Politics
The reality of American politics is that sometimes your candidates win, and sometimes your candidates lose. Get involved and committed, and the wins are incredible. That same commitment means that the losses are even more devastating.
But the other reality of American politics is that sometimes we have to compromise, to take less than we want, both in our policies and in our candidates. Bill Clinton was that kind. He was a tremendous disappointment as a Democrat. Sure, he was better than George Bush Sr., or Bob Dole, or Ross “Can I Finish?” Perot. But Bill Clinton was as moderate a Democrat as they come, really Republican-lite. In fact, he helped drive the Republican Party to the “right”, because he absconded with their positions in the center.
Clinton
And, of course, Bill Clinton “sullied” the Presidency. Impeachment and removal was definitely too much, especially when driven by three Republican leaders: one who cheated on his wife with cancer, another who just cheated on his wife, and a third who molested the boys he coached in wrestling. They were Republicans: ex-Speaker Newt Gingrich, Speaker-elect Bob Livingston who replaced him, and Dennis Hastert, the Speaker who ultimately got the job. They definitely lived in “glass houses” and shouldn’t have thrown stones.
And Clinton should have resigned. It would have been the honorable thing to do. But he didn’t, and Al Gore, his Vice President and the Democratic candidate in 2000 took “the heat” from the American public. Gore won the popular vote, but, like Trump in 2016, George W Bush managed to eke out an Electoral College victory. The Supreme Court, in a party line 5 to 4 vote, stopped the count in Florida giving the election to Bush.
Bush
So George W Bush became the President of the United States, and perhaps worse, Dick Cheney became the Vice President. What was “Republican-lite” under Clinton, became hardcore American “might makes right” under Bush-Cheney.
As a Democrat it was all too much to swallow. The almost panicked, bug-eyed vote counter in Palm Beach County, searching for “hanging chads” seemed to characterize the whole election. Bush felt illegitimate, a President by the choice of five Republicans on the Supreme Court, not the American people.
But there was one saving grace. If you didn’t like the President in the White House, there was a much better one on TV. Martin Sheen played Jed Bartlet, the Democratic President in the The West Wing, and for seven years helped us remember what “big D” Democracy was all about.
The West Wing
While Bush was banning “partial birth” abortions, giving trillions of dollars to the already rich, and costing senior citizens with the Medicare drug “donut hole”, the cast of The West Wing was pursuing better policies for America. They too had to compromise, and take only a portion of what they hoped to achieve. But they, unlike Dick Cheney, listened to America, even the crazies on “Big Block of Cheese” day, and made you feel like the country could be good again.
When 9-11 hit, there were the first hours when Bush was shuttled from Florida to Louisiana to Nebraska. Who was in charge? Dick Cheney seemed to be running things, from the basement of the White House or some undisclosed location. It wasn’t until that lone plane with fighter escort passed overhead, that the President returned to take command. And when he spoke at Ground Zero in New York, and then at the Islamic Center in Washington, we started to have some confidence in our leadership.
The West Wing helped nursed us through the attack as well. The first show back after the attack, Isaac and Ishmael, helped educate the nation about who really attacked us. The simple equation: “Islamic Extremists to Islam = KKK to Christianity,” explained a lot. I used it in class later on.
Obama
So for six of the long years of George W. Bush, including another heartbreaking defeat with John Kerry in 2004, The West Wing helped get me through. And when The West Wing left us in 2006, they did so with the first Hispanic President, Matt Santos and a Republican Secretary of State, Arnold Vinick, the close loser in the Presidential race. The show also left us with real life sorrow, as the venerable Chief of Staff turned Vice Presidential candidate, Leo McGarry, died in real life of a massive heart attack. And so he did on the show, on election night. We mourned both.
Did life imitate art, or art imitate life? Barack Obama, the first African-American President, won in 2008. And while the next eight years had frustrations, both with the President, and more often with the Republican led Congress, there wasn’t the need for a theatrical alternative to the reality of the White House. Yes they compromised, and they made mistakes in the Obama Administration, but like The West Wing, the muddled through in the right direction.
Trump
And then came the world of Donald Trump, and the ugly, bitter, down in the dirt election of 2016. Like 2000, the vote was so close. Hillary won the popular vote, Trump the Electoral College. But for the thumb of Jim Comey on the scale on October 28th, perhaps we would have had four more years of Democrats. But Comey did what he did, probably because the investigation would have leaked anyway, and Trump was President.
It wasn’t a TV show that helped me through this political existential crisis. Instead, it was a Broadway production, a musical of all things, grounded in what American democracy (little ‘d’) might be. A “hip-hop” version of the life of Alexander Hamilton, with the roles of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the all-white founding fathers played indiscriminately by African-American, Hispanic, or white folks. When I heard that description originally I thought it was a joke, some kind of farce.
Hamilton
But then I heard the songs, and I caught the spirit of the story. In a time when immigrants were being locked up at the border, their children ripped away, Hamilton was describing immigrants, “We get the job done,” helping start America. The Trump Era, when government seemed nothing except a self-serving way to increase the profits of the rich, and most importantly the Trump family, there was the story of the sacrifice “for the Revolution”.
It’s a story of strong women and flawed men. But most importantly, it’s a story of hope.
Hope is what I sorely needed for the past three years of Trump. I saw the touring show of Hamilton twice, first in Cleveland, and then later in Columbus. We were headed back to Cleveland for a third time, when the pandemic changed our plans.
Lin-Manuel Miranda, the author and original lead in the Broadway show, is very much aware of the impact of his creation. It is no surprise then, that in the midst of the pandemic, the original cast Broadway version of the movie was released for the Fourth of July.
Friday night, my wife and I had a “pandemic” date night. We had early drinks, shrimp cocktail, and filet mignon. Then it was onto Hamilton, a show we know now by heart. But it was even better. If immigrants “get the job done”, then the original Broadway cast really does it even better. We soared, and cried, and were uplifted by their performances, and the message of Hamilton. It once again helped get us through this tragic political time.
It gave us hope.
I hope we won’t need on the Fourth of July next year.
