Great Historical Figures Of The Moment

With the dynamic of instant celebrity that afflicts so many parts of our culture, most assuredly including our politics, has come a new set of problems. Somebody wiser than me once wrote that the primary narcissism of our age is our conviction that everything that happens is of great historical import, that our heroes and our villains tower over the heroes and villains of the past, and that our successes are unprecedentedly large and our problems unprecedentedly difficult. Self-drama is our most important modern performance art, and we demand that every one of any achievement master its skills -- or, at least, learn to fake them convincingly -- or else we will judge them a failure. Thus do we have an entire generation of politicians who believe that their political success instantly inflates them into historical figure of great moment. The ur-figure in this phenomenon is, of course, N. Leroy Gingrich, definer of civilization's rules and Leader (perhaps) of the civilizing forces. Until he completely collapsed in 1998, Gingrich was the past master at convincing otherwise sensible people that he was a transformational figure in American politics, instead of an unusually successful back-bench bomb-thrower who got lucky. More recently, we had Scott Brown, a not-unlikable sort who won a fluke election to succeed the late Edward Kennedy in the Senate from Massachusetts. He was immediately acclaimed a national figure who could lead the Republicans out of the bondage of the Bible-bangers and snake-handlers and into the cool breeze of reason once again. All indications are that Brown believed all that codswallop. In the campaign against Elizabeth Warren, he behaved as though it was an affront to human history that anyone would run against him, and he went from not-unlikable to completely unlikable almost overnight. I think he still doesn't know how he lost.

And then we have the Congress we elected in 2010, the worst Congress in the history of the Republic. Watching these people bedevil their leadership, and confound the pundits into the bargain, is to watch people who believe themselves to have been uniquely blessed in their purpose. A great piece of the Republican party establishment went to the bank believing that most of these people didn't really believe what they were saying, that they could be allowed to spread preposterous lies about (especially) the Affordable Care Act, because that was a way for the Republicans to gain a House majority, which would then do what the Republican establishment -- whatever that is any more -- told it to do. I'm not entirely sure people like John Boehner had any idea that these people would do what they said they would do.

Now they're behaving like a martyrdom cult and even the historically batty Wall Street Journal editorial page is getting nervous. However, when the House changed hands in 2010, and the country installed this pack of vandals in office, all of the instant celebrity told the newly elected congresscritters that they were the custodians of a historic moment. They got chuffed, and why wouldn't they? They were being told by everyone, and not just within the conservative media bubble, that they were very special people simply because of the size of their victory. (They were helped immeasurably, always, by the reluctance of the Democratic party to call crazy people crazy, and by the president's mysterious belief that these were people with whom he could deal.) They are threatening to cave in the economy unless the president abandons his signature policy initiative, and why shouldn't they? He's yesterday's great historical figure. They came after him, therefore, they're the current great historical figures. They were elected, they believe, to kill the Affordable Care Act. Everybody told them that was the reason. Fate -- or Jesus, or the Koch Brothers bankroll -- gave them the chance to do it. They must walk around baffled that the country hasn't figured that out yet.

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