Hail the Guardrails, &c.

On oath-conscious Republicans; the late Barney Frank; the late Ted Turner; and more

(Photo by Elimende Inagella on Unsplash)

In 2020, there were people of exceptional courage: Republican election officials who refused to falsify the election. Did that take exceptional courage? Oh, yes. The pressure on them from President Trump and their party in general was tremendous.

Two of those officials were in Georgia: Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, and Gabriel Sterling, the COO in that office.

“He’s an enemy of the people.” That’s what President Trump said of Raffensperger on Thanksgiving Day in the White House. Naturally, Raffensperger and his wife got death and rape threats and had to have 24-hour police protection.

For some reason—you would have to talk with them (and maybe I will)—Raffensperger and Sterling stuck with Republican politics. This year, Raffensperger ran for governor and Sterling ran for secretary of state.

The primaries were Tuesday. Raffensperger got 15 percent and Sterling 12 percent. Naturally, they were classy in defeat, saluting the majesty of American democracy.

In yesterday’s column, I quoted Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.): “This is the party of Donald Trump.” Truer words were never spoken. But, you know? They all take an oath to the Constitution, not to Trump—and this should be remembered, even when it’s not obvious.

Did you see Randy Fine? He’s a Republican congressman from Florida:

When I was growing up, we had an expression: “Mouse or man?” In our politics—in our society in general—we could use more men.

I would like to salute and thank Raffensperger and Sterling—and Stephen Richer and Rusty Bowers, from Arizona, and all the other officials who did their duty. On such people, our democracy depends.

“Constitutional guardrails,” we have learned, are not laws and rules written on paper. No, they are human: flesh and blood. People doing the right thing at the right time.

Another “guardrail” was Vice President Mike Pence on January 6.

How do you think the current vice president would stand up? I think that “stand up” is precisely the wrong phrase.

***

I want to go back to “enemy of the people.” This is a phrase with a nasty pedigree, as you know: the Reign of Terror, the Soviet Union, the Khmer Rouge. A lot of people have died—been killed—for being “enemies of the people,” according to tyrants.

And President Trump has used this phrase routinely.

I used to try to get the people around me to care about it. It was very hard. Impossible, really. Let me quote something I wrote last September:

A lot of people have rolled their eyes at me when I have complained about “enemy of the people.” “Jay’s a big priss,” you know. “He doesn’t understand how real men talk. Trump is just being Trump.”

Let me do some more quoting—from a post I wrote in November 2023:

When Trump spoke of “enemies of the people” and the rest, I always assumed he was ignorant of the past—ignorant of the pedigrees of these words and phrases. But, to be honest, I’m not sure. Maybe he is. Maybe he isn’t.

For years, people have told me, “Don’t get your panties in a twist. Lighten up, Francis. Trump is a good American democrat, faithful to the Constitution. Sure, his rhetoric is loose now and then, and he’s prone to bravado. He may not have all the learning and the polish of William F. Buckley Jr. He may be a little too impressed by Putin, Xi, Kim, and other less-than-Jeffersonian types. But you don’t want a war, do you? And Trump is an American patriot with the country’s best interests at heart.”

Well, that had better be true, because the Republican Party seems determined to nominate him for president, for a third time. And he may well be president again. And his defenders and ’splainers—well, let’s hope they’re right. A lot rides on it.

We are ridin’.

***

I have been doing some saluting in this column. Let me now salute Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, of Pennsylvania. He is a rare and wondrous Republican. He knows the importance of Ukraine to the United States, and he knows who Putin is. Moreover, he speaks up on the subject.

Also, he is forthrightly opposed to the slush fund that President Trump has set up for the January 6 convicts and others. “We’re gonna try to kill it,” he said.

There’s a little more to the story, this political drama. I will quote a news report:

President Trump taunted a Fox News reporter on Wednesday over her relationship with a Republican congressman and his record of breaking with the president on key votes.

In a gaggle with reporters, Trump responded to an unrelated question by taking a personal jab at Fox News senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich, who announced her engagement last year to Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.).

“Her husband votes against me all the time. Can you imagine? I don’t know what’s with him. You better ask him what’s with him,” Trump said, apparently referring to Heinrich’s fiancé as her husband.

“He likes voting against Trump,” the president added. “You know what happens with that. It doesn’t work out well.”

