Weep

 

In 1995, Columbia Pictures released The American President, a film written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Rob Reiner, and starring Michael Douglas and Annette Benning. The film tells the story of a widowed American president who falls for a lobbyist he meets in the course of his work. It intersperses moments of romantic comedy with serious commentary about the political process and the way it intersects with the personal lives of politicians. In the culminating speech of the film, Michael Douglas as the president makes a speech in which he defends Annette Benning's character from his political rivals, and reclaims his own sense of integrity from the quicksand of political compromise his job has pulled him into. Among other memorable lines, this one anchors the speech: "being President of this country is entirely about character".

 

 

 

While Douglas's speech contains liberal policy proposals, it does not suggest that only liberals can have good character. Gerald Ford showed himself a man of character in his short time in the office; George Bush the Elder, despite his flaws, showed himself a man of character and, during his wartime service, considerable courage. George Bush the Younger, despite his serious errors in judgment, left a positive legacy in his PEPFAR program to combat HIV in African and poor countries elsewhere. Listening to the ideals expressed in Aaron Sorkin's words, and considering the genuine achievements of Americans in law, freedom, and government, it is hard not to weep at what the United States has come to. 

 

Well within the memory of many of us, Americans, liberal and conservative alike, aspired to be governed by men and women of character and dignity. American politicians might, and frequently did, fall short of their aspirations, but they aimed for something better.

 

That was then. Now we have seen the sorry spectacle of a campaign attack ad put out by Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign for governor of Ohio. This features the mother of his opponent, Amy Acton, telling the voters her daughter is a liar and incapable of governing. The by itself would be an extremely and unusually personal form of attack ad, but the circumstances take this advertising from extreme to depraved. According to court records, Amy Acton's stepfather abused her. Her mother sided with the stepfather instead of protecting her daughter, and child protective services took both Amy and her brother into the foster care system. Amy Acton last saw her mother in 1978, and she and her brother grew up in foster care. Out of all the residents of Ohio he might have chosen to back his claims Amy Acton is lying about him, this is the person Vivek Ramaswamy chose to speak for him. 

 

This ad is loathsome. If our society had any universal principle, it was solidarity with the child victims of sexual abuse. That principle united everyone, from penitentiary cells to the highest levels of government. We have far too often failed to give our children the protection we promised, but we never saw that failure for anything but what it was: a failure and a falling short. Until now. With the enthusiastic support of President Trump and his vice president, the Ramaswamy campaign has plumbed a new depth of foulness.

 

The lives of the greatest American leaders have stimulated the productions of a great deal of good art; consider the multiple film biographies of Abraham Lincoln. The aspirations of Americans for something better for their country have also inspired some good films, including American President, which expressed a hope that a democrat along the lines of Bill Clinton would rise to the highest demands of the job. Even the failures of American political life have inspired artists, from the satire of Dr Strangelove to the serious All the President's Men.

 

This episode of the Ohio governor's race, by contrast, appears very unlikely to inspire anything, with the possible exception of an episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.