In response to a recent post.
Winston Churchill prefaced each of the five six volumes of his account of the Second World War with what he called the “Theme of the Volume.” The theme of the first volume, The Gathering Storm, is as follows:
How the English-speaking peoples, through their unwisdom, carelessness, and good nature, allowed the wicked to rearm.
It is a damning indictment of appeasement, including Chamberlain’s famous Munich Accord, but also many, many errors, great and small, much “unwisdom,” that allowed fascism to grow from fringe elements into an existential threat.
Signing the Munich Accord. Chamberlain at far left.
Churchill during this period was an unwavering critic of appeasement. He was seen as talented but deeply flawed.
He was ostracized politically and out of power despite having held cabinet posts previously in his career.
Once the threat grew to monstrous proportions, Churchill was brought back to the Admiralty and then, in the very hour that the British Expeditionary Force was straggling onto the beaches at Dunkirk, Chamberlain resigned. The choice for Prime Minister was between Churchill and Lord Halifax, a member of the appeasement establishment.
Fortunately, Chamberlain saw the error of his ways and understood that an insider like Halifax could not possibly achieve what was needed. He recommended Churchill to the King. The evacuation from Dunkirk was a miraculous success, and at its conclusion Churchill gave his famous speech:
Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
Appeasement
In my mind, Churchill’s theme needs only a few minor edits to be completely descriptive of our situation today:
How the Democrats, through their unwisdom, carelessness, and good nature, allowed the wicked to seize and wield power.
Churchill was not the popular choice in his party or in Parliament. Halifax was. Churchill made his humble “Blood, sweat, toil, and tears” speech to rally Parliament, not the British people.
We are in the process of selecting as our champion in these dark times not Churchill but Halifax: an insider intimately implicated in the appeasement errors that are bearing such poisonous fruit today.
It is an indictment of our sclerotic political culture that, even as we survey the ashes of our failures, we do not turn to a genuine clear-eyed outsider. Of course we must all root for Halifax now, but I fear we root in vain.
Update: There are six volumes, of course.
Well stated and well argued. I think a more interesting analogy if we are to make the virus itself into a external enemy is that Trump tried ignoring and appeasing the virus, only to be overwhelmed by it when it arrived much as Chamberlain had been by the realities of the war.
The Halifax analogy is prescient though. The 45’ election was viewed by many as a repudiation not of Churchill or his war time leadership, but of the pre-war conservative consensus. So while Biden might remove the threat, in the long run, it is our Atlee and not our Churchill we need to look forward to.
“Virus as enemy” certainly holds in terms of the need for a total social mobilization, but it seems to me that the analogy falls apart after that. Trump did not “appease” the virus, he is just a very stupid narcissist enabled by those who thought they could ride the back of the tiger and prosper.
Atlee of course was the Labour leader who succeeded Churchill, and unless we depart from constitutional government in the United States, Biden or another Democrat shall surely be President come January 21. Thank goodness. obviously.
But I am writing about the way that people of good will, mostly Democrats, unwittingly enabled the threat of fascism both in the 30s and over the course of the past several decades.
I suggest the similarities are very great. Chamberlain, Halifax, etc. had the best intentions. Repeatedly, when Hitler went low, the European powers went high. It did not answer well.
In that respect, Biden defeating Trump is not the answer we need. We don’t need Atlee right now, and Biden is not Atlee. The decisive moment will come after Biden and the new Congress is sworn in.
As I said, we must hope our Halifax transcends his own orientation—we have no choice—but if he does, it will be contrary to his own experience, record, attitude, and many public statements even unto the present day.
By the way, JC, if you have not read his account of the war, you might consider putting Winston on your reading list. He was a bloodthirsty Tory but there is no denying his great moral authority at the fulcrum of human history. And there are lessons to be learned from it. (And, the man could write!)
That’s BS, not Bernie Sanders; when you say: “… that people of good will, mostly Democrats, unwittingly enabled the threat of fascism both in the 30s and over the course of the past several decades.”
It was isolationist, conservative America Firsters like Lindberg — the precursors of the neo-fascist Trump MAGATS — who WITTINGLY enabled fascism from the 30s right up until today.
Get your damn facts straight!
Perhaps so… but what choice did they have? What choice do we have? We are what we are.
To a very crude approximation the struggle has long been, and remains, between, on the one side, those cynical few who think everybody is as evil and amoral as they and, on the other side, those unwilling to believe that any human could be that evil. That’s the relevant dynamic here and there really does lie a huge chasm between those perspectives. You may call those who ‘enable’ naive, and I’ll reply with some simple questions: how else to explain the term ‘unwittingly’? What other possible definition of ‘people of good will’ has any meaning?
The alternative, it seems to me, is to be locked in a spiral of competing paranoias: as near as no never mind a good enough definition of a ‘cold war.’ Churchill (and, let us be honest, FDR also) made common cause with Josef Stalin (in what, in other circumstances, might have been termed ‘appeasement’) in order to defeat Hitler. That, too, did not answer well…
Petr, I commend for your attention The Gathering Storm, Churchill’s first volume, which is full of little but choices–bad ones, with better ones available.