Well, let it not “work out well.” I salute and thank the congressman. Way to go, Fitz. There are worse things than losing a Republican primary election, or any other election. Why do you run for Congress in the first place? To serve your country.

***

Barney Frank has died at 86. He was a longtime Massachusetts congressman, on the left. I am a conservative, and therefore I was anti-Frank. But I met him once, at Davos, and we talked a little politics. Not philosophy or ideology but nuts and bolts—practical politics. It was a pleasure. Smart, interesting, amusing guy.

I will return to this—return to that day in Davos—but let me first quote a passage from the obit of Frank in the New York Times:

… he helped persuade President Bill Clinton not to appoint Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia as secretary of state because of his track record of homophobia.

Huh. I never knew that Nunn was a homophobe and had a track record of the same. I clicked on the link, provided by the Times. You may wish to do so too. I’m not saying that Nunn should win some Stonewall award (if there is one). But if Nunn is a homophobe, there are no homophobes, and the gays have nothing to worry about.

I think Mr. Nunn has been done an injustice. Anyway, back to Davos.

In 2005, I wrote a journal, and I would like to quote a healthy swath of it:

I’m on a panel with Barney Frank—you know, the congressman from Massachusetts, and one of the best talkers in the Democratic Party. The subject is “Challenges to the United States.” The moderator is Phil Revzin, a vice president of Dow Jones, and the other panelists are Yuan Ming of Beijing University and Alyson Bailes, a strikingly poised and articulate Englishwoman who is director of the International Peace Research Institute in Stockholm.

I have to tell you something about Frank: Before the panel begins, as the audience is filing in, he takes his seat on the stage—no one else is there—and casually reads the paper. Remarkable, that. I can’t even say precisely why. He is just totally at ease, almost indifferent.

We go through the usual shenanigans, and I will spare you most of it, but Frank is very down on the inaugural address (as practically all of Davos is)—I am not.

Let me pause. I have referred to George W. Bush’s second inaugural address, which he had given a few days before.

Also, Frank is very gung-ho on the protection of Taiwan, and on basic rights for the Chinese. He makes no bones. And he won’t let anyone get away with talk about “different styles of democracy.” Democracy is democracy, he says, essentially—sure, there are variations, but there are common elements, too, and if you don’t have those, you don’t have something worthy of the name: democracy.

I have noted this before, in my Davos jottings over the years: In this atmosphere, such Democrats as Sander Levin, Joe Biden, and Barney Frank can come off as John Foster Dulles.

Alyson Bailes, at one point, says that she is not worried about China or Iran, as some of the rest of us are. Oh? says Frank. About whom are you worried, then? She answers, “Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Israel.” (At least she said Syria.) Really, says Frank—you’re more worried about Israel than about Iran or China?

Oh, yes.

One of the questioners in the audience is Chris Shays, the congressman (moderate Republican) from Connecticut. He makes a statement about European hostility to America, and European condescension to America. The BBC, he says—in short—is disgusting. He has never heard such arrogance. He also says (and I paraphrase): “We hear about the European view, and Europe’s positions, and as far as I can tell, it’s just France and Germany, talking to each other. To me, that’s like New York and California talking to each other.”

Frank leans over to me and says, “But not Texas.”

As I recall, I said to him, “My people wanna primary him”—i.e., conservatives in that Connecticut district wanted to take Shays on, judging him too moderate, too soft.

I will say again: it was a pleasure to talk with Frank.

***

Ted Turner, the businessman, sailor, personality, etc., died earlier this month. When I was looking at that ’05 Davos journal, I noticed this:

I bump into Ted Turner, almost literally. (I can hear you say, “You should have bumped into him hard.”) He is craggy—very craggy—intense—very intense—and super-confident. He’s handsome, too, in a western way. (I know he’s southern—as in, “The Mouth of the South”—but he looks like the Marlboro Man.) He twangs loudly.

And I’ll tell you something else, which I trust you’ll understand: He looks like a conservative. Like a hard-driving, tail-kicking conservative. You know what I mean, right?

When he went from yahoo Right to nutty Left, he did not lose that look.

Someday, we ought to make a list of people who look like right-wingers but aren’t—starting with outgoing deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage.

Anyway, about the Mouth: Who could have told you, 20 years ago, that, between Ted Turner and Jane Fonda, Jane would turn out to be the more conservative?

Ah, Memory Lane. I’ll sign off now. Thank you for joining me today, my friends. Talk to you again soon.