Rare Days, &c.

On June, character, ideas, ‘attitudinizing,’ moms, and more

June Day, by Isaac Levitan, c. 1890 (Wikimedia Commons)

Before I get into the political muck, maybe we could have a line of poetry, appropriate to the day—and week and month? “And what is so rare as a day in June?” Yes, what a month. Stellar, at least in the places where I have lived.

The line opens a poem by James Russell Lowell, a 19th-century American. He was a man of parts: our ambassador to Spain and then to the United Kingdom, for example.

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Before we get to the political muck—well, maybe we can touch on Brazil’s political muck. It is a sticky situation indeed. Brazil is an important country with an important democracy—a democracy that is precarious, caught in a pincer of extremes.

Onward and Upward has become a magazine, in a sense. I have published a piece by someone else—by Andre Spritzer, a Brazilian intellectual (political scientist, computer scientist) who keeps a close eye on the politics of his country. His piece is called “The Agony of Brazil: A democracy battered from left and right.” It gives us the picture, in broad strokes and fine.

Needless to say, I recommend it. That piece is here.

Okay, now to the homefront …

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Texans have long been among my favorite people, and Texas Republicans, in particular. I knew a lot of Bushies, back when. And Phil Gramm was one of my favorite politicians.

(He was born, raised, and educated in Georgia, but he had his career in Texas—and Washington, D.C., of course.)

Last week, Texas Republicans decided they would not renominate John Cornyn for the Senate. Instead, they would nominate—well, frankly, a picture of degeneracy. A picture of corruption, deceit, demagoguery …

“Here, the people rule.” That is an axiom in a democracy. We say who we are, by our votes. We certainly say what we value.

To some of us, recent years have been both illuminating and heartbreaking. I think of a phrase: “sadder but wiser.”

My critics sometimes say, “Jay blames the people!” I would not put it that way. I respect people enough to hold them responsible for the choices they make. I acknowledge their agency.

“Vox populi, vox Dei”? No. I think that is one of the most misguided (and blasphemous) notions ever conceived.

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All of my life, I’ve had to look up the difference between “blasphemy” and “sacrilege.” Maybe I’ll get it locked in the noggin someday.

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The Democrats are on the verge of nominating a doozy in Maine—a doozy for Senate. It starts with a Nazi tattoo. And goes downhill from there?

It is not too late to nominate someone else. But if they go through with this fellow—I hope he gets flattened in the general.

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Young people would be shocked, I think, to learn how much emphasis Republicans and conservatives placed on character. This was years ago, I mean.

Character in office. Character in society. Personal responsibility. All that jazz.

Maybe it was hypocritical—but at least it paid tribute to virtue (to borrow an old line).

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Back to Texas. I don’t know about you, but I don’t hear Republicans putting much effort into defending their nominee. Arguing for him. Instead, they are demonizing his opponent, painting him as “a gay vegan pagan.”

Will that fly? Will that be enough to win in Texas? I’d bet so.

Again, young people might be shocked: Republicans once prided themselves on being “the party of ideas.” Let me walk down Memory Lane a little.

In 1980, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D., N.Y.) made a widely quoted statement: “Of a sudden, the GOP has become a party of ideas.”

Years later, I took a friend of mine, Howard Kissel, a well-known theater and music critic in New York, to a gathering at Bill Buckley’s. Afterward, he said, “It was so strange to attend something where everyone was talking about ideas. It was wonderful.”

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On social media the other day, someone reacted to a statement of mine by saying, “The Buckleyites just won’t die off soon enough.”

I have terrible news for this fellow: I know some Buckley conservatives in their twenties. Not an army—but a decent platoon, for sure. Maybe even a company.

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Every moment of every day, the snorters snort, the dunkers dunk, and the owners own. Bill (Buckley) referred to this as “attitudinizing.” He warned against it, arguing instead for recta ratio, or “right reason”—with flair, if possible.

(He even titled a collection of his “Right Reason.” It came out when I was in college, and I inhaled it.)

How much of what you and I are consuming, or producing, is “attitudinizing” and how much is something more substantial and edifying? I have thought about this lately—and by “lately,” I mean for the last many years …

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Classically, socialists were thought of as utopian whereas conservatives were realistic—grasping the world as it is.

Last week, Stephen Miller, the presidential aide, said, “The American people understand the hell that we inherited and the extraordinary paradise that President Trump is building.”

I thought of Josh Muravchik, who in 2002 published an excellent book: Heaven on Earth: The Rise, Fall, and Afterlife of Socialism.

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Want a little music? Music mixed with politics? I was thinking about how to explain the sudden shifts of certain media figures. This brought to mind the opening of The Music Man, where salesmen are conversing on a train.

“How far you going, friend?” says one. Harold Hill replies, “Wherever the people are as green as the money—friend.”

Yet “Professor” Hill went straight …

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Okay, more music—without con men? (Well, there may be a few.) For my “New York chronicle,” published in the June New Criterion, go here.

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June is the month of Father’s Day, not Mother’s Day, but I must share with you a sign, or billboard—almost an artwork—from New York:

Hear, hear. Bless you all. Thanks for your subscriptions. Talk to you later.