Slouching Toward Camelot

This post is from the StoutDemBlog. I found it interesting and thought you guys might, too. Here's the direct link.

SLOUCHING TOWARD CAMELOT:

Democrats have not made good monarchists. Three times the U.S. has elected Presidents who were descendants of previous ones. All three predecessors (Adams, Harrison, and Bush) were from the Republican Party or its precursor, the Federalists. The closest Democrats have come (FDR) was only a mere cousin of a previous President -- and of a Republican, at that. The party of the wealthy has never had a problem with passing on power to heirs, just like they do with their money.

It makes sense that the Democratic Party, espousing government by the grass roots and power for the common man, would frown on such aristocratic tendencies. Yet the emotional temptation remains. Observe how gushingly the British working classes adore "their" Royals. Struggling amid the privatized poverty of Tony Blair's sellout policies (just Tuesday he barely won a Labour Party vote to impose higher fees for education), the masses let themselves be distracted by the antics of an ugly family of billionaires, whose fortune came from looting generations of kowtowing Englishmen.

Resenting those stuffed popinjays is a family tradition. Those of my ancestors who didn't "meet the boat" here in America, to be conquered by those immigrant Europeans, came most notably from Cymru (you call it Wales). Their homeland was conquered by Saxon serfs and their Norman overlords seven centuries ago. Since 1301 those tyrants have usurped the title of Prince of Wales for their eldest male heir. I share the name of the last great native king of that land, Howell the Good. (I doubt that he was an ancestor, since we'd probably have had more money in that case.) As rulers go he did a very good job. I once read that this Welsh Justinian's codification of laws banned killing of cats, thus helping control plague by reducing rats.

See how easy it is, even for a small-"d" democrat, to slip into admiration of aristocracy? Following the heirs of the noble family is easier than carefully examining the character and abilities of some unknown newcomer. It's civic laziness, and a bad sign for a free country. Democrats have been sorely tempted by this within my lifetime over the Kennedy family. John was young, optimistic, inspiring, witty, and martyred. His brother Robert grew to be a voice for the oppressed, then was martyred himself. Another brother and various descendants have also engaged in politics. Results have been mixed, but they always start with an automatic corps of supporters, just like exiled Stuarts attempting to overthrow the English crown.

Less than a month after JFK's election, the musical Camelotd on Broadway, and allegedly became the favorite of the new President, a nominal Irishman but a practicing Anglophile. That play followed the heroic myth making path of the Idylls of the King or of The Sword in the Stone, rather than the more likely gritty realism of Sword at Sunset. A key focus was the soap opera about adultery and betrayal, just the sort of Royal antics fawned over by the British masses. (Of course, as we found out later, that was real in Washington, but with the sexes reversed.)

King Arthur, cut down but spirited away alive to perhaps someday return and save his nation, and his mentor Merlin, bewitched into millenial sleep by witchcraft, are like Jungian archetypes of lament for an imaginary past golden age. Then and since, the imaginary home of the round table became a widely used symbol for the Kennedy administration. The truth was much more surreal. Papa Joe Kennedy, the true master planner, was indeed cut off from communication with the world, but because of a tragic stroke. John, the young king, really was brutally murdered right here in Dallas. Yet the memory of "one brief shining moment" is recalled anew whenever another family member enters politics. History, as Reagan demonstrated with his dream world of a wonderful 1950's, is often seen through distorting rose colored glasses.

Years ago I was amused to get a mailing from some right wing group, which said on the envelope "Ted Kennedy doesn't want you to read this." Well, I thought, that's good enough for me, and threw it away und. One year I compared the votes of Senators in the Almanac of American Politics to how I would have voted. I was interested to find Teddy's record closest to my own. Though he failed to be convincingly Presidential himself, the senior Senator from Massachusetts still speaks for the legacy, and a great many Democrats pay close attention to his words. His late endorsement was a very key factor in John Kerry's victory in both Iowa and New Hampshire. This was helped because Kerry himself easily reminded older voters of JFK -- both rich war heroes who became liberal U.S. Senators very interested in security issues, with glamorous and somewhat foreign spouses.

I thrilled to John Kennedy's call to explore space and build a better world, and cheered the creation of the Peace Corps. I'd love to see another such motivator in the White House. But as Marx wrote, "History always repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, and the second time as farce." We need to be on guard against being blinded by nostalgia when we're choosing a candidate for forty years later.

One campaign manual gave a list of steps for a candidate to take if accused of something wrong. First, say it isn't true. If that doesn't work, then say it's true but it's not like they said. If that doesn't work, then say it's true but I'm sorry and won't do it again -- and so on through several levels. When Kerry was accused of supporting the preemptive invasion of Iraq, he took the worst possible approach. He tried to use every one of those options, all at the same time. I sense Karl the Vicious, the handler of the marionette in the flight suit, licking his chops over such an easy target.

Kerry would make a much better President than Bush, but that is faint praise. Almost any Democrat could do that, and so could several Republicans. If the party believes that Kerry is the best one to defeat Bush, then he will win the nomination, and I will vote for and work hard for him. But I worry, because sixteen years ago I watched a Vice-Presidential debate where another Texan, Senator Lloyd Bentsen, devastated another would-be Kennedy imitator, Senator Dan Quayle. Hamlet set his trap by asking the players to add "Some dozen or sixteene lines, Which I would set downe and insert". It only took Bentsen four sentences. Even a legacy admission to Yale could handle a Rove script that short.


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