Vision and Values

“That vision thing.”— President George Herbert Walker Bush, explaining why he lost to Bill Clinton

The two “v” words in my title will fix the fate of our nation. It happened twice before, when the stakes were not nearly as high.

In 1992, the virtually unknown Governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, beat incumbent President George Herbert Walker Bush. That Bush had been a congressman, Ambassador to the United Nations, Director of Central Intelligence, and Vice President (under Reagan), before becoming president himself. Yet he lost to a virtual national unknown.

When asked to describe why, he famously said, “That vision thing.” Clinton had had a vision for where he wanted to take the county. The Elder Bush just had his competence and experience, even including the top job. The rest is history.

Apparently the Bush family learned from this experience. In 2004, John Kerry lost his challenge to incumbent President George W. Bush. The younger Bush had already started the War in Iraq, on the false pretense that Saddam had nukes. It was our second most misguided war in our history, after Vietnam.

His much-derided “Bushisms” made clear he was far from a master of the English language, let alone a great orator. John Kerry had been a distinguished Senator from Massachusetts. Long before, he had fought and been wounded in Vietnam, and on returning, had protested against it, then gone into politics. He was a rather austere and modest man of great intelligence and wisdom. Yet he lost.

In an essay I wrote in 2012, here’s how I described why:

“What mattered was that Dubya had the vision. It didn’t matter that his vision of an Iraq and a Middle East reconfigured by war was contrary to all of history and common sense. It didn’t matter that his home “ownership society” was already under erosion by rogue banks and lax regulation. It didn’t matter that his attempt to privatize Social Security was retrograde to history and contrary to every poll of what ordinary people wanted. It didn’t matter that he has absolutely no diplomatic skill and could only preach to his choir.”

“What mattered, in the end, was that Dubya had a vision for the future that sounded attractive and plausible, and Kerry had none. Vision trumped [pardon the pun, today] a more-than-plausible claim of greater competence. It will (and probably should), every time.”

Could the same thing happen this November? I think it’s likely, if nothing changes. For all his faults—and they are legion—Trump has a simple vision for his voters and his Cult. Expressed in my own words, it goes like this:

“You’ve been had. The Democrats and the elite sold your factories and jobs to China. You’ve been left to find demeaning work outside your homes because your factories have closed. Your children have moved away. Your religion and your rural and small-town values have been ignored and disparaged. No one cares about you, but I do. I am your retribution.”

The last sentence, of course, is actually Trump’s.

It’s a dark vision, to be sure. It isn’t easy to realize, but neither were the Younger Bush’s war in Iraq easy to win, his “ownership society” easy to implement, or Social Security easy to privatize. Apparently, voters don’t second-guess a vision if they like it. And that’s a large part of the point.

But wait! Trump has an even shorter, punchier vision. It’s on all those ubiquitous red hats: “Make America Great Again.” It may be corny; it’s definitely not specific; and it does imply that we’ve lost some of our luster. But the millions of people who wear those hats proudly show how powerful a vision it is. Trump may be a malignant narcissist and, as Rex Tillerson said, “a f-ing moron,” but he knows how to inspire and incite.

So what vision does Joe Biden have today? It’s hard to tell. He certainly wants to bring labor unions back, and that’s a good thing. But workers who live in “right to work” states (mostly red today) may have forgotten what unions are like. Or they may have succumbed to the propaganda that union dues and union rules are infringements on workers’ “freedom.”

Beyond that, Joe has a laundry list of dry-as-dust legislation: the Infrastructure Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS Act, Covid relief, etc. All together, they amount to trillions of dollars to improve ordinary people’s lives in America. But even all together, they don’t begin to make a vision.

What makes a vision is values. The younger Bush’s vision had them: (1) a Middle East, or at least an Iraq, democratic and free from the tyrant Saddam; (2) fighting the terrorists there, not here; (3) an “ownership society” where everyone who wants one owns a home, (4) and a richer, better, privatized Social Security, where everyone has a piece of the soaring Dow. Stripped to their essence, these values are: (1) peace and democracy in the Middle East; (2) peace at home; (3) equality in homeownership; and (4) equality in wealth. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want all that?

This last week I’ve been touting Maryland Governor Wes Moore as an alternative to Biden. Having been beaten around the head and shoulders by comments from more practical folk, I now acknowledge that Moore is still light in governing experience. And anyway four months is far too little time to introduce a man virtually unknown outside of Maryland to the 81-plus million voters who backed Biden in 2020.

But if you want to see what “vision” and “values” look like, set the timer in Moore’s victory speech to 16:08 and watch for just nine minutes. In that short a time, Moore creates a grand vision with the following values: (1) restoring women’s bodily autonomy in reproduction; (2) producing smarter kids by following science and giving them early-childhood education; (3) reviving Enlightenment values by making everybody better off, and leaving no one behind, which Moore defines as part of “patriotism;” and (4) creating “a healthier and wealthier Maryland.”

Can Biden win without that kind of vision? Maybe. But “maybe” is not good enough when the alternative is a loss of our democracy and likely a turn toward full-blown fascism.

And while four months may be far too short a time to introduce a national unknown like Moore to 81-plus million voters, it’s ample time for Biden to announce a vision to match his accomplishments and guide his next administration.

The thing about a vision is that it’s goals and values. It doesn’t have to include means. If nothing else, George W. Bush taught us that. It doesn’t matter if the vision is hard to achieve, or even impossible: Bush taught us that, too. As MAGA proves, the more general and aspirational, the better.

Here are some values that Biden and his team could mould into a vision:

(1) restoring women’s bodily autonomy in reproduction; (2) producing superior children through early-childhood education; (3) making college or university affordable to any kid who can get in; (3) bringing leading-edge manufacturing back onshore; (4) restoring and promoting leadership in science and technology, not just software; (5) housing all Americans, including the now homeless; (6) fighting planetary heating by reaching national net-zero carbon emissions by 2045; (7) retraining oil and gas workers to work on renewable energy; (8) restricting immigration to those who can help us excel; and (9) achieving justice and equality in policing.

There are, no doubt, other values just as important, or more so. I’m not a politician. But we do have three living past presidents: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. Not coincidentally, each of them rose from relative obscurity to the top job by having some sort of vision. Jimmy Carter had a vision of a kinder, gentler America and universal human rights. Obama’s vision, if I recall correctly, was as simple as “one America, not a red and blue America,” at least initially.

Maybe the three exes should huddle with Joe Biden and come up with something short, sweet and winning. The last thing we need is a large committee to debate and bureaucratize the message to death.

Four months, I now admit, is too short a time to change horses. But it’s plenty of time to create and tout a vision to match “Make American Great Again,” with perhaps more values, more specificity, and more substance. The means to realize the vision can wait for Biden’s second term. The three exes (perhaps Jimmy virtually) can mold and polish the vision with all their accumulated wisdom and once-winning political skill.



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