News Flash From the City of Man: Senator Kennedy’s “Take” on Washington

The Italian Vaticanologist Andrea Gagliarducci, who has a web page called Monday Vatican, is a careful observer of the papal transition—which means he is a careful observer of a very careful pope, Leo XIV. Gagliarducci commented on Pope Leo’s approach to understanding the political process in this way: “Leo XIV does not seem to be a Pope who focuses on small practical matters, on what would be called ‘casuistry.’ Instead, Leo XIV addresses great principles.”

The pope spoke to a group of legislators from around the world in late August. He gave them a thumbnail sketch of an Augustinian approach to politics. Citing the great doctor’s magnum opus, Civitas Dei (The City of God), the pope said: “The City of Man, built on pride and love of oneself, is marked by the pursuit of power, prestige and pleasure; the city of God, built on love of God unto selflessness, is characterized by justice, charity and humility.”

The contrast of the two cities came to my mind while reading Senator John Kennedy’s book How to Test Negative for Stupid. The book is so entertaining that I am afraid that many will see it only as that. Kennedy’s wit is well-known, and he is a Niagara of clever aphorisms. Here are some samples:

“I’m not going to Bubble Wrap it: the water in Washington, D.C., won’t clear up until you get the pigs out of the creek.”

“I believe that our country was founded by geniuses, but it’s being run by idiots.” 

“Common sense is illegal in Washington, D.C., I know. I’ve seen it firsthand.” 

“I believe that we are going to have to get some new conspiracy theories. All the old ones turned out to be true.”

Kennedy is a Will Rogers redivivus but one who sits in the Senate. His wit almost distracts from his underlying message. Saying that you should trust journalists as much as you would sushi bought in a gas station or that policy wonks in the “so-called” Biden administration (Kennedy seems to think that Biden’s team put words in the president’s mouth) drank “coffee that takes ten or more words to order” is funny and memorable, but the satire is about something that is no laughing matter.

The book’s subtitle is “And Why Washington Never Will,” that is, “test negative for stupid.” Some personal anecdotes that Kennedy weaves into this political analysis as a stand-up routine are frightening. I can see why he is pessimistic. He gives a devastating personal witness of President Biden’s mental decline and the way the presidential handlers hid it from the world:

My impression of Biden that afternoon was that he had reached the stage of his life where what he most wanted to do was sit around, talk to people, and tell stories about the old days. And when he tired of doing that, he wanted soup and an early bedtime.

Worse than the shielding of an older gentleman’s incompetence to govern was the Democratic Party’s wholesale attempt to undermine the first Trump administration.

For the first few months of 2017, as I struggled to find my footing in the United States Senate, the Democratic Party, most of the media, the left-leaning think tanks, the academics, and most of the bureaucrats—in short, all the permanent Washington types—commenced an all-out assault on the man who just won the White House.

A recent biography of Walter Lippmann, a powerful journalist of the mid-20th century, speaks of his book Public Opinion, the thesis of which was that the public responds to fictional narratives of the world that reflect their prejudices about what can be true. The Russian collusion theory was an example of that. Without real proof, and against all sorts of counter indications, the bulk of the movers and shakers of opinion in the United States bought a story that was worthy of a best-selling thriller and was probably less likely than some of the spy novels that are published. 

Kennedy’s amazement at the whole scandal, and of the attempts to destroy Trump’s candidacy with a series of lawsuits and even a photo-op Federal sweep of his Mar-a-Lago house was worthy of Netflix. I know people who believe the story to this day. I remember going into a suburban Barnes & Noble and observing a mountain of The Mueller Report books. My reaction to Kennedy’s simple summary of the attacks on President (then candidate) Trump was Psalm 11: “When the pillars are overthrown, what can the just man do?”

President Trump reminds me of someone’s characterization of Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of Great Britain in Victorian times: “you can’t respect him, you just have to enjoy him.” I am not saying that I have no respect for the president by this; it’s just that his outsized ego gets in the way of appreciating his real genius. He is a remarkable man, no matter what one’s politics are. His retaking the White House is a thing of the history books as good as some of the stories in Plutarch’s Lives.

However, as Kennedy says, Trump looks anxious whenever he has an unexpressed thought. The senator also has a reputation for saying things that are sometimes offensive. He says about himself, “I have the right to remain silent but not the ability.” But he also told the president that he likened the latter’s tweets to enjoying steak but not eight of them at a time.

If you wonder why I am going on about this in a piece for a Catholic periodical, it is because the contrast between the two cities that our Holy Father so elegantly expressed gets messy when you want to apply it to the political life in the United States. What can we do about opposing the public “fictions” of false narratives in American life, narratives based on false values. One of the pope’s few missteps was when he offered a kind of defense of Cardinal Cupich’s trying to give an “excommunicated” politician a lifetime achievement award as a Catholic. In the name of taking the long view, he ignored the objections of a fellow bishop that had led him to deny the politician Communion. A lifetime achievement as a Catholic to a man who is not supposed to go to Communion in his own diocese?

The pope should not have commented, although I have heard the theory that he already knew that Durbin had bowed out of the award and was trying to make of the whole business a softer fall for the Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago. The pope knows better than his reflex comment indicated. He told some political leaders from France that he understood the difficulty of integrating their faith with their politics.

I am well aware that the openly Christian commitment of a public official is not easy, particularly in certain Western societies where Christ and his Church are marginalized, often ignored, and sometimes ridiculed. Neither do I ignore the pressure, the party directives, the “ideological colonizations,” to use an apt expression of Pope Francis, to which politicians are subjected. They must have the courage to say at times, “no, I cannot!” when the truth is at stake. Here too, only union with Jesus—the crucified Jesus!—will give you this courage to suffer in his name. As he said to his disciples, “in the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33).

Senator Durbin’s consistent support for abortion, even to the point of not wanting legal requirement of medical care for the babies whom abortion could not kill, is precisely about “ideological colonization.” He could not break ranks with his party that has embraced abortion like it has embraced deviation from sexual and even biological norms. Durbin could not say, “No, I cannot,” even when it was about saving lives in the carnage of the abortion abattoirs.

Reading Kennedy, I thought about the often-bland statements of bishops about political matters—bland or nonexistent ones, like the whole Charlie Kirk assassination non-comment. If Catholic political thought is to enter the nitty-gritty reality of politics, there must be some public reckoning or at least analysis of the anti-values infiltrating public opinion.

During the first Trump campaign, I noted in my pastor column that the bishops had highlighted defense of human life, and specifically opposition to abortion, as an issue of the highest priority. I then quoted candidate Hillary Clinton’s clear support for abortion and Roe v Wade. I added the advice to my parishioners, “Do the math.”

The result was that lawyers from the diocese wanted me to retract what I said and even erase the comment on the Internet. I didn’t do either, of course, but I wonder what use we can make of our high principles if we cannot apply them to specific cases, and that involves specific people in our dis-government (a charming word I found in a speech by a deputy in Brazil’s legislature). 

Someone has to do the “casuistry.” I agree that the pope should only rarely do that, as he did, thank God, in his call to the Illinois dis-governor about assisted suicide in the Holy Father’s native state. Fear of what is called “political partisanship” can inhibit the practical application of conscience. Pope Leo said that power must be tamed by conscience in the politics of hope. A tricky business, to say the least.