Letter's From Prudence

To the Citizen Who Expects Better,

There is a peculiar notion abroad that a leader must always appear to be fighting someone. If there is no suitable opponent at hand, one may apparently be manufactured before breakfast.

We have grown accustomed to public leadership conducted at a remarkable temperature. Every disagreement becomes a confrontation, every criticism an attack, every inconvenience a crisis requiring immediate attention and preferably several capital letters. The object often seems less to resolve the matter before us than to dominate it—to command the day’s attention, force everyone else to respond, and ensure that tomorrow’s conversation begins wherever today’s commotion left us.

This is easily mistaken for strength because it is loud, and human beings have an unfortunate habit of confusing the two. Yet leadership has traditionally required almost the opposite talent. A capable leader absorbs pressure without unnecessarily spreading it, distinguishes genuine emergencies from useful theatrics, and understands that possessing authority does not require demonstrating it every afternoon.

The distinction matters because escalation is not merely a matter of temperament when it becomes a governing habit. A leader who can reliably provoke outrage also acquires considerable influence over what everyone else discusses. Officials respond to the latest accusation. Journalists report the latest eruption. Opponents rush to condemn it. Supporters rush to defend it. Citizens spend another day arguing about the spectacle while quieter matters of policy, law and administration proceed with considerably less attention.

One need not speculate about anyone’s private motives to observe the usefulness of such an arrangement. Whether deliberately employed or simply repeatedly rewarded, constant provocation can produce the same practical result: the person creating the disturbance also sets the terms of the conversation.

Our institutions are supposed to provide some resistance to this. Congress is not intended to rearrange itself around the moods of a president, nor are courts, agencies or public officials relieved of their responsibilities because enforcing an ordinary boundary has become politically uncomfortable. Yet institutions are made of people, and people generally prefer avoiding unpleasant confrontations. What begins as an exception made to get through today’s disturbance can quietly become the accommodation expected during tomorrow’s.

This is where repetition performs its most useful work.

The first breach of an established standard attracts attention. The fifth requires explanation. The twentieth may scarcely interrupt dinner.

Conduct once considered excessive becomes familiar. Language that once would have demanded an apology becomes merely the way politics is spoken now. Behavior that would have prompted serious questions under one administration is excused as strategy under another. Eventually the argument shifts from whether the conduct is acceptable to whether objecting to it is worth the trouble.

That is how standards decline without anyone formally abolishing them.

No legislature gathers to repeal restraint. No president signs an executive order declaring dignity obsolete. We simply become accustomed to less, one accommodation at a time, until yesterday’s unacceptable behavior has become today’s background noise.

There is an additional danger in responding to spectacle with more spectacle. Political opponents understandably feel compelled to match insult with insult and outrage with greater outrage, lest restraint be mistaken for weakness. The result is a contest in which everyone becomes louder while remarkably little becomes clearer. A republic cannot conduct serious public business indefinitely as though every disagreement were occurring in the final minutes of a championship game.

Citizens have a role here because political behavior survives when it is rewarded. Attention is a reward. Unquestioning defense is a reward. Treating every provocation as an emergency is a reward. So is lowering our expectations because holding anyone to them has become exhausting.

We need not respond by becoming more outraged. Indeed, outrage may be precisely the currency upon which the whole enterprise depends. We can instead become more discriminating. What actually happened? What law or constitutional authority applies? What evidence supports the claim? What changed while everyone was watching the commotion? Would we accept this conduct from someone whose politics we opposed?

Those questions are considerably less exciting than outrage.

They are also considerably more useful.

The danger of spectacle in government is not merely that a leader may behave badly. Politicians have managed that without modern assistance for centuries. The greater danger is that the rest of us may gradually adjust our expectations until behavior once considered beneath the office becomes indistinguishable from the office itself.

We should resist that adjustment.

A president does not become more presidential because we have grown accustomed to conduct that is not.

And a citizen should never mistake becoming accustomed to something for deciding that it is acceptable.

I remain, in expectation,

Prudence C. Wilder

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