Four-Year Saviors

Note: I actually wrote this post yesterday but it slimmed down (and cooled down) considerably once I slept on it. Taking these steps makes me an internet apostate.

A couple of things I've seen recently have reminded me of one of the flaws in how we perceive our presidents over the last forty years or so. In recent days, I've overheard and read a large number of people who plan to vote for former president Donald Trump in spite of the likelihood he will spend much of the campaign as a defendant. The rationale: Things are so bad that "Trump's the only one who can save us."

Conversely, I have friends and family who think that President Biden is doing a poor job in many areas and also believe that he is too old to be an effective president, but they will vote for him if he is the nominee to "save us from another four years of Trump." The focus is narrower, but the idea is the same: We must vote for this candidate not to be an executive as described in Article II of the Constitution but to be a savior. Article II describes presidential duties, and the word "save" or "savior" appears therein only if you cut all the letters in the article apart, mix them up and pull out the ones needed to spell the words.

The notion of voting for a savior has long roots in our national history. Many say Abraham Lincoln saved the union -- but what he did was lead those who did the work, bloody and otherwise, of defeating the Confederacy and thus enabling the end of slavery along with the end of the rebellion. It's true that without Lincoln the many who desired the end of the rebellion and of slavery would still have worked for it, but without Lincoln's conviction and leadership they may not have succeeded. But without the many who desired, worked and bled, Lincoln would have done nothing. Similar caveats adorn FDR's record, or should.

In modern times, the transformation of president into savior probably began with Ronald Reagan. People who share my political persuasion see many accomplishments and many undoings of problems left by previous administrations. People who do not share my persuasion also do not have any notion of Ronald Reagan as a savior. In any event Reagan hired and appointed the people who got those things done. Again, he and others did the work, which is probably better conceived of fixing stuff rather than saving the nation.

But by the time Bill Clinton ran, the campaign made it clear he was to be voted for in order to save us from four more years of Republican presidencies. George W. Bush would save us from Al Gore's robotic goofiness and John Kerry's stentorian emptiness. Barack Obama saved us from all of the Republican evil, which at that time was concentrated in John McCain and Mitt Romney. Later, when a guy who actually was the kind of guy McCain and Romney were accused of being, everyone let them off the hook. A great deal of savior language would be applied to then-President Obama during his terms.

Many Donald Trump supporters believed he was a bad choice but he could save us from the possibility of President Hillary Clinton. And it is at this point the idea of president as savior completely falls apart. If in fact someone voted for Donald Trump for that reason, he achieved all they asked for as soon as he took office. But once taking office, presidents generally remain in that office for at least four years and we have to deal with their (usual lack of) ability during that time. In 2020, many people who thought Joe Biden was a lunkhead voted for him to save the nation from four more years of Donald Trump. And next year, we will be implored by both parties to vote for people who will peak on day one and get worse until their term ends.

Naturally, someone in my job recognizes an entirely different Savior, but many don't. I do believe that accepting the Savior I follow would improve a lot of things, but I'm not into forcing anybody. I just wonder, though, if it's too much to ask to say, "Try voting for a President rather than a savior. Just try, and let's see what happens."

Because if everybody else does the same thing in 2024 that they did in 2020 and puts two ancient grifters on the ballot again, I'll do the same thing I did and try to make the Libertarian Party nominee President of the United States.