Monday 26 September 2016

Principled virtue is more to be feared than vice

Faithless Elector
I fell down the internet rabbit hole a few days ago while looking for a quote, and I have only just recovered. I wanted an epigraph for my novel-in-progress, Dark Network, the sequel to Faithless Elector. As is often the case, when I check something I think I know, I had it wrong.

I had thought Winston Churchill once said something along the lines of "God save us from men of principle," when in fact Churchill said:  "God grant that men of principle shall be our principal men." It's a nicely turned phrase, I suppose, but I suspect its validity; and at any rate it means the opposite of I was looking for.

My father, a political science professor, now retired, suggested the perfect epigram for Faithless Elector, from the Tammany Hall boss, George Washington Plunkitt:  "I seen my opportunities, and I took 'em," Plunkitt said during a morbidly fascinating disquisition on "honest graft."
I chose it as the quote for the book because its casual, neutral regard for something despicable and sinister fit with the attitude of the conspirators in the book, who are trying to subvert the 2016 presidential election.

That casual cynicism reminded me of the scene in The Great Gatsby, where Gatsby reveals to Nick that their luncheon guest, Meyer Wolfsheim, was the man who had fixed the 1919 "Black Sox" World Series:
"How did he happen to do that?" [Nick] asked.
"He just saw the opportunity."[Gatsby replied]

In both cases, if either of these men had been pressed regarding their integrity or the rightness of their actions, I think they would have been mystified by the question. It's indeed possible that Wolfsheim might have noted that in the larger scheme his act was a benefit, because it exposed hypocrisy and weakness in a smug, self-satisfied corner of America.  The fact he personally benefited from the arrangement would, of course, be immaterial.

As I began work on Dark Network, I kept coming back to an exchange between Control and Alec Leamus, from le Carre's very fine The Spy Who Came in from the Cold:
“I would say that since the war, our methods—ours and those of the opposition—have become much the same. I mean you can't be less ruthless than the opposition simply because your government's 'policy' is benevolent, can you now?”

Put more directly, the question becomes: how far can we go in the rightful defense of principles without abandoning them along the way?

This quandary becomes the central question for the FBI Agent, Imogen Trager, who is left to pick up the pieces as the Faithless Elector saga continues, and it becomes clear the plot is still going forward. She is upholding principles a great many of us would also seek to champion, truth, justice, fair elections. But the conspirators regard their actions, while regrettable, as necessary.  They are doing the right thing.  And people who believe they are doing the right thing rarely pause to interrogate their motives.

I think I found the perfect inversion of Churchill's "principled men" homily from an unsuspected source, pithier than Control's dismissal of benevolence, the Scottish philosopher, Adam Smith:
“Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.”

Maybe Wolfsheim's defense would be correct, and his actions do have benefit.  Maybe, like Mandeville's Fable of the Bees, private vices have public benefits.  
Fable of the Bees

At any rate, Agent Trager faces an enemy who will kill to defend their principles.  What will she do?


 









Publishers Weekly says Faithless Elector is a “fast-moving topical thriller.”  Its “surprising twists add up to a highly suspenseful read.” The sequel, Dark Network, is coming soon.

Faithless Elector, by James McCrone is available through Amazon.

Tuesday 20 September 2016

*Don't Invite the Vampire In*

NY Times
Don't invite the vampire in. In classical Dracula stories, a vampire can only enter your house if you invite him in. Faithless Elector is not a vampire story (spoiler alert). But it has at its core the terrible consequences of undermining the foundational principle of popular sovereignty and democratic governance--voting. 

In the novel, the conspirators strike at the heart of the electoral process by attempting to subvert the Electoral College vote. The underlying "reason" the faithless electors in the novel point to is voter fraud in Illinois. 

Since the novel's publication, I have watched the continued growth of the voter fraud/rigged election myth with trepidation (46% of Americans believe voter fraud happens 'somewhat' or 'very' often).  Authors love to see their ideas and creations breathe life beyond the page. I am no different. I struggle to create stories that resonate, characters who seem alive, situations and conflicts that seem real. 
But in this instance, I am conflicted. 

One of the central motivations for the characters in Faithless Elector is their bone-deep faith in the value of democracy; that what is happening to them and their country if the conspiracy succeeds is wrong. Their need to set that right pits them against powerful forces who have no love for, nor no regard for the nation and its people; who will stop at nothing. 

Here in the real world, Republican leaders have lately engaged in some very public hand-wringing apologies about the rise in power of the Tea Party and Donald Trump supporters. When pressed, many will admit that their rhetoric and tactics have backfired and undermined their credibility as a party, leaving only the nihilist likes of Donald Trump to cash in and drain the Grand Old Party of its lifeblood. After all, they invited him in.

But there is something even more insidious at work: their repudiation of voting. "Behind closed doors, some Republicans freely admit that stoking false fears of electoral fraud is part of their political strategy. A former Florida Republican Party chairman, Jim Greer, told The Palm Beach Post that voter ID laws and cutbacks in early voting are 'done for one reason and one reason only' — to suppress Democratic turnout." (NYTimes, Opinion 2016-09-20 http://nyti.ms/2ddKBIJ)

Will we be hearing yet more hand-wringing apologies come November?  How do you rescind your invitation to a vampire?



Publishers Weekly says Faithless Elector is a “fast-moving topical thriller.”  Its “surprising twists add up to a highly suspenseful read.”

Faithless Elector, by James McCrone is available through Amazon.

Sunday 18 September 2016

*Third Parties and the Electoral College*

The New York Times Sunday Review Section carried an interesting, informative piece today (Sun. Sept 18: link) regarding the history and the roles played by third-party candidates throughout US election history.
NYT 2016-0918, Widmer

The author, Ted Widmer, cites the chaotic first contested elections, which I have also written about (Hamilton and the First Contested Election); he cites the equally chaotic election of 1825, which I wrote about in the context of the popular vote.  And, of course, the 2000 election.

The danger of 3rd and 4th party candidates is that they can siphon off votes from one or another candidate's total.  One could say this is democracy in action...and it is, or rather it would be, if the Electoral College process were itself democratic.

 In a true general election 6-7% of the vote might be worrisome to whichever party/candidate is most at risk (and could, indeed, deprive them of a majority in a tight race), but in Electoral College voting, if those votes happen to be concentrated in a particular state(s), they can send ALL the votes that state carries to the other candidate, amplifying the loss far beyond what the relatively small numbers warrant.

The Electoral College process already favors people living in small states. Each state has the same number of electoral votes as it does members of Congress. Since congressional apportionment in the Senate favors the small states, the electoral college therefore favors small states, first by giving them the malapportioned Senate votes, and second by amplifying the voting power of those votes.

The novel, Faithless Elector, shines light on the weakness of the system as well as the opportunity for narrow, special interests to exploit that weakness and thwart the will of the majority. 

Publishers Weekly says Faithless Elector is a “fast-moving topical thriller.”  Its “surprising twists add up to a highly suspenseful read.”

Faithless Elector, by James McCrone is available through Amazon.