Our Animal Farm dilemma

Even if you haven't read George Orwell's Animal Farm, you're probably familiar with the plot setup: the animals on Farmer Jones's farm stage a coup and drive him off.  The animals then try to self-govern.  The pigs, the cleverest of the animals, take charge.

Whenever the other beasts show signs of dissatisfaction with pig rule, Squealer, the pig regime's flack, is trotted out before the animals to make a clinching argument:

Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back! Surely, comrades," cried Squealer almost pleadingly, skipping from side to side and whisking his tail, "surely there is no one among you who wants to see Jones come back?"

Thus the false dilemma: the only possible alternative to pig rule is a return to farmer authoritarianism - ignoring the multitude of other possibilities.

Somehow, in the United States at this moment, we've managed to bring about that dilemma in real life, only it doesn't seem false.  President Biden's presidency has not been going well.  And yet, the only realistic alternative on the horizon for 2024 is the return of Donald Trump.  That latter possibility is difficult to countenance, but it's one we'll probably have to face in three years.

In the New York Times, conservative columnist Bret Stephens provides a litany of national security issues on which the Biden Administration is floundering: Russia stepping up its cyber attacks against us; Iran apparently launching a drone attack against one of our military bases; China ramping up its aggressive posture against Taiwan, with the president apparently misstating (twice) our obligations to defend Taiwan; our nuclear sub deal with Australia and Britain managing to alienate another major ally, France; and the botched and disgraceful exit from Afghanistan.  Closer to home, the situation at our southern border is bad; the number of pandemic deaths under Biden is approaching Trump's total; and the economy is underperforming.

Stephens' list isn't complete: it doesn't include China's testing of a hypersonic missile; nor China's continued annihilation of its Uyghur population; nor Biden's domestic legislative agenda being stalled, with his party in Congress in disarray; nor his Trump-like approval numbers with the public.

For what it's worth, my assessment of the moment is that we need a leader with vision, high energy and persuasive skills.  Joe Biden seems to be a decent man with some admirable personal qualities, but I don't think he is equal to this moment.    

I'm among those who believe that the president was elected for one overriding reason: to not be Donald Trump.  He checked that box last January.  But now we need him to govern well.

I doubt that anybody here voted for Donald Trump in 2020.  Even before his treacherous coup attempt came into the full light of day, we ran him off the farm.  And I don't imagine any of us wants Jones to come back in 2024.

It's never been clear whether President Biden will run for re-election.  If he does run, the dilemma for the US becomes: do we re-elect an ineffective president for four more years, or do we return the worst president in our history, a non-convicted traitor who massively violated his oath of office, to the White House?

Aren't there any other, better options?  Within the limits of our two-party system, the traditional way to be given other options is via party primaries.  If we want better candidates, we rely on the two major parties to give them to us during primary season.

But as things look now, it doesn't appear that either major party is poised to provide better candidates.  If Biden runs again in 2024, he'll have all the advantages of an incumbent president to secure his party's nomination.  As for Trump, he's already busily laying the groundwork to be renominated by the GOP (not to mention busily laying the groundwork to allow state legislatures under his sway to override the vote totals in certain states).  Polling indicates he's more popular, by many multiples, than any other potential GOP candidate who has stepped forward.  It's possible that either or both men could be defeated in their parties' primaries, but it seems unlikely.

But what about those two-party-system limits?  Does our system need to consist of only two major parties?  A couple of weeks ago, conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg instigated a kerfuffle on the right by calling for the formation of a conservative third party.  In his vision, such a party would feature "a simple, Reaganite conservative platform combined with a serious plank to defend the soundness of elections".  Many other conservatives who are sympathetic to that platform weighed in with what seemed to them the overriding objection to a third party: the effect would be to split the conservative vote, ensuring that Democrats would win any/all elections. 

I'm in favor of a third party on the conservative side.  In my view, Donald Trump has broken the GOP, and even if there were any party horses and men interested in putting Humpty Dumpty together again, I don't think it can be done.  I think the split between traditional conservatives and Trumpites is too wide for them to continue to inhabit the same party.  Let them work in coalition on issues such as abortion which they seem to hold in common.  I don't perceive that there are many issues in common beyond that one.  

Of course, my hope is that a new party ultimately would supersede the Trumpified Republican Party, just as the Republican Party superseded the Whigs about 160 years ago.  But for that process to complete, it needs to start, and there doesn't seem to be a critical mass, yet, of conservative heavyweights willing to break from the GOP. 

I don't see much reason to be hopeful.  Our mediocre president may be the best we can do.  That's not too good for our country, nor the rest of the world.   But it's probably still most important that Jones not come back.