In Search of a Ghost
Political theory from a hack
“Hack,” as used above, isn’t the modern-day connotation, which pays homage to computer programmers and carries the nuance of clever and elegant solutions to a problem (even if that problem is breaking into a system). Rather, “hack,” as I learned it from sitting around junior tennis tournaments as a kid, which was before computers were really a thing, is more decidedly derogatory, as in, “He’s a hack!” (lousy player). This is just to be clear about my credentials in political theory, and to level set—another appropriated term, this one by corporate-speak but with its origin in multi-dimensional mathematics.
For those who might have spent the last six months in the Biosphere 2, or lucky enough to be on the International Space Station, there is—surprise—a U.S. election looming. I can hardly wait for it to be over, and yet here I am writing about it. Call it a masochistic compulsion.
My first awareness of a political contest was in 1968 when my mom campaigned (with me in tow) for Democrat Eugene McCarthy, who was running for president on an end-the-Vietnam-War platform. McCarthy was soon outflanked by Bobby Kennedy, who was subsequently assassinated. Hubert Humphrey was left to pick up the Democratic nomination, but he lost to Republican Richard Nixon. Nixon won the battle but, in most estimations of his presidency, lost the war (including for all practical purposes the one in Vietnam).
My dad’s politics were less overt, still Democratic, but as the trendy phrase goes, was trending Republican, which seems to be the trend as people age. The first politician I remember his supporting was Pete McCloskey, a decorated Marine, Republican, but one opposed to the Vietnam War and who co-authored the Endangered Species Act of 1973. While clever lawyers have figured out how to manipulate the ESA for less-than-noble purposes, the law has saved several species I’m glad are still around: bald eagles, humpback whales, California condors, grizzly bears, and whooping cranes, to name a few.
The Republican Party of McCloskey’s era was based on respectable and, I think, defensible principles:
Freedom, which is essentially self-determination and “the pursuit of happiness.” This is closely linked to liberty, which ensures freedom from government intrusion in personal choices.
Small Government. Almost by definition, small government inhibits government intrusion into personal lives. What’s more, limited government implies more localized government, which is often more effective and more efficient than big government.
Balanced Budgets and Reduced Debt: Simply, don’t spend more than you make.
Free Market Economics. Let the markets determine the course of the economy.
Strong National Defense and American Leadership in the World, which, back then, included alliances and taking principled stands on global issues. Republicans of the era believed in freedom for people across the globe and a willingness to guarantee that freedom.
Conservation. The original conservationist (in the political realm) was Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican. He said many things about conservation (over 120 years ago), including this: "The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem, it will avail us little to solve all others." And this: "I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us.”
Free Public Education, initiated by Thomas Jefferson, another Republican, was considered an elixir to a well-functioning democracy.
Law and Order, seems self-explanatory in a civil society.
To differing degrees, all these ideas make sense to me. Does this make me a Republican? Unfortunately, not in today’s terms.
Former President Donald Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. A big, bold “R” follows his name wherever it goes, but the more I think about it, the more I think it must be a typo.
I don’t see the Republican Party of today embracing any of these core tenets. Without droning on forever, a quick look at a few is illustrative:
Balanced Budgets: The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has analyzed the candidates’ budget proposals. Because there is variability in how policies play out, the organization provides three estimates of the impact on the deficit: low, medium and high.
The three estimates of net deficit impact of Trump’s budget proposals, over the course of 2026-2035, are: -$1.45 trillion, -$7.5 trillion, and -$15.15 trillion.
Harris’s budget is certainly not the checkbook my late aunt Florence would have kept—balanced to the Lincoln penny—but it is somewhat more palatable to someone who cares about fiscal responsibility: net deficit impacts of $0, -$3.5 trillion, and -$8.1 trillion.
Public Education. The Trump plan here is to eliminate the Department of Education.
Freedom and American Leadership. Former President Trump has said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could have been avoided if the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “had made a deal” with Putin ahead of time, which sounds curiously like extortion. There are few more black-and-white cases of a country trampling—literally—the freedom of another than what Russia has done to Ukraine.
Law and Order. To me, law and order means more than the policy intricacies of whether you believe in the death penalty or not, or whether drug users should be jailed. It has more to do with character and what is right and wrong in common terms. I’m aging myself to the days of Pete McCloskey, but I find it hard to get behind a leader who cheats on his wife, cheats on his taxes, stiffs his business partners, boasts about sexually assaulting women, and pays off a porn star with whom he had an affair. I wouldn’t want that for my child’s soccer coach. Why would I condone that in a president?
Free Markets. Former President Trump’s proposed tariffs—20% on most countries’ goods and 60% on China’s goods—are anathema to free market economics.
So, to wrap up this dry, policy drivel, I can’t for the life of me find the Republican Party I grew up with anywhere in sight. This is ironic because there’s a part of me that wants to vote Republican. I can feel the conservative drift of age, but it is conservative in the old school way. There’s also the possibility that I just want to emulate my dad’s rightward political drift because he was my dad. But the reality is, I’d be chasing the ghost of a party.
What does “R” stand for today? I don’t know anymore; maybe “T” is a more accurate acronym. The party is more about personality, shock value, and what one man decides to say on any given day.
Political analysts (not to be confused with hacks) say that Trump is tapping into the disconnected, left behind people, those not living on the coasts or in metropolitan centers. These are often manufacturing people whose factories have moved or have simply dissolved. That economic displacement is real but is the result of free markets shifting, not necessarily a result of any given policy. If I were a typewriter maker, I, too, might bemoan the state of the world. But no one’s policies are going to bring back those weighty, QWERTY things, as much as I love them as touchstones to another time.
Paradoxically, the disconnected are railing against the elites with the elitist of all elitists—a billionaire (as we are often reminded) born into wealth (of which we are not reminded), educated at elite schools—leading the charge. That’s an irony hard to reconcile. To be painfully honest, I think it’s a bit of a con.
None of this addresses the other side of the pitched battle: Vice President Harris. I don’t know that much about her, which may be to her benefit. But she disagrees with a man who increasingly disregards the tenets of a party that I respected and that used to be Grand in many ways. That’s enough for me, given the choices.
Maybe I’m living in the past. But there are some things to be said for the people who came before us. All politicians are a little selfish and self-serving—almost by definition—but I do believe they used to have some principles underlying that selfishness. Both Eugene McCarthy and Pete McCloskey had them. In the end, they and their ilk were actually looking beyond themselves, looking out for the great masses assembled across the land.