Unless you are one of those people who stays glued to CSPAN in your off-work hours to catch the latest on the Senate impeachment trial (or to see whose approval ratings have gone down based on recent polling data, in more normal times) the most striking news item of the past week (Feb. 7-13) wasn’t former President Trump’s legal troubles in D.C., but rather a story that ran on Thursday in major news outlets confirming that Mr. Trump was far more ill than he or his handlers dared to admit in early October when Mr. Trump had his memorable brush with the coronavirus.
Back on October 3, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows disclosed that Mr. Trump checked himself into Walter Reed Medical Center after complaining of fatigue and a medium grade fever, admitting shortly thereafter that the President’s blood oxygen levels had been “falling at an alarming rate” in the hours leading up to his hospital visit.
Walter Reed’s top-notch physicians had quickly infused Mr. Trump with an experimental cocktail of monoclonal antibodies, the anti-inflammatory drug remdisivir and several anti-viral agents. The President then seemed to bounce back to health with surprising speed. By October 5, Trump was discharged from Walter Reed and spirited back to the White House for a mask-less photo op on the South Lawn.
Mr. Trump’s delirious followers rejoiced. Their man had proven himself, yet again, to be a seemingly invincible force of nature, unstoppable even by the deadly coronavirus, scourge of the elderly (Trump is 74 years old).
It wasn’t until unnamed Trump administration insiders opened up this week – presumably believing the coast is clear now that Mr. Trump is out of office – that the public learned how deeply concerned the Walter Reed medical staff were when the president first entered the hospital. In point of fact, Mr. Trump was having such serious trouble breathing that doctors had considered putting him on a ventilator shortly after he was admitted.
The president was indeed given supplemental oxygen prior to administration of the “drug cocktail”. If the anti-virals hadn’t worked as well as they did, Mr. Trump would have likely been hooked up to a ventilator or placed under an oxygen blanket.
Heaven knows how long he would have been hospitalized, in that event. The October debates could have been canceled and his departure from the campaign trail during the campaign’s critical, final stretch rendered a distinct possibility.
Would that have changed the outcome? Would Mr. Trump have lost by an even greater margin if he was bedridden on Nov. 3?
These are questions for which it is impossible to know the answer.
However, in asking them we are able to see more clearly the precariousness of our collective situation. We can intuit how the lives of a few hold the rest of us within their grasp. Whether one man or woman lives or dies can dramatically rearrange the tectonic plates moving unseen beneath the surface of events, with results that are either tragic or salvific, depending on where one stands.
THOMAS CARLYLE REDUX
I’ve been thinking a lot about the “Great Man” Theory of History lately.
This was the idea first put forward in the nineteenth century by the renowned Scottish historian, Thomas Carlyle, that the path of human history is determined by the actions of a handful of “great men”. Structures of power, economic development, technological innovation, the “Spirit of the Age” – these are as nothing to Carlyle. A tiny number of iron-willed people standing at the apex of power ultimately determine the fate of nations. Their heroic (or villainous) actions write history.
Like many ideas promoted in the 1800s by intellectuals working within the major Western powers, the “Great Man” theory went out of fashion in the second half of the twentieth century. It is now largely relegated to elective history courses at Catholic colleges and a handful of elite schools who have maintained traditional curricula. Social scientists will claim that they have “debunked” the theory. Radical critics on the Left may accuse historians who write today within the “Great Man” paradigm of being out of touch, imperialist, or even racist.
Recent events have made Carlyle’s argument somewhat more tangible, however. I would argue, however, that the theory is in need of a modest update. Instead of focusing on the apparent “greatness” of historical figures who have the charisma and foresight to attain power and use it to staggering effect, perhaps we might instead rebrand it as the “Key Man” Theory of History. In this view, key players acting at critical moments in time, at “nodal points” as the American science fiction writer, William Gibson, might put it, have the power to effect dramatic changes in the lives of millions simply by exercising whatever power, be it great or modest, that they have acquired or which has been thrust upon them (think of Harry Truman) in either a responsible or a reprehensible manner.
If a “key man (or woman)” is removed from the scene by either incapacity or death, then their absence will exert an undue influence on events.
KEY MAN RISK WRIT LARGE
In this sense, the concept of the Key Man player in politics is analogous to the concept of “key man risk” in the corporate insurance world, where insurance underwriters aim to price the financial costs associated with the death or departure of a critical manager from a highly profitable commercial enterprise. Warren Buffett and his role at Berkshire Hathaway is frequently cited as an example of “key man risk”.
