March 15, 2012 by ajlingo
My father and I sat in his hospital room yesterday discussing politics. We both classify our politics as “Independent”, swimming between the sides of the political pool instead of clinging to one wall or the other. We recognize that American politics are an important and yet futile game; it is mired in the rhetoric of base pandering more so than original thoughts and ideas to affect lasting change. As George Pompidou once said, “A statesman is a politician who places himself at the service of the nation. A politician is a statesman who places the nation at his service.”
We are, undoubtedly, living in a time of politicians.
The conversation eventually turned to the state of the Republican primary race: who is the more attractive candidate–Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum?
I laid out my argument for Mitt Romney. Although it is hard to cut through the soundbites and quips to surmise an accurate picture of his stances on issues, he works better for me as a candidate because of his moderate stance on social policy, linking back to the passage of universal health care and gay marriage under his governance in Massachusetts.
My father, on the other hand, surprised me in his support of Rick Santorum. “I don’t agree with everything he says,” he said between the beeps of the monitor, his IV laden arms resting comfortably behind his head, “but at least you know where he stands.”
I was a little shocked at his words. There are many like my father who have thrown support behind Santorum, possibly because although they may not agree with him, a known quantity is more attractive than an unknown.
To me, Santorum is not unlike the staff infection that landed my father in this hospital bed in the first place: at first a few simple red bumps on the skin, nearly unnoticed, which then quickly spread into the body, the infection planting and festering, causing pain and threatening to shut down the entire system.
The rise of Rick Santorum has come as a shock to many political analysts precisely because of his uncompromising stance on many social issues, including gay rights and women’s reproductive rights. He makes his position clear best in an interview he gave in October of 2011 regarding the “dangers” of contraception, when he stated “I’m not running for preacher, I’m not running for pastor, but these are important public policy issues. They have a profound impact on the health of our society.”
But what exactly is this health he is speaking of? Americans are well aware of both his pro-life and abstinence only sex education stances, and these, in conjunction with his anti-contraceptive stance, could be seen as a detriment to the economic and social welfare health of our country. In understanding Santorum fully, however, we must also take into account his view that contraception is “a license to do things…in the sexual realm that is counter to…how things are supposed to be.”
These words make it clear that Santorm’s public policy stances are dictated by his own moral and religious beliefs. In turn, through his politics he attempts to force his moral views upon a general public. Santorum is, as Randolph Bourne would say, an American Puritan.
In Bourne’s April 1917 article in The Seven Arts, he outlines the persona of the puritan, noting that “it is only the puritan’s prestige that has attached moral value to self-sacrifice, for there is nothing intrinsic in it that makes it any more praiseworthy than lust” (634). Would Santorum’s adherence to his perceived Christian morals be worth noting if he did it in the privacy of his own home?
Hardly–there are many who do so. Instead, his aim is to legislate what happens in the privacy of other homes in order to assume power and prestige. Bourne addresses this in the same article, noting that the “puritan must become an evangelist. It is not enough to renounce the stimulus to satisfaction which is technically known as ‘temptation.’ The renouncing must be made into an ideal, the ideal must be codified, promulgated, and, in the last analysis, enforced” (636).
Santorum’s platform of emphasizing social conservatism while downplaying his fiscal policy views has led to a rabid base of supporters. It plays upon the morality of human beings, pointing out their own flaws and shortcomings in adherence to a shared mythos, in this case the Christian faith, which provides many Americans with meaning for their lives.
So Santorum, like my father’s infection, has worked his way effectively into the psyche of American politics. But while my father’s body has antibiotics, a saline drip, and a hospital staff keeping the infection from growing, Americans must on their own realize the dangers of a man spouting puritan values as a basis for public social policy, quiet the impulses of long held mores, and turn instead towards a candidate that will ensure the economic well-being and progress of American society–in my mind, someone who will swim in the waters of independent thought, and refuses to cling to either side of the pool.