I happened to run across an interview with Rep. Sanford, who recently lost a primary to a Trumpist, conducted two days after his loss and published in Rolling Stone:
How does the Republican Party pull back from this? Where everything is boiled down to are you for or against Trump?
The Founding Fathers’ admonishment that an educated citizenry was vital to the Republic. The systems that they set up which I’ve come to revere were really built upon the notion of the fallen nature of man. That we weren’t perfect. We oughta debate. Nobody has a lock on wisdom. That’s why I started my talk the other night with humility. We all ought to have the humility to say I don’t know what I don’t know. But I don’t even fully know what I think I know.And there is such hubris that’s at times emanated out of the administration about “this is the way it is. Or let me demean somebody else as a way of advancing my point.” Or you can fill in all the blanks. But all I know – and this has been seared hard for me, given my implosion in 2009 and its aftermath and the reflection that comes with that, and was doubled down again in a different way with this latest experience – I’ve come to very strongly believe that a humility in one’s perspective is vital to listening to somebody else. And at the end of the day if we’re going to solve solutions in a collective sense, you better be listening pretty closely to that somebody else. We’re not doing that in the American political system right now.
Not listening and presuming you already have all the answers.
Correct.Do you think the president sets the tone on that?
He does. One ought to have the courage of one’s convictions but one ought to balance that with some degree of humility in the courage of one’s convictions. And that ain’t a selling message right now. That’s just not where the political marketplace is.
My respect for Rep. Sanford has risen considerably based on the material in this interview. He’s clearly a guy who has thought long and hard about the difficulties of governance and epistemology, as one might hope for from a former governor (of South Carolina) as well as Representative – he’s seen governance from both the Executive and Legislative wings. While compromise is often characterized as a way to move forward when the opposition has roughly the same power as you do, it is more productively considered a way to wisdom when attempting to resolve a difficult problem or situation in which there are competing solutions and none are obviously correct. Compromise, evaluate, compromise, evaluate. For the ideologically and religiously driven, both of those words are blasphemy, because ideology and religion are a priori frameworks of belief which presuppose correctness without proof, a correctness which cannot be questioned.
The practical, humble person, on the other hand, acknowledges the possibility of error, not only in application but in the set of principles by which they operate. Compromise becomes a way to incorporate contingent wisdom from other groups, frameworks – what have you.
But such an action constitutes a violation in belief of ideology and religion, and a person to take such an action becomes an apostate in the eyes of the faithful. Vile, hated – and blamed for the failures original to the ideology. Thus do those who benefit from the blind allegiance of the group hold on to power.
Two final thoughts. First, I wonder if Rep. Sanford is exploring an Independent run. It would be illuminating of local politics to see if he could garner a substantial number of votes, and if those would come from the independents or the Republicans.
Second, I couldn’t help but notice a dialog play out in the back of my mind, in which I say to a group of Trump supporters,
No offense, but you are the most politically immature group in America. The Founding Fathers expected better of our citizens, so do hurry up and get better. In the meanwhile, stay out of the way.
There, I feel better for saying it. No doubt the childish antics of Corey Lewandowski contributed to that reaction as well.