The actions of three key players on the American political scene in both recent and coming years seem conspicuous for raising them to the honor of “key man” designation. These players are: Joseph Biden, Donald Trump, and Rupert Murdoch.
Joseph Biden is, of course, the sitting president. Donald Trump is his immediate predecessor and possible successor should he choose to run for and win the Presidential office again in 2024. Rupert Murdoch can make the political weather for both men given his control over Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and other powerful right-leaning media organs. Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Murdoch’s public falling out in late 2020 was major news in this respect, as it appears to place Mr. Trump at a future disadvantage, should he and Mr. Murdoch fail to heal their rift.
In addition to their great power, the next most notable fact about these three men is their advanced age. At 74, Mr. Trump is the youngest of the three. At 89, Mr. Murdoch is the oldest. At 78, Mr. Biden is in the middle, though closer in age to Mr. Trump.
Advances in the human lifespan aside, it is not impossible that one or more of these men may not live to see out the next four years. The question then becomes: What effect would the death or incapacity of any one of them have on the fortunes of the other two, on the Democratic and Republican Parties (in particular the latter), and on the U.S. as a whole?
WITHOUT BIDEN, THE DEMOCRATIC AGENDA IS IMPERILED
I’ll begin with Mr. Biden, since he is the sitting president and his absence from the scene via death or incapacitation would have the most immediate and dramatic effect on all parties, partly by elevating to the presidency Vice President Kamala Harris, who is no stranger to politics, but who has never held power of such magnitude and with such visibility as she does in her present capacity as Vice President, “one heartbeat away” as the saying goes, from the keys to the Oval Office.
While it is pretty clear that Mr. Biden’s death or illness while campaigning last year would have been fatal, in all likelihood, to the Democratic campaign and possibly for the democratic cause – the small “d” being used operatively and in deadly earnest here – it is a bit less clear what effect Mr. Biden’s inability to continue in office would have now.
One obvious result would be that it would diminish the authority of a President Harris to enact her and Mr. Biden’s shared political and economic agenda through 2024. Ms. Harris does not yet command virtually unquestioned authority or respect within the Democratic Party the way Mr. Biden does, nor the mixture of affection and fear of both Democratic and Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate. All three factors will be needed to strong-arm a closely divided Congress into passing key elements of the new administration’s legislative agenda. Without Biden, a failure to enact that full agenda becomes more likely, and even probable.
In addition, there are the mid-term elections in 2022 and presidential and Congressional elections of 2024 to consider. It has often been said by the punditry that Mr. Biden was “the only Democrat capable of defeating Donald Trump in 2020”, Greymantle holds to this view also. Without President Biden at the top of the ticket, Democratic defeats become more likely and a Trump re-election in 2024 looms as a grim possibility.
Not that Vice President Harris lacks charisma or political skill. Quite the contrary. But it will take her several years to establish herself as a household name with the widespread trust of the public – a hard hill to climb in this distrustful time – and if she has to win that trust while also governing the nation from the top, it may prove impossible. Plus, and it regrettably needs to be said, Mr. Trump and his allies would relish running against a Black woman of part-Asian ancestry who is one-half of a mixed marriage. They would push Ms. Harris’s unusual family history for all it is worth, similar to the fodder they made of Barack Obama’s own background a decade ago.
So, the death or ill health of Mr. Biden would cast a pall over medium-term Democratic prospects and make a Trump return to power in Jan. 2025 far more likely, with all the horrors that would entail.
How would Mr. Murdoch react to Mr. Harris’s accession to Presidential power? It’s hard to know exactly how Mr. Murdoch will react to anything, but it appears pretty clear based on his public statements and how he runs Fox News that Murdoch is no “liberal on race”. While a departure by Mr. Biden would not necessarily lead to a Trump-Murdoch rapproachment by itself, it could make the two men believe that their interests are once again more closely aligned, the way they were when Mr. Obama was President.
Next, let’s turn to “The Donald”.
TRUMP’S PASSING MIGHT MAKE THE WORLD LESS PREDICTABLE…
For an overweight 74-year old, Mr. Trump has a reputation for favoring junk food. He has been known to binge on ‘Big Macs’ when he is in the mood and to enjoy French fries and other salty, fat-rich foods.
