Where We Are This Week
Macron makes a bad deal, Biden refuses to drop out, and did Thomas Jefferson steal bibles?
Thomas Jefferson, Philosopher, President, Antichrist
When Thomas Jefferson was elected in 1800, the vitriolic campaign that John Adams prosecuted against him had many Americans in a panic. Jefferson was famously (or notoriously depending on who you ask) a philosopher, a Francophile, and, most controversially, a non-Christian.
Ol’ T.J.’s religious views, like many of our founding fathers, were far more nuanced than that ragtag group of Puritans who had arrived at Plymouth Rock all those years earlier. He believed in a Creator and was an admirer of the moral teachings of Jesus Christ, but rejected the divinity (and trinity) of the carpenter from Nazareth. He even curated his own ‘bible’ that removed all references to miracles in the New Testament.
Despite his staunch advocacy for freedom of religion and the critical role he played in the founding of the country, the Adams campaign sent the public into a frenzy.
The incumbent president spread pamphlets and stories in newspapers (remember those?) suggesting that the chaos and violence of the French Revolution would soon be on American shores should his opponent win the election as a result of his putrid atheism and radical liberal beliefs. I suppose that’s what Thomas Jefferson gets for speaking fluent French and questioning organized religion.
In reality, Jefferson’s political beliefs didn’t precisely match those of his Rousseauian counterparts and he certainly wasn’t an atheist. He was more of a Christian than the famous atheist Richard Dawkins (who recently asserted that he was culturally Christian - whatever that means) and considerably less of one than — say, Mike Pence.
For extra credit, it would be interesting to see where pro-abortion-Catholic Joe Biden and famous-shtupper-of-pornographers Donald Trump map onto this chart. Grades will be awarded based on display, accuracy, and enthusiasm.
In politics, however, reality — as we all know — is irrelevant. The Presidential election of 1800 contains one of my favorite anecdotes of American history; it’s one I’ve retold so long that I started to worry that maybe I made it up. I can confirm that it’s true; I looked it up just for this occasion.
The fearmongering of the 1800 election became so pervasive and effective that men and women all across the inchoate United States were taking extreme measures to preserve their faith. And who can blame them? Look at this quote from one of Thomas Jefferson’s Federalist opponents in 1798:
“[if Jefferson is elected] the Bible would be cast into a bonfire, our holy worship changed into a dance of Jacobin phrensy, our wives and daughters dishonored, and our sons converted into the disciples of Voltaire and the dragoons of Marat.”
First of all, check out that spelling of phrensy. Secondly, if only our worst fears today were that if Biden or Trump were elected our sons would become the disciples of poets and writers. Ridiculous as it was, lobbing these insults at Jefferson is infinitely more palatable than the modern-day regurgitated epithets of woke and fascist.
This was about a man who played an invaluable part in the founding of the nation. At the time, he was currently serving as John Adams’ vice president — in other words, he was a known quantity. Yet, the irresistible seduction of moral panic had already taken hold. When Jefferson was elected to the presidency a couple of years later, there were myriad reports of devout New England housewives burying their Bibles in the ground or hiding deep inside their wells.
Now, we all know about the Great Bible Destruction of 1802 that would eventually take place under the Jefferson regime, but, as it turns out, his tenure as president wasn’t nearly as bad as his opponent made it out to be. At the end of Jefferson’s two terms, America was bigger and better than Adams had left it. In 1808, James Madison, another deist, was elected to the presidency — and again, as we all know, the United States is in such a catastrophic state today because of the election of these two learned, intellectual, moral individuals.
In all seriousness, this is to say that the next time you find yourself knee-deep in a hole or lowering the bucket back into the well, it might be worth asking yourself if you’re overreacting. There may come a time when we have to bury the good word so deep you can’t hear it anymore but history would suggest that whenever you’re thinking about doing it, it might be premature. So, let’s not go hiding our Bibles just yet.
The French Faustian Bargain
Now, that we know what an intoxicant fear can be, can you imagine if there had been a third option for the Federalists when they recognized they might be losing the election?
What if Adams withdrew his candidacy and threw all of his support behind another party, one that wasn’t directly aligned with his own, but one that stood a chance of beating his opponent? What if Adams had collaborated with the British who were fresh off getting the spanking of a lifetime by a bunch of ragtag colonists and who would’ve been happy to find an avenue back to power?
