Why, Despite Everything, John Kerry Should Be President
our borders is in not just practical but even rhetorical decline in George W. Bush’s Republican Party. The term “modern-liberal” has been the libertarian term of disdain for the managerialist philosophy that conquered the Democratic Party between the Progressive Era and the New Deal. The time has come to add “modern-conservative” as a description of the guiding philosophy of the Republican Party, a philosophy that replaces the defense of markets with crony capitalism, personal responsibility with theocratic injunction, patriotism with the most cartoonish possible nationalism, prudence in international relations with reckless and unending adventure.
Which brings us to the present election between, alas, John Kerry and, unfortunately, George W. Bush. I’ve been in favor of President Bush losing the election for quite some time, but it’s only recently that I’ve been able to think that John Kerry should win it. It comes down to a recent, endlessly rehashed exchange.
John Kerry told the New York Times:
“We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives but they’re a nuisance.”
Kerry compared the anti-terrorism battle to efforts by law enforcement to root out prostitution or illegal gambling, knowing such an activity could never be ended but could be reduced to where “it isn’t threatening people’s lives every day.”
This is a bad approach to prostittution and gambling, but it’s an uncannily realistic set of victory conditions for the War on Terror. The Republican response has been pie-in-the-sky irreality:
“I couldn’t disagree more,” Bush said. “Our goal is not to reduce terror to some acceptable level of nuisance. Our goal is to defeat terror by staying on the offensive.”
which implies that by “staying on the offensive” (forever?) we can make “terror” - a tactic that has been around for some long number of decades or centuries depending how loose you want to play with your definitions - vanish utterly from the face of the earth. When certain progressives sought beforetimes to “end war,” real conservatives laughed out their asses at the naivete.
In one exchange Kerry earns the office Bush forfeits. I have real doubts about Kerry’s ability to attain his stated victory conditions, because it would mean changing US foreign policy in ways neither party has the inclination to contemplate now. But the President won’t even give us a plausible victory condition. “Defeat” sure sounds tough, but what does it mean, really? Is the President promising a future in which terrorists never attack Americans? Ever ever? If not, then what more impressive victory is he promising than reducing terrorism to “a nuisance?” If so, just how long does he expect perfection in this life to take coming? How much will it cost in American blood and treasure? How long will we “stay” on “the offensive?” How many countries will we invade? How many occupations will we run, and serially, or in parallel? How much faith must we place in “the offensive?” (Vice President Cheney recently used variations of the word “aggressive” three times in a single sentence on the stump.) As much as Napoleon? How many election cycles do they expect it to take?
This last strikes me as crucial to the question. Kerry averred, accurately, that victory over terrorism would mean a future in which “terrorists are not the focus of our lives.” The problem is that the Bush Administration in particular and the Republican Party generally are the wrong people to bring about such a future. Structurally, the Republican Party profits from conflict, not victory. It enjoyed a huge electoral advantage during the Cold War because of its greater credibility on National Security, but it made the mistake of winning that contest and the result was the first twice-elected Democratic President since Roosevelt. Now we are in the midst of another war, one the Administration chose to fight with broad goals rather than narrow ones. I don’t think the Republican Party will make the mistake of “winning” this one. The plan is rather to “stay on the offensive” until terrorism is eliminated, which is to say, forever. I don’t think most Republican leaders consciously intend to belay victory for the sake of partisan advantage. I think that people’s self and class interests bias them in ways they may not see.
That doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t see it, though. The Bush Administration has a vested interest in perpetuating security-related fears, which makes them poorly suited to provide actual security. And as they themselves keep reminding us, security is what this election is all about.
