Cynic: In Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest,” one
character says to another, “I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending
to be wicked and really being good all the time; that would be hypocrisy.”
Neither of the presidential candidates this year needs worry about that.
Hillary Clinton’s presentation, more than Trump’s, was unbearable pretentious.
She needed to confess but boasted instead of her essential goodness. She is not
a good person – never has been, never will be. But she is a Democrat and, in
our time, political affiliation is a substitute for moral rectitude.
Q: Is she evil?
Cynic: No, she lacks the energy to be evil. The root is old
and dry. Vladimir Putin is evil. That little runt in North Korea is evil. Donald
Trump bubbles with energy. But his is a narcissistic personality, and his
understanding of politics is shallow.
Q: So which is the lesser evil, Clinton or Trump?
Cynic: Trump, hands down.
Q: Why?
Cynic: Hillary is an accomplished politician; Trump is a rank amateur, which is to say – he’s teachable. The moral sense hasn’t been routed
entirely from his soul. I am using the word “politician” in its negative sense,
as when Mark Twain said of the politicos of his day, “An honest man in politics
shines more there than he would elsewhere.” Trump has plugged into the Twainian
disdain for politics as usual. His message – “They don’t know what they’re
doing” – strikes a responsive chord in the hearts of all true patriots.
Q: Now then, you are using the word “patriot” in its
negative sense, aren’t you?
Cynic: Samuel Johnson said patriotism is the last refuge of
scoundrels. He was referring, of course, to revolutionists in America like
Tom Paine. We don’t consider Paine a scoundrel, because he was our
scoundrel.
Q: Who won the debate?
Cynic: Probably a draw. Debates no longer matter in our
political lives. The Lincoln-Douglas debates are ancient history. Indeed, the Nixon-Kennedy
debates are ancient history. Indeed, yesterday, for many Americans, is ancient
history. We’ve lost or memories, our minds and our hearts. Who needs a memory
when you have Google? Who need rhetoric when you have Twitter? Who needs a
conscience when you have Mark Cuban sitting in the front row, unnerving Trump?
Now in its second or third year, American sensibilities have been numbed by this
seemingly endless campaign. That may be a good thing, because the future – both
domestically and internationally – promises to be brutal. More anesthesia please!
Q: My, my – you ARE a cynic.
Cynic: In our time, cynicism
is the last refuge of saintliness.
Q: Speaking of tweeting, Trump tweeted after the debate – no
Benghazi, no email, no Clinton Foundation. True?
Cynic: Sadly, yes. This is what I mean when I say yesterday is
ancient history. Let me amend that: both yesterday and tomorrow are ancient
history for the Clinton crowd. Benghazi and Hillary’s illegal top-secret heavy
emails and the corrupt Clinton Foundation, a personal piggy bank for the
Clinton clan, are yesterday and tomorrow’s news, not ancient history. One
supposes the moderator – who is, after all in the news business – might have
been able to craft a question for Hillary that touched on any one of these
subjects. Her response would have been newsworthy. But the left of center media
has been in the Clinton bag for decades. They are, most of them, progressive
leftists who resent intruders. But Trump, you know, could have turned the table
on Hillary when the subject of internet safety was broached. She is the queen of
internet hazards. An illegal and unsecured private server – hacked, she
supposes, by Russian intelligence. How did that happen? For six years as U.S.
Senator, Hillary handled top secret information; she was intimately familiar
with classification protocols. Trump did not walk through an opened door. Political
inexperience maybe – an altogether endearing quality, but deadly in a debate
with a practiced politician, using the word, of course, in its negative sense, as when Mark Twain said ,
“There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”
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