One could write a volume about the bad choices by good people that emboldened and empowered the Trump movement.
This was not predestined, whatever the “business-as-usual” tendencies might have been; we have free will, could have recognized the threat, and make (and made) choices where better choices were available.
Omne simile claudicat.
EVERY ANALOGY LIMPS
However, this one fell down the stairs.
The analogy works beautifully if history is treated like an ancient scroll that must be viewed in isolation, behind glass, in perfect humidity. What on earth are you all talking about?
At that time in our history, it was the Republican Party that was the isolationist party. So please.
But leaving that aside and being game with this, the idea that Joe Biden is sullied because he has somehow been involved in the actual task of drafting actual legislation and making actual compromises, is completely naïve, myopic, and utterly self-defeating in today’s context.
Anyone who’s worked in the legislature understands that there are times that you end up supporting a bill if you want to get anything whatsoever done, that you do not agree with in large part.
But there are very noble and profound reasons that someone could not only support such a piece of legislation, but even be its sponsor.
The maligning of Joe Biden by the left has become mind numbingly anti-intellectual. And those of us who supported him when the chips were down are not especially interested anymore in kowtowing to fantasies like this one.
Yes, this analogy is hobbled by a peculiar combination of grandiosity and glaring ignorance.
No limp is noticeable if everybody limps. No ‘falling down the stairs’ is unique if everybody else is, likewise, ‘falling down the stairs.’
It’s not a great deal of praise to say that Joe Biden is falling down the stairs with slightly more grace and poise than is Trump. Both fall. All fall.
I’m not interested in voting for Biden absent a general acknowledgement of this simple fact: if Joe Biden thinks he’s Jesus–or even if you do– he’s much more likely to be worse than Trump.
If you think that Joe Biden would be “worse than Trump”, no one can help you.
Joe Biden is not Jesus, and just as assuredly, to characterize him as a corporate stooge is absurd to anyone with any sense of history or the actual fascist danger we face.
The only ones falling down the stairs are those who fall for Russian trolls and THEIR stooges.
I don’t.
It’s not me that decides that. It’s Joe Biden and his particular perspective upon himself: it is our virtues that we must protect against; more wrong has been done in the name of righteousness than ever was done in the name of malice; you’d see that in yourself if you weren’t so hysterical.
I haven’t seen any evidence that Mr. Biden thinks he’s Jesus. I haven’t heard such claims from even his most fervent supporters, at least not yet.
The sawed-off tree stump growing through and around the chain link fence beside my home is more suited to the Presidency than Mr. Trump. I hope we can agree that Mr. Biden will be better than that stump.
Mr. Biden is the clear choice of an overwhelming number of Democratic voters nationwide. There is no longer any doubt about that.
This entire analogy and line of argument is irrelevant to anything that matters. There is no Winston Churchill in America today. There is no Lord Halifax, There is no Neville Chamberlain.
There is Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Bernie Sanders. Democratic voters have chosen Joe Biden. Our job, now, is to defeat Donald Trump and sweep the Senate and the House.
The crucial agenda that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren passionately advance comes closest to reality with Joe Biden in the White House, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in the Senate, and a Democratic majority in the House.
Anything we do between now and November 2 that makes that more likely is important and valuable. Anything we do that makes that less likely is a dangerously wrong-headed.
I think it’s time we stop this kind of bickering and get on with the heavy lifting at hand.
Oh please!
This strikes me as cherry-picking.
Many of us who follow meteorology as a pastime remember with fondness Accuweather’s Henry Margusity — not because of his accuracy, but because of his relish for extravagantly overblown “forecasts” of “blockbuster blizzards” — every other storm was going to be “the Big Daddy”. For folks who love big snowstorms and look forward to snow days, Henry Margusity was an eagerly anticipated voice.
He was NOT that great a forecaster, if accuracy is something that matters. A city or town that relied on Mr. Margusity to decide when to roll the sanders and plows would quickly exhaust that year’s “slush fund” (the annual snow removal budget).
I understand the appeal of Bernie Sanders. Humanity in general and Judaism in particular has been producing passionate and cranky prophets for millennia. The word “Jeremiad” exists for a reason, and anybody familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures understands the word’s origin. It is not disrespecting Jeremiah or any other prophet to observe that however needed their voice is, such a prophet is a terrible choice to lead a people or nation.
I think the comparison of Joe Biden to Lord Halifax is mistaken and unnecessarily insulting. I think the characterization of Bernie Sanders as “clear eyed” is laughably incorrect — “rheumy and sclerotic” comes closer to what I see.
I think screeds like this contributed to the loss of the 2016 election and are as bad or worse for the 2020 campaign.
Sanders no Churchill, for sure! Though I think he would be more able than Biden to muster the kind of thinking, and the firmness, and the will, that the party has failed to provide, and that could have stemmed this tide if it had.
I confess I do not understand your meteorologist analogy at all. And your closing thoughts (“STFU you unwitting traitor!”) are, unfortunately the kind of mean-spirited lashing out I have come to expect from you when you are stressed.
