Abstract

The Clown Show

Politics survives as an art and mystery because Homo sapiens, despite the second half of his name, is almost as incapable of learning by experience as an amoeba. If the Cleveland clown show differed from others of its kind' it was only because its machinery was more simple and its inner organization thus more obvious. It went on, so to speak, in vitro. All the usual gauds and disguises--of laborious reflection, of free and fair combat, of ebullient and irresistible emotion--were lacking. What was done was done in cold blood, as coal is mined and teeth are pulled. And yet what was done was completely and magnificently idiotic. If the aim of the delegates and alternates was to serve the republic, to improve the government, to safeguard liberty and democracy, then they missed it by a mile. And if it was to prosper the so-called Republican Party, then they missed it by two miles.