TRUMP’S REVOLUTION

NY SUN

One of America’s fastest friends — Andrew Roberts, the British historian — delivered quite a lecture at the Manhattan Institute’s Wriston dinner this year, we gather from the edition of his remarks that appears in the Wall Street Journal. “For all the undoubted genius of your Constitution,” our friend reckons, “in 2016 it is no longer sustainable for Americans to say they have the best democratic system in the world.” The headline the Journal puts over it is: “1776: Would you like to reconsider?”

SON OF LIBERTY: Thanks but no thanks, says the Sun in respect of the question of whether, in light of the current presidential contest, to reconsider 1776. Our own sentiments abide with Samuel Adams. Nor were the Sons of Liberty so dainty in their day.

Thanks but no thanks, says the Sun. Our sentiments abide with Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty, who looked to Moses at Sinai, and the Devil take the hindmost. We don’t gainsay the variety of democracies (Mr. Roberts lists “the Athenian agora model of direct participation, the Westminster-based constitutional monarchy, the Swiss referendum and cantonal model, Indian mass democracy”). But he argues that it is “impossible any more to suggest that the finest one is that which has thrown up Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump as the final choice for 320 million Americans.”

Such sentiments echo the pecksniffery of H.L. Mencken, who defined democracy as “that system of government under which people, having 60,000,000 native-born adults to choose from, including thousands who are handsome and many who are wise, pick out a Coolidge to be head of state. It is as if a hungry man, set before a banquet prepared by master cooks and covering a table an acre in area, should turn his back upon the feast and stay his stomach by catching and eating flies.” Coolidge, history records, turned out to be a spectacular president.

The system, moreover, hasn’t changed radically since it “threw up,” say, Ronald Reagan. Nor is there any law limiting to two the number of political parties or requiring them to select their candidates through a primary process. There’s no systemic change required for the major parties, or the smaller ones, to select their nominees through a process other than the primary system. The big change of late, Citizens United, has but thrown open the fray to anyone — including companies and labor unions — wanting to help finance a robust national debate.

Nor, just for the record, has the Mother of Parliaments handed up of late such heroical leaders. The Tories have lately settled on, in Theresa May, a trimmer, and the Labor Party, now a gaggle of socialists and anti-Semites, has put up a leader who makes Donald Trump look like Alexander the Great. The Chinese communist regime is no model, despite its worldly advances, nor is the Kremlin. We’re not convinced that the problem in the GOP is that the candidates failed to, as Mr. Roberts suggests, “confront people like Mr. Trump seriously from the start.”

Sixteen contenders went after him, only to get out-maneuvered, despite the huge fortunes behind them, by Mr. Trump’s campaign. He understood how disenfranchised voters had come to feel, and caught his opponents off guard (so did the Sons of Liberty). The result of the 2016 primaries, in any event, is that, once again, America has a clear choice between a left-of-center approach to our policy problems and a right-of-center approach. Mr. Roberts quotes Burgoyne’s line about how there’s a lot of ruin in a country. But what’s the logic of swinging behind Mrs. Clinton’s call to partial ruin?

We’re not against Mr. Roberts’ suggestion that America reform its primary system; financing restrictions brought in after Watergate were never constitutional, in our view. One of the great virtues of the American system is that it is capable of reforming itself. We don’t want to draw any inapt comparisons. We, for one, though, are uncomfortable with our friend’s use to describe the choice Americans face November 8 as “putrid.” It’s the very word that Lincoln’s law partner (and biographer), Wm. Herndon, used to describe the background that produced the savior of our Union.