a skillful
combination of convincing the major world powers to apply whatever leverage
they can to cut off sanctuaries and funding for terrorists, and the application
of serious amounts of force, both covertly and overtly.
Those
discussions between nations have to take place, and strategies must be carefully mapped out and
implemented, because no one can go it alone. But they are long-term approaches in a short attention-span era--they don't give the sugar high of immediate results. And, in the United States, they
have to take place against a backdrop not only of a Presidential election, but a
period of intense partisanship. One of
the enormous risks we have right now is that our elected leaders will make the wrong choice because of a fear of
accountability. Metternich could do what
he wanted—in a largely feudal society, if he satisfied the people of
influence—that would be sufficient. But
here and now, in the cycle of the continuous election campaign, the smallest failures grow hyperbolic. You could break up 50 terrorist plots—if the
51st succeeded, within minutes there would be a cacophony from the
ambitious and irresponsible. The same
applies to any policy that lets in refugees—it only takes one bad actor to set off 24/7 outrage.
If
we had leaders of courage and vision, they would acknowledge the risks of imperfect policies and best choices,
up front, and explain the reasons they were taking that road. To take Gerson’s arguments head on, they
would ratchet down the rhetoric, regardless of whether it gave them a bump in the
polls, and explain that demonizing everyone who doesn’t look and think exactly
the same way is a terrible strategy for longer-term security. Just as importantly, they would openly draw back from the temptation to emulate the Eurpoeans—lockdowns, emergency
powers, near martial-law. Americans should never seek a police state.
What should we be looking for? We
live in a diverse and disorderly society.
It is messy and imperfect, but fosters creativity and growth. I don’t mind a little disorder, and I am
certainly not demanding perfection. What I want is almost a Burkean conservative—someone smart,
dispassionate, adaptable, reluctant to engage in systemic changes unless
circumstances demand—but willing to do so, in moderate doses, when existing
rubrics seem inadequate. Above all,
someone who is not reactive, and particularly, someone who is not so politically opportunistic
that he ends up causing more harm than good. We need those willing to take responsibility.
Do
we have these people? Gerson is not alone in his doubts. Fellow Bush alumni Steve Schmidt, who was
also a top adviser to John McCain, was recently quoted in the Washington Post “There’s not one person — no
one, not in the administration, not on the debate stage — that shows coherence
as to what we should do. That person doesn’t exist…. (T)he Republicans who
criticize the administration — appropriately — for not having a strategy also
don’t have a strategy.”
And yet, I
think Schmidt might be a little too pessimistic. There are smart people with good ideas and
enough knowledge to put forward the outlines of a viable strategy. It just takes a willingness to take some
risks and show a thick skin. If they emerge,
then we don’t have to answer Gerson’s question.
People of good faith will have the opportunity to put aside the purely
ideological and pick a path of “messy order” that protects our persons, and our
liberties, without turning to darkness.
November
24th, 2015
Michael
Liss (Moderate Moderator)
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