His sleep habits are by all accounts poor. Mr. Trump is known as both a night owl and an early riser. Before Twitter blocked his account, subscribers to “TheRealDonald” would routinely receive caustic “tweets” from the President at 2:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m., even on week nights. How Mr. Trump maintains his unusually high energy level at his age is a mystery unknown to even the very wise.
Mr. Trump has also had the coronavirus, which is known to exert negative long-term effects on memory, cognition and the ability to concentrate. Sufferers have reported aches, chills, and intermittent fatigue months after the resolution of most coronavirus symptoms. This is what Mr. Trump has to look forward to in 2021.
So, let’s say that these factors lead Mr. Trump to have a serious stroke sometime between now and November 2024. Perhaps one serious enough to usher “The Donald” into “The Hereafter”. Or perhaps only serious enough to render him partially paralyzed and bedridden. What happens then?
In the case of Mr. Trump, the line between death and incapacity could actually be as broad as a six-lane interstate, because even confined to his bed, Mr. Trump would continue to act as a Republican kingmaker in primary races throughout of the United States. Were Jack Dorsey to return Mr. Trump’s Twitter account to good standing, you can count on him to send out 50 tweets a day slathering praise on his loyalists and cursing his enemies.
But a half-paralyzed Donald Trump would be in no condition to run for President again in 2024, opening the field to a variety of possible successors to the Trumpian mantle. A living, but reduced Mr. Trump could work effectively to boost the candidacies of Josh Hawley, or Ron DeSantis, or even his son, “Don Jr.” for the White House and remain a redoubtable force. Still, without the Demagogue-in-Chief himself on the ticket, a Republican victory in 2024 becomes much less certain.
But what if Mr. Trump scarfs down one Big Mac too many and takes a trip to “that Big Atlantic City in the sky”?
In that case, Mr Biden’s prospects for political success and eventual re-election improve considerably. No other Republican politician commands cult-like devotion as does Mr. Trump. The Republican Party is a proverbial “nest of vipers” perpetually on the brink of civil war between moderates, old-school conservatives, and hard-line Trumpian populists. Without the Big Man to whip them all into some sort of shape, it’s likely the party will lose through the next two election cycles, and lose badly.
…BUT WOULD BE A GIFT TO RUPERT MURDOCH
It makes sense to ask how Mr. Murdoch fares if Mr. Trump departs the Earth before him. Generally speaking, Mr. Murdoch will probably do quite well, as will his media empire. Without Trump around to harass or embarass him, Greymantle predicts a return to pre-Trump form by the Australian octogenarian.
Fox News, now in its early stages of reaching for a slightly more respectable post-Trump, post-Roger Ailes conservative journalism, would likely retreat to its pre-2016 swamp of innuendo, fear mongering and resentment-baiting that served its rise to prominence so well in the 20 years leading up to, and preparing the way for, Trump’s candidacy. Why grope for a post-Trump future when a return to 2015 is so much easier?
One American News Network and Newsmax, Fox News’s growing rivals, would be deprived of their star attraction and all the baggage associated with Mr. Trump (e.g. the 2020 ‘stolen election’ narrative, QAnon, various nutty conspiracy theories promoted by the former president). They might be forced to turn to actual journalism instead of merely peddling Mr. Trump’s lies and half-truths.
But Mr. Murdoch and his sons, Lachlan and James, are better at this game than their rivals. All three networks would focus their arrows on Mr. Biden in an attempt to win over right-wing hearts and minds (and viewership) in America. That could be bad for both Mr. Biden and the country. But good for Mr. Murdoch and his family as they gradually tighten their screws on the competition like a mafia family rubbing out rival criminal gangs.
The conclusion: Trump’s passing would be good news for Mr. Biden, but better news for Mr. Murdoch. And so-so for the country provided that Mr. Biden is still in office.
Finally, what would be the impact of Rupert Murdoch’s passing into History on Mr. Biden, Mr. Trump and the Republican Party?
THE BIGGEST WILD CARD: RUPERT M.
Now we come to the toughest node to crack, so to speak, because the potential impacts are just as wide-ranging but far more subtle in effect. At first blush, if Rupert Murdoch passes on NewCorp is deprived of its evil genius and much of Anglo-American conservatism (what’s left of it) of its “grey eminence”. If Lachlan and James Murdoch fall to fighting one another rather than their rivals, this could be bad if Fox News sinks in ratings while not finding a saner right-of-center voice, and Newsmax, OANN and other rivals grow in stature.
