"EVERY NATION HAS THE GOVERNMENT IT DESERVES"

Joseph de Maistre’s 1811 quote – “ Every nation has the government it deserves” -- seems widely accepted. By implication, leaders adapt or are chosen to meet the demands of those conferring power, be they nobles and clergy in the case of monarchy, donors in corrupted democracies or the people in “purer” forms of democracy. To use a medical analogy, the lower organs rule the brain, rather the other way around. Or alternatively stated, the times make the man, rather than the man makes the times. 

Given our direct experience with Trump and with further reflection upon the German experience with Hitler, I’m inclined to view the relationship as a positive feedback loop in which a change in a given direction causes further change in the same direction, rather than the unidirectional causal relationship implied by de Maistre. In the early stage of their ascendancy, both Trump and Hitler found support in the predispositions of their supporters – grievances, prejudices, discontents, needs – i.e. the times made the man. Regrettably, in both instances such support sprang from the lesser, rather than the better angels of human nature. Neither man would have germinated politically but for the noxious fertility of soil in which they were planted. However, once in power, both men heightened those lesser predispositions in their supporters, culminating in full-throated support for the attack on the heart of democracy by Trump’s supporters on January 6, and in 1939, popular support for Germany’s war against the Allies in World War II, with the consequent reduction of much of Germany to rubble. Had Trump remained in power, amping up the positive feedback loop energizing the fevered conspiracy theories of his base, who knows what calamities would have beset the United States. Fortunately, “democracy prevailed,” the center held, and with a modicum of diligence, vigilance and sound governance by reality-based government functionaries, we may never have to find out. 

We might have found out, had Republicans maintained control of the Senate, effectively undermining every attempt at sound governance by the Biden administration, leading to erosion of Democrats’ power in Congress in 2022 and a return of Trumpism, if not Trump in 2024. It could still happen, inasmuch as Georgia Senator Warnock will have to defend his seat in 2022 against what will surely be a full-court press by Republicans. Odds may still favor Democrats in the Senate in 2022 since they have only 14 seats to defend compared to 20 for Republicans. The odds of enduring the obstruction of a Republican-controlled Senate for the next two years diminished substantially after Democrats swept the Senatorial races in Georgia making possible the implementation of the Biden agenda.  History may someday acknowledge Stacey Abrams as having saved the nation from the consequences of a second Trump administration. Otherwise, “For want of a nail . . ."