A watershed election. A Weimar election?

by Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. | Catholic World Report

The 2012
presidential election will be analyzed to death. Then, it will be commented on
for years or decades to come. Before the election, we heard various hypotheses
about its import: “The year 2012 will see the last ‘free’ election.” It will
reveal a deeply divided people, divided over the most fundamental issues of
right and wrong. It is a “Weimar Election.” That was the vote of the Germans in
the 1930s about who would rule the country. They did not read the party leader
carefully or watch what he did. “The majority in the country is not ‘white’ but
‘brown.’” They dance to a different tune. “No real unified Catholic vote
exists.” Some even think that Robert Hugh Benson’s 1907 novel, The Lord of the World, describes what next to
expect.

The notion
that some things, especially the important ones, should not fall within the
jurisdiction of the state is no longer to be taken for granted. The state, with
its main duties, the taking care of everyone, defines what is important from
now on. One might say that our people coldly looked the Leviathan in its eyes.
They did not flinch as he brought them into his body. These are dramatic
observations, no doubt. We now wait to see what happens next. We have established
who is in power. We will not pass this way again.

And in
establishing who is to rule us, we reveal our own souls. The liberty to do
whatever we want that Aristotle spoke of while describing democracies is now
firmly rooted among us. No real opposition will be tolerated. Liberty means
doing what state demands.

Generally
speaking, we prefer a political system, the result of which is that either
candidate could rule reasonably well. The vital principals of the regime would
remain intact, even with disagreement. In Australia, a citizen has to pay a
fine if he does not vote. This is a dubious law. It is much better to give a
citizen the freedom to vote or not to vote. After all, when it comes to the
crunch, a mandatory voting law doubtfully fares better than a less rigid one. A
democracy can in theory produce a wiser ruler than other systems. But in
practice it can do the opposite even if everyone votes freely with no worry
about being fined.

This
election was not an elections between two candidates whose vision of reality is
the same or even reconcilable. The election was about whether a “new” idea of
the state would replace the basic principles of the Founding of the country.
Most of the directions of this “new” state—its nature and roots—were already described
by Plato and Aristotle, but they knew them as disorders. The moral and
political tendencies were visible in the first term for everyone to see. Now
there is little reason to think such policies will not be carried out. The
courts and the House may still be something of a counter balance, as well as
the relative autonomy of the individual states. We can expect any new Supreme Court
justice will be appointed by the same ideology that won the election. No one
will ask if there are standards and principles that stand behind all
government, including democratic ones.

We may
need to be preparing for more direct persecution for religious doctrines and
prudential norms.

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