However, I believe the exact opposite will occur. Here’s why.
First, the main issue which sets Anglo-American conservatism apart from its counterparts in continental Europe and Asia – particularly in America – is its refusal acknowledge the reality of man-made climate change and the grave threat it poses to the planet and the human future. Climate change “denialism” has fed a half-dozen other forms of denialism on the American right since the 1990s, poisoning Republican discourse and leading Republican voters down a blind alley into ever more dangerous forms of delusion such as the conspiracy theories of Mr. Trump and Alex Jones.
Second, it’s pretty clear that Rupert Murdoch himself has played a critical role in maintaining the posture of denialism across all the NewCorp outlets in the U.S., Australia, Canada and the UK.
On February 11, The Financial Times newspaper of the UK, hardly a bastion of leftist orthodoxy, ran an article about Mr. Murdoch’s role in suppressing climate science titled ‘Former Australian PMs Put Murdoch in the Hot Seat Over Climate Change’ that began with this paragraph written by reporter Simon Kuper:
“Citizens around the world need to take consumer action against [Rupert] Murdoch’s products,” says Kevin Rudd, former Australian centre-left prime minister. “This guy is one of the greatest enemies of climate change action on the planet.” Australia’s former centre-right prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who has allied with Rudd against Murdoch, tells me: “The most effective voice for climate denialism in the English-speaking world has been Murdoch’s.” The mogul’s son James, speaking more broadly, recently criticised unnamed “media property owners . . . who know the truth but choose instead to propagate lies”. For all the anxiety about fake news on social media, disinformation on climate seems to stem disproportionately from one old man using old media.
Regardless of whether James and Lachlan Murdoch take a hard line or a soft line against the Biden Administration (and Greymantle expects them to maintain Fox News and the WSJ as major center-right media outlets), what is clear is that with the elder Mr. Murdoch gone, the tinct of denialism and its allure will begin to recede from Fox News and migrate over to Fox’s smaller rivals, who will stand as denialism’s last major outposts.
In the short run, raising the standard of climate change denialism will make sense for OANN and Newsmax, given how steeped in this way of thinking so many right-leaning Americans have become. But in the longer run, NewsCorp’s deeper pockets, powerful brand, and ability to attract a more professional type of journalist will serve the conglomerate well. These assets, plus the Murdoch brothers’ well-deserved reputation for ruthlessness, will keep the smaller right-wing outlets near the fringes of public discourse and gradually bring at least some Americans who have bought into denialism back to reality.
Rupert Murdoch’s departure will also consolidate elite American media, cultural, military and economic power in the hands of people who don’t wish to see Trumpian populism triumph politically, something which can’t necessarily be said of Mr. Murdoch himself – and who knows exactly why he soured on Mr. Trump?
THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS?
A general consolidation of elite power would be good news for Mr. Biden, even if Mr. Trump remains in the world of the living for a time. In some respects, it may be the best outcome for President Biden, as a Lachlan-James ascension could create a fair-weather ally on the right who is “an enemy of my enemy”, further divide the right-wing media ecosystem, and provide a source of future unflattering exposes on Trump’s family and inner circle to which right-leaning voters will give at least some creedence.
While a world without both Mr. Trump and Mr. Murdoch would likely be the best of all possible worlds for Joe Biden, it might not be the world he would prefer. Running against a weakened Trump, soiled by scandals and betrayals and business setbacks, harassed by the Murdoch brothers, but still a dangerous and unpredictable force capable of uniting the Democratic Party behind him as in a war, may actually be what President Biden most desires.
In any event, we’ll see what the next four years bring. Mr. Biden will doubtless pray to his Maker for the strength to see him through his mission even as he also prays for the souls of Mr. Trump and Mr. Murdoch, as I am sure he does given his deep religious faith. Mr. Trump and Mr. Murdoch, with their lust for women and worldly power, would never accord Mr Biden the same respect if either had both the belief in God and the grace to pray. But they might be reminded that worldly power is fleeting. Mr. Biden has his eyes raised to another stage.
As to what might occur if all three men “sloughed off this mortal coil” in the words of the Bard, we are, all of us, only three heartbeats away from knowing the answer to that question. I hope we may be spared the answer for as long as possible.
Until next time, I remain…
Greymantle
