(George Washington Plunkitt, late of the New York Legislature, and Tammany Hall. He was a master of practical politics).

I didn’t think they could get me to do it, but they have. I am an intensely political beast, and I have always had a fondness for the rough-and-ready nature of the American political process, warts and all.

My first exposure to How Things Really Work- maybe yours, too, if you are of a certain age- were the stories about what the Chicago Machine did to the vote tallies for Mr. Nixon and Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Nixon was reportedly gracious about the matter, perhaps a first for him. But as I was educated I seriously doubted that much had changed from the days we read about in history class about the memoirs of “Plunkitt of Tammany Hall,” a book I thought would be a dry account of politics in 19th Century New York City.

Well, that is what I thought until I actually read the book, arranged as a series of very plain talks delivered by former State Senator George Washington Plunkitt from his rostrum at the New York County Court House. He would sit on the Bootblack Stand, and deliver revealed truth on practical politics.

It was as breathtaking in its way as Machiavelli’s “The Prince,” or Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals.”

It is a cookbook for how things get done in the real world.

But of course, things do not appear to be getting done any more. And a pal noted the general tenor of the political debate today has not been seen since, perhaps, 1822. And that nasty business did not happen at the speed of heat as it does now.

I marvel at what is being said about every one of the candidates. Honestly. Is it possible that character assassination is the only way to solve the really, really, really important issues that confront us? Pick an issue; Terror, immigration, the debt, foreign policy. Nothing we are doing as a nation is sustainable, and no one is proposing anything that actually makes sense.

Despite my best attempts, it is hard to tune it out, and I now have to do mass deletes on the email emanating from the campaigns that remain. I try to ignore it all, but they aren’t even whispering campaigns of personal destruction any more: it is political debate shouted out by Tweet.

Policy debate in 140 characters or less.

I can’t help but wonder if one of the leading candidates is actually in the other Party, since a third-party run only benefits the other side; a sort of pomaded Trojan Horse. I don’t care who sleeps with who, any more than we did about who was doing whom in Camelot. And for the party of the second part, we are offered a candidate who should- for a plain fact- be indicted for gross negligence in the way government business was done.

That is not an opinion from a disgruntled voter or a commentor on some hysterical web site. It is the judgment of a professional who has been dealing with classified information for nearly 40 years. Had I done something similar, I would already be sharing a cell with Chelsea Manning. Plain as day, open and shut, and with sirens ushering me to Leavenworth.

And to top it all, completing the crew of a ship of fools, a Marxist is running, for goodness sake, if that is what a Democratic Socialist might be. No one seems to be willing to offer up a definition of what that is beyond free stuff. I had been under the impression that we had won the Cold War, but apparently I missed something.

This is low comedy that is not dignified by being termed a farce. I am in favor of a pox on all their houses, though I am afraid it is a bit late for that. I am reminded of what one of those old Dead White Guys remarked, long ago.

(A vaguely dyspeptic portrait of a realist, one Dr. Benjamin Franklin).

Dr. James McHenry, one of Maryland’s delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, wrote a short note in his diary, which was not published until after George Washington Plunkitt had retired from Tammany Hall. He said that the most American of us all, genial old Ben Franklin, was tweeted a question as he was leaving Independence Hall on the last day of deliberations.

A woman in the crowd asked- not shouted- “Well, Doctor Franklin, what have we got? A Republic or a Monarchy?”

“A Republic, Madam,” replied the Doctor. “If you can keep it.”

The exchange would have made a great Tweet, and was well within the character limit.

I think it is readily apparent to the most casual observer that we could not. It was a grand run for Old Glory, but we have marched boldly into terra incognita, passing out of the land of the rule of law, and into some strange place I am pretty sure is not going to be any fun at all. I am confident that this was all done with the very best of intentions.

I bet George Washington Plunkitt would agree with me. At least the way Tammany Hall worked made a certain amount of sense. This doesn’t.

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com