I’m sorry the meteorologist analogy missed the mark. I disagree with you that “the kind of thinking” that Mr. Sanders offers is helpful, especially now. It seems to me that we see too much, rather than too little “firmness” from government — I think we need officials who are less wedded to ideology and dogma, and more able to adjust tactics as we go based on data.
Another analogy from the technical domain has to with “design” and “planning”. One phrase that is often repeated is “A plan is useless. Planning is essential.” A child who has never driven often thinks that the steering wheel is used to aim the car at a particular place, and that the car just goes there after that. It is surprising to children that “driving” involves adjusting the wheel left and right to reflect immediate conditions, unexpected curves, and so on. In addition to words like “firmness” and “will” are other words like “stubborn”, “inflexible”, and “rigid”.
We are talking about a thread-starter that asserts that Joe Biden is analogous to Lord Halifax in surrendering to the tyranny of Adolf Hitler. Are you REALLY arguing that it is a “mean-spirited lashing out” to assert that such attacks hurt our campaign and provide encouragement to the Trumpists?
Is my comment more “mean-spirited” or “lashing out” than the screed I’m responding to?
Nowhere did Tom say “STFU you unwitting traitor”, nor after reading his comment thrice did I see where he implied any such thing.
The broader point is no timidity. I think we need bold, visionary, and calming leadership. It’s up to Biden to provide it now. He better.
Give the man a chance, damn it!
Excuse me?
What part of involvement in Democratic Party politics SINCE I WAS THREE YEARS OLD counts against giving ‘the man a chance, damn it!’??
This man has had his chance, and then some. He may get another, but let’s not suggest he’s a victim here. Let’s have a little perspective here, mkay?
UK won their part of WWII by mobilizing “the small boat navy” to remove their army from Dunkirk. The decision to call on ALL the people to help solidified support for the war effort, saved the army to fight again, was a resounding defeat to the Nazis, and probably one of the best examples of the hardest and most dangerous maneuver in war: a successful retreat under attack. It should be matched with Xenophon leading his army back to Greece from Persia.
With millions of people sheltered in place, we could be mobilizing them to do whatever they can do to help with the pandemic crisis from making whatever personal protection equipment [PPE] they can at home to do the research scut work that scientists need to advance possible vaccines and treatments. Perhaps they can even be PAID for such work to avert an economic crisis.
I’ve compiled a number of possibilities in my recent diary, “Crowd Sourcing Sllutions to COVID19” at https://bluemassgroup.com/2020/03/114783/
I suspect many of us have been under a good deal of stress recently—I have—and I would like to thank those on this thread for disagreeing in ways that, with a few exceptions, are not disagreeable.
The capacity to do that is especially valuable to a political community.
Many have called my argument an analogy. It certainly includes one analogy (Biden as Halifax, which I find as disturbing as you do, believe me), but no others. I never said, and would not say, that Sanders was Churchill, though some weak parallels could be drawn.
Rather my argument is something else: a lesson, thing we have forgotten, or willfully suppressed because it makes us uncomfortable.
Santayana warned us about precisely this, and I am afraid he was right.
I continue to have grave misgivings about the path we are on. I still expect Biden to beat Trump, though he is the weakest of the non-fringe candidates that we could have chosen, but I do not think he will prove up to the tremendous challenges he and we will face next year.
Here in BMG, we are awfully quick to make excuses for the errors of the past that created the conditions that brought Trump to power. It is ironic that the best we are hoping for today is a return to precisely those conditions.
I know absolutely nothing about Andrew Cuomo’s politics or history.
What I’ve seen in the past few weeks is a Democrat looking, sounding, and acting presidential. That Democrat is Andrew Cuomo. I’m not sure what has happened to Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders, each seem to have gone completely silent.
It’s as if the campaign has suddenly been cancelled.
At the moment, I much prefer Mr. Cuomo over Mr. Biden.
Biden has been all over FB at least and Sanders has been emailing requests for donations to be split between his campaign and various groups helping with the pandemic. Cuomo has a reputation among some as being one of those dreaded “corporate Democrats” and has been knocked for appearing to like that the GOP controlled the NY Senate. His father may have been my favorite elected official of my lifetime.
At the moment, I am far more drawn to actual, effective, and substantive leadership than I am repelled by the consequences of another “corporate Democrat”.
Joe Biden is a corporate Democrat. Barack Obama governed as a corporate Democrat. Bill Clinton remains the best president of my lifetime by a huge margin, and he was the definition of corporate Democrat.
At the moment, one of the more public disputes is the ongoing battle between Andrew Cuomo and Chuck Schumer. I’ll take Mr. Cuomo over Mr. Schumer any day of the week. Certainly Mr. Schumer is a corporate Democrat, even more so than Bill Clinton.
I don’t want another Twitter president and I don’t want another FB president. I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but Mr. Cuomo has no grown children who’ve made a lucrative career of cashing in on their implied access to their father.
I share your admiration of Mario Cuomo.
I would be FAR more enthusiastic about Andrew Cuomo as our nominee than Joe Biden.