Bismarck: “God Has A Special Providence For Fools, Drunkards, And The United States of America”

Democrats Are Putting Bismarck’s Adage To The Ultimate Test

That (perhaps apocryphal) quote has been put to the test many times since Bismarck passed from the scene in late 19th century. There were 2 world wars, a Great Depression, Vietnam, Watergate, Iran/contra, a fundamentally failed “Global War on Terror,” the 2008 meltdown, and a series of other crises over the intervening decades. Our system, however, is currently at a brink of an existential crisis from which its prospects of future recovery would be questionable.

An already convicted felon currently facing 3 other felony indictments (1 of which arose from an attempted coup) whose gross mishandling of a pandemic led to tens of thousands of preventable deaths is days away from potentially getting elected to a second term. A man who should be looking at 5 to 10 behind bars could be looking at 4 more years of being the most powerful person on the planet. 

There’s little point in belaboring the fact that Trump is clearly multiple cards short of a full deck, or the fact that no remotely serious presidential candidate has ever publicly discoursed on a movie character with cannibalistic tendencies, on immigrants allegedly eating pets, or on the anatomy of a deceased golf legend. There’s little point in bemoaning the utter failure of the DoJ in bringing Agent Orange to account for his crimes. There probably isn’t much point in recalling that, until late July, the opposing party offered a semi-sentient career mediocrity as the sole viable alternative to the Cheeto Benito.

It is worth noting that, regardless of the outcome of this election, our third branch of government is in dire straits. Recently, a tenured law professor wrote this piece about a new ruling from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that could pose a danger in post-election litigation.

While the content of this post is noteworthy, its tone and tenor is even more noteworthy. The code of professional responsibility requires attorneys to show deference to the judiciary. Plus, members of the academy do not normally refer to the dominant SCOTUS bloc as “The Sinister Six.” Our federal judiciary is in a dangerous place now, and it will be in far more dangerous territory with 4 more years of GOP nominees.

Looming in the background in Project 2025, a/k/a MAGA Kampf. It provides a road map for Congressional Republicans to complete the gutting of federal programs that offer meaningful services to ordinary people. It displays a basic contempt for the fundamental concept of common good:

• Cut overtime protections for 4.3 million workers

• Stop efforts to lower prescription drug prices

• Limit access to food assistance, which an average of more than 40 million people in 21.6 million households rely on monthly

• Eliminate the Head Start early education program, which serves over 1 million children annually

• Cut American Rescue Plan (ARP) programs that have created or saved 220,000 jobs

• Restrict access to medication abortion

• Push more of the 33 million people enrolled in Medicare towards Medicare Advantage and other worse, private options

• Expose the 368,000 children in foster care to risk of increased discrimination

• Deny students in 25 states and Washington, D.C. access to student loans because their state provides in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants

• Roll back civil rights protections across multiple fronts, including cutting diversity, equity, and inclusion-related (DEI) programs and LGBTQ+ rights in health care, education, and workplaces

The crisis is much graver and the threat is much more dire than the rambling rants of a demented would-be despot. Trump has long served as the most visible a symptom of a fundamentally diseased party. Combatting the disease will require more than Harris getting to 270 electoral votes— somehow hanging onto the Senate and regaining the House are critical, too.  

Once the donkey finally decided to run a nominee who could actually speak coherently in public in 2024 (and who could presumably be capable of governing through 2028), it appeared that disaster might be averted. Kamala Harris had little to recommend her from her tenure as a senator or a vice president, but she was able to rapidly rally the Dem coalition behind her. She chose a proudly progressive running mate with obvious popular appeal. She played Trump like a fiddle in their debate— momentum was clearly in their direction.

Others can opine as to when the Harris/Walz vibe cooled and momentum stalled. They can also opine on the whys and the wherefores of the cooling/stalling. The campaign’s response to the cooling/stalling, however, defies description.

For some reason, party mandarins decided that openly embracing the support of Dick Cheney, a disgraced former GOP VP who left office with approval ratings of 13%, was a good idea. They decided that this approach was wise:

In making her closing argument this month, Harris has campaigned four times with Liz Cheney, the Republican former congresswoman, stumping with her more than with any other ally. She has appeared more in October with the billionaire Mark Cuban than with  Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers and one of the nation’s most visible labor leaders.

This approach revived the “strategy” that Chuck Schumer enunciated in 2016:

“For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”  

Dems never pushed the point that our federal judiciary, as an institution, is currently in dire straits. Their economic platform offered marginal benefits for struggling middle class voters. They basically were running on 3 planks before this late pivot:

1) Trump is a menace;

2) Support reproductive rights;

3) Brand loyalty.

Once they started consciously blurring party distinctions, Dems effectively abandoned plank 3. Re-adopting the failed 2016 strategy means that they are running on 2 planks. The meme of “Trump horrible, GOP not so bad” encourages ticket-splitting in an election where winning back the House and keeping the Senate are as essential as keeping the White House is.

Maybe divine providence will save the donkey from its multiple unforced errors. Maybe Trumpophobia and reproductive rights are enough for them to stagger to 270. Maybe Dan Osborn (an independent) will give them an unexpected gift in Nebraska’s Senate race. 

That is a lot of “maybes,” however. There’s still time at this late date for Dems to focus on what should be the manifest distinctions between the parties as a whole and to give base voters a reason to turn out. We genuinely will need Bismarck’s divine providence if they don’t.

ADDENDUM:

This Salon piece from the always estimable Andrew O’Hehir appeared after I wrote this post. It covers some of the same points I raised, and it’s very much worth reading in its entirety.