By Jack Butler
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Aspiring officeholders increasingly disguise their
obvious lust for power with a transparent sheen of public-spiritedness.
If it seems like I’ve been criticizing Pete Buttigieg a
lot lately, it’s because his political conduct annoys me.
A McKinsey alumnus and the former mayor of Indiana’s
fourth-largest city, Buttigieg has improbably vaulted himself to national
prominence through the now-familiar path of a blatantly self-promotional
presidential run. He was Joe Biden’s secretary of transportation (most of the time), and believes that someday we will appreciate him more than we do now.
In the meantime, he is casting about for some way to
remain politically relevant, given that he is, somehow, currently one of the Democrats’ best presidential hopes. At
first, it looked like that might mean running for governor of Michigan, the state he has
unpersuasively adopted as his home — and that happens to be more politically
receptive to Democrats than his native Indiana is. But shortly after Michigan
Senator Gary Peters announced that he won’t run for reelection in 2026, “a
person close to Buttigieg” told Axios that he is taking a “serious look” at the
seat, and is “honored to be mentioned for this.”
By projecting this sheen of modesty atop his glaring
ambition, Buttigieg has given another reason to dislike his self-presentation
in public life. If only it were unique. The reality is that our politics is now
rife with this particular kind of fake selflessness, particularly when it comes
to aspiring officeholders. Voters should not accept it.
Human nature being constant, this behavior has a long
pedigree. In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Mark Antony offered the
eponymous character the crown of Rome three times. Each time he refused, hoping
the crowd witnessing the spectacle would demand he take it. Antony later offers
this false humility as proof against Caesar’s aspirations to rule. “You all did
see that on the Lupercal/I thrice presented him a kingly crown,/Which he did
thrice refuse. Was this ambition?” Napoleon said of his rise to power in
France. “I dethroned no one. I found the crown lying in the gutter, and I
picked it up and the people placed it on my head.”
In this regard, American politics has only little Caesars
and farcical Napoleons in its ranks (for now). But the past few months have
provided additional examples of such behavior aside from Buttigieg.
Consider Andrew Cuomo. The former New York governor, a
Democrat, is widely expected to run for mayor of New York City, though he has
not yet formally announced his campaign. Cuomo responded to a mayoral
endorsement from former State Comptroller Carl McCall in historically
recognizable fashion. “Today, in these uncertain times, and after more than
four decades of friendship and counsel, I thank him for his faith in me and for
his advice, trust and confidence,” Cuomo wrote. “His sentiments are both humbling and deeply
meaningful.”
As a megalomaniacal governor of New York, Cuomo was not
known for his humility. Among other things, he by whim and will and against
reason and data determined what restaurant capacities were safe amid
Covid-19 and sent thousands of elderly to their deaths. But if he is to
get from disgraced to Gracie Mansion, he will need to disguise his obvious lust
for power with a transparent sheen of public-spiritedness.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a 2024 Republican presidential
candidate, does not compare with Cuomo in malevolence. His relentless striving
is more in line with that of Buttigieg. It shares with Buttigieg’s a forced
quality, derived in part from a genuine (if occasionally misguided) industriousness, that belies any
pretense to modesty. Recall how he described the possibility of his running for
governor of Ohio to Audrey Fahlberg last October:
“Six months ago, I would’ve told
you no chance,” Ramaswamy told National Review in a brief walk-and-talk
interview on Thursday afternoon on his way out of a Miami University College
Republicans event. Running to be chief executive of Ohio was not on his radar
when he exited the GOP presidential primary back in January and immediately
endorsed Donald Trump, he maintains. “But the more I’ve traveled the state,” he
says, “we have leaders across the state, grassroots activists, that are
compelling me and drafting me into this. And so, I have to give it serious
consideration.”
Ramaswamy didn’t want to run, you see. Yet everywhere he
goes, people are assailing him as if he were a member of the Beatles at the
height of their initial fame, demanding that he do so. It’s plausible that his
presidential run heightened his profile and grew his fanbase; this was likely
its purpose, after all. But do not discount the possibility that he is
attributing to public acclamation what has in truth been his own desire. He is expected to announce his gubernatorial run in the coming
days.
It’s true that running for political office has always
required some projection of disinterestedness (in its small-r republican sense)
whatever the reality, and a degree of negotiation between popular approval and
personal desire. But the shamelessness of modern politicians in doing so makes
one long, if the sincere reluctance of a George Washington is not available,
then at least for the blatant honesty of a Clint Webb.
The creation of sketch comedians the Whitest Kids U’Know, Webb promised to
voters in the “beautiful state” he moved to “18 months ago” that “together we
can piggyback some of our state’s legitimate needs onto my unquenchable lust
for self-glorification.” (“All of my motives are ulterior,” he added.)
Human nature being constant, we shall always have among
us figures such as Buttigieg, Cuomo, and Ramaswamy, who will masquerade as
popularly ordained political salvation while in truth seeking only their own
glorification. But popular receptivity to them can vary. “The worship of great
men always appears in times of weakness and cowardice,” G. K. Chesterton wrote.
“We never hear of great men until the time when all other men are small.”
Today’s would-be great men are, in fact, quite small. Yet they pose as popular
tribunes nonetheless.
How small do we want to be in return?
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