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It's Got to Be Gore: Part II What Does it Make Sense to Hope For?
By Andrew Bard Schmookler (about the author) Page 1 of 2 page(s)
For OpEdNews: Andrew Bard Schmookler - Writer
Do you suppose that any one man can change the historical trend that has existed for more than half a century, and put the historical toothpaste back in the historical tube? There can be better or worse presidents in 2008 but the simple truth of the matter is that the election isn't going to change anything much."
Which raises the question: what indeed does the record of history allow us to hope for in terms of what the best possible new leadership might achieve?
This commenter acknowledges that there might be better or worse presidents, but says that the difference between the best and the worst presidents we might get will not matter much.
But I would say that any reasonably sensible observer of the American scene in 2006 would say that getting the presidency of George W. Bush was MUCH WORSE than alternative possibilities (whether we confine ourselves to Gore in 2000, or simply compare the conduct of this presidency with that of other presidencies of the past).
And is there any reason to believe that what was true on the downside would not also be true on the upside?
Moreover, though the full achievement of all those goals I listed in the first installment may be unreasonable to hope, surely it matters plenty how much progress we make toward their achievement. These goals are not matters of all-or-nothing.
I'll tell you the historical example that I have in mind in my envisioning of what I hope our next leadership might accomplish. I'm thinking of what FDR accomplished upon becoming president in the election of 1932.
Then, as now, the country was in terrible shape. In that case, it was a break down of the economic system. Now it is a breakdown of those aspects of the culture that converge on our governmental system (moral, legal, political, media).
FDR, it is often said, saved capitalism. But he did more than that. He made use of that breakdown to create a new kind of society by expanding in creative ways the role of government in the life of the nation and of its citizens. Not everything worked, of course, but with the Civilian Conservation Corps and Social Security and countless other programs, he gave impetus to a more humane, more liberal kind of American capitalist democracy. The wave he imparted into our political system continued to carry America forward in many important (and valuable) ways for almost half a century.
In my view, FDR was a great president. In the century since Mount Rushmore was carved into that rock (a travesty, I know), there's only one president who has served who belongs up there. And that's Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Had the president elected in 1932 been a mediocre president, or perhaps even a poor one, what would have happened? My guess is that America would have taken a very different path and become a different, and lesser, nation. Even if we exclude the scenario (not impossible) that the Depression could have led to the breakdown of democracy and the rise of either a fascist or communist dictatorship --not impossible, I would guess-- a less visionary, less constructive, less effective, less inspiring leader would have bequeathed to America a lesser future than we got because this particular man became president at that time of crisis.
Perhaps to an observer during the Depression year 1931, anyone who'd proposed that a leader might take the country to the place where it was by the end of FDR's tenure would have seemed bonkers, calling for "putting the historical toothpaste back into the historical tube."
That whole image of putting the toothpaste back into the tube --that it's bonkers to imagine reversing the trends of one's times-- is a counsel of despair. It suggests that the course of history is ruled by inevitability. The course of history reveals, on the contrary, that history can take different courses depending on matters that are not inevitable-- such as whether Booth could succeed in killing Lincoln, and whether the ballot in Long Beach County was confusing to voters in 2000.
But even if we were simply uncertain whether history's course was inevitable --and how could anyone be CERTAIN that nothing we can do might turn around the destructive tendencies of recent times?-- it would seem that rationality and prudence would require us to choose as Pascal did in his famous wager: he operated on the assumption that there IS a God, reasoning that if he did so and he was wrong, the cost of his error was nothing great, but if he lived as if there were no God (who judges mortals) and he was wrong about THAT, then he'd pay a huge price for eternity. 
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