He didn’t, but that’s not to say it would’ve been entirely unprecedented for a people to want the worst thing for themselves. The Israelites missed Pharaoh only moments after Moses led them to divine freedom. The Americans tried to anoint George Washington as King of the New World. It’s almost as if Exodus was trying to teach us a lesson about human nature.
The British were still pining for the thirteen colonies — as the events of 1812 would evince — and striking a deal with them would’ve been asinine to put it lightly.
As it happens, French President Emmanuel Macron is pettier than our second president.
After the first round of snap elections in France (we covered it last week) it looked as if the right-wing party, National Rally, was cruising to substantial victory in the French legislature. It took no time at all for the machinations of political panic and half-baked outrage to slip into high gear.
Les Bleus star Kylian Mbappé called the initial results of the elections ‘catastrophic’ which is ironic because so was the French national team’s performance at this year’s Euros. Mbappé wasn’t the only one though; as we discussed last week, scores of Western media outlets treated the results as if they were an existential threat to the future of France.
So, what did Macron do as he sensed the looming failure in the cards? He made a deal with the devil. And by the devil, I don’t mean the literal devil. I mean communists. So, worse.
Macron’s center-left party made the correct calculation that, as things were, the National Rally party would have quite the coronation on Sunday, so, instead, they made a bargain.
So, the president’s Renaissance party struck a bargain with the New Popular Front — a left-wing coalition that counts card-carrying commies and socialists in its ranks. For every race that neither party was winning the clear majority of the center-to-left voting bloc, the runners-up would withdraw in order to consolidate support and defeat the NR.
Politically astute as it may have been as a means for victory, he might have just handed the Gauls the keys to the castle.
The National Rally was soundly defeated as they didn’t reach the majority they had anticipated but the New Popular Front won, by far, the most parliamentary seats in the French government.
Despite NPF’s win, however, they did not secure the 289-seat majority that is necessary to establish a government which means a more permanent alliance, not one based on desperation and fear, will have to be established.
The over-familiar game of footsie that FDR played with Uncle Joe (that was his pet name for Stalin) led to the Iron Curtain and a half-century of immiseration for half of Europe. Macron is no idiot but I’m sure he’s nonplussed by his partners in governance for the next three years.
Overselling a crisis gets you in uncomfortable situations. Due to Spanish Civil War and WWII dynamics, lefties and communists heard fascists and assembled in force. But where Macron and the center of France now find themselves is the political equivalent of George Costanza pretending to be disabled to get a better bathroom.
In a couple of years, the French public may find themselves miraculously lifting their electric scooter as they run away from a geriatric mob wondering how they could’ve avoided that very situation. Once your bed is made, though, you’ve got to lie in it. No matter how drab the sheets may be.
Dictatorship or Dementia
In my neighborhood, there are two of the same political signs. They read ‘Dictatorship or Democracy, that’s the choice.’
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it one thousand times. You cannot tell me that democracy itself is at stake and run Joe Biden. Neither candidate for president suggests the next election is an existential one; neither of them seems to be the type of person you’d rely on if the future of the country was really on the line.
Not to beat a dead horse (insert Joe Biden joke here) but that’s where fear gets you. If you’re legitimately afraid that Donald Trump will bring about the Fourth Reich then of course you’d take a Disney animatronic as president instead. I don’t think Trump ought to be underestimated, but the chances of Trump being an actual dictator (think Castro, Mussolini, my middle school principal) are overblown.
The fear provides cover. Anyone is better than Hitler. You let your standards slip so far that you start measuring success on ‘answering every question, Joe!’ and ‘big boy press conferences.’ Whose idea was it to call it that? I hear the president even puts up all his toys before nap time.
Creating and sustaining the boogeyman is what keeps Joe Biden in the race. The fear of losing is what keeps the American public away from any alternative to the two-party system we have today.
There is a time and place for everything, though. There will be a time when panic is warranted and a win-at-all-costs strategy will be necessary but until then, we have to have the courage and wisdom to lose — at least once. Donald Trump isn’t going to institute an American Gestapo any more than Biden will build gulags in Alaska.
The fear of a Perot-style ‘wrecking’ of the election has sufficiently kept a ten-foot-pole between ideologues and partisan voters and a third-party or non-establishment candidate. I’ve never successfully completed a project off of one trip to Lowe’s. Projects take time, and fortunately for us, we still have some of that to spare.
Explore all the options, there’s still time to lose. And as FDR famously stated, “the only thing to fear is fear itself.” That, and of course, communists.
To a better next week,
Cheers,
~FDA