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The Accidental Gentrifist: Men Plan, God Laughs
Editors’ Note: The opinions and ideas expressed in The Accidental Gentrifist are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the outlook or beliefs of anyone else in the Ist network.
When Norman Mailer and Hunter Thompson wrote about political showdowns, they were incapable of resisting the fight metaphor. They knew that there is no such thing as a contest of ideas, a balanced measure of experience and aptitude. That a political debate is most akin to boxing, that it’s both a brawl and a dance. But if a political debate is tantamount to a heavyweight title, then it is one cast in negative: Even if he wins, Americans don’t want to see their man take too many shots on the chin. Nor to see him only dance. They may want to see blood, but what they paid for was to see a thrashing, even if it’s a tenth-round rally. That’s the key separation between pugilism and debate. A fighter can be a champion by outlasting punishment, by having a head made out of wood. He can be a simple survivor, a man who grinds life into bread. That’s why fighters make better heroes than politicians. If the statesman dodges too many hooks, spends half a round against the ropes, or dances away from every scrap, the cheap seats will fill the aisles, dropping their popcorn on the ground, leaving no one to watch but the last, unsatisfied sadists and sociopaths, of which there are plenty at any political contest.
And make no mistake. This is the political Ali-Frazier of our generation. Both combatants are freaks, beautiful, hopeful monsters with an almost equal chance of taking the prize. Both Obama and Clinton are wunderkind, freakishly capable officers almost higher than measure—the kid you used to go to school with that disappeared into the wilderness, and emerged as an inventor, a best-selling author, a captain of industry. In short, both Clinton and Obama are exactly the type of person you’d want to be president.
Which makes it kind of a shame: two great candidates have to reduce themselves to gladiators while the republican nominee literally kicks back at his ranch. There should be blood on both aisles.
Perhaps one of my favorite quotes about presidential politics was written by Hunter S. Thompson in a 2004 Rolling Stone:
“Presidential politics is a vicious business, even for rich white men, and anybody who gets into it should be prepared to grapple with the meanest of the mean. The White House has never been seized by timid warriors. There are no rules, and the roadside is littered with wreckage.”
The thing is, when it comes to progressive ideas and notions of equality, we tend to assume that the system will improve. That with greater and more diverse involvement, the political system will get more egalitarian, more fair. But it is equally possibly that progressiveness can also mean non-whites and non-men will have an opportunity to be just as corrupt and deceitful as their male cracker antecedents.
In short, I have no misgivings that Hillary can’t be a mean sunavabitch. Nor Obama. But if I’m to guess, I’d have to say that Clinton, really, is the old, one-eyed barroom brawler. She’s seen her husband impeached, nearly, and she’s been investigated several times, even becoming the first First Lady to be subpoenaed. In Washington, she already has a long list of allies and enemies.
For a long time, even before her theatrically contrived temper-tantrum in a New Hampshire pancake house, Hill’s argument is that she’s the only Democrat who’ll know how to run her office from Day One. To me, it’s obviously true. And, it’s a big problem. For those of us who want substantial, revolutionary change, it would be permissible to have days or weeks pass bumpily along until the new chief gets a feel for things. I would be much less at ease if “day one” had already been sketched out, years before, by a long-time Washington insider. If there were no glitches, no surprises. If everything went according to plan.
Because that’s exactly what we’ve had for the last seven years. Men with plans who will stop at nothing to execute them. Say what you will about Bush, Cheney & Rove, but you’ll have to acknowledge that they were some serious hardballers who knew what they wanted. And forgive me, but I don’t see an enormous chasm of difference between the likes of them, and co-Presidents Clinton. Clinton herself knows that it’s her soft spot, which is why, some months back, she tried to color Obama as the ‘establishment’ candidate, despite the fact that she used to sleep in the White House, and that she spent a ridiculous amount of money on her reelection to the senate, simply so she’d be a sitting senator during her imminent push for the presidency. Not to mention that her own real estate misadventures are one of the primary reasons our generation was previously too fucking fed up with politics to care anymore.
A few weeks before I covered the Clinton-Obama debate on the UT campus, I had the supreme pleasure of hearing David Mamet speak at Hogg Auditorium. Somehow the conversation came around to politics and politicians. Mamet argued that even when politicians are very bad politicians, even when they’ve gaffed or been corrupt, or are largely ineffectual, they’ve still given their lives to public service, and that sacrifice should still be recognized. That it's still something.
The thing is, I don’t buy that. I do agree that everything must be taken on balance, and after the gross positives and negatives have been weighed and adjusted. But to assume that "I tried" is a defense to shirking your service to your nation is just ludicrous. That we should honor people simply for the jobs they volunteer for is insane.
I get such a serpentine feeling from Mrs. Clinton. I think she believes in her agendas, which is good, but it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t believe in her. That I can't help feeling that one democrat wants to lead the country, and the other wants to be the country.
Sorry, Hill. That job's already taken.
