We have in one corner, politically correct ideologues who assume or argue that Sharia Law, under which capital punishment is mandated for adultery and homosexuality, should be no bar to voting for a presidential candidate who subscribes to it, and in the other corner Dr. Ben Carson, the GOP presidential candidate, who said we would not vote for a Muslim, period, and then awkwardly qualified what he means.
Dr. Carson is entirely right about Sharia Law, but was entirely wrong about not voting for a Muslim. There soon will be Muslim politicians, if there are not now, who will be sincerely happy to run on an anti-Sharia platform to be elected president. In fact, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, born in Somali and forced to flee Holland for the U.S. by Islamist bigotry and now a naturalized U.S. citizen, would be a great candidate if she qualified under the U.S. Constitution, which she doesn’t any more than Arnold Schwarzenneger does. Show me a Jewish presidential candidate who wants to revive horrific punishments prescribed in Leviticus and Dueteronomy, and I won't vote for her. Show me a Muslim candidate who disowns the antedeluvian aspects of Sharia Law, and I will vote for her.
In 1960, though it wasn’t popularly framed this way, John F. Kennedy was an American Catholic running against Catholic ultramontanism. This was the doctrine, going back 100 years at least, that the Pope was supreme in matters political not just moral or theological. Anti-ultramontanism was the core message of JFK’s speech to Protestant ministers in Houston.
Roger Simon in National Review is among those on the right arguing that African American Dr. Carson is “a man on the white horse” precisely because of his imprecise declarations about Islam and Muslims. He likens Dr. Carson to James Stewart in Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1938). As I remember the movie, young Jimmy Stewart is the native, inspired yokel who rides into Washington from the Rocky Mountains to save the U.S. from political corruption by preaching and practicing Capra’s version of the American civil religion of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln.
Long before Hollywood, the Roman Senators after the death of Emperor Augustus fantasized for a generation of two about returning the pristine Roman Republic of their deluded memories. Of course, it never happened, just as today Republicans who fantasize about a return to Republican virtue with Dr. Carson as an alternative to both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are deluded.
In the Roman case, the assassinated Caligula was replaced by his uncle Claudius who had survived under Caligula by posing as a cuckold (which he was) and an idiot (which he wasn’t). Dr. Carson, the neurosurgeon, is a medically brilliant political naïf. He may prove useful to those seeking to stop Trump because he’s a sincere Evangelical who will run well among Iowa Republicans, but Trump isn’t.
Even so, I fear that a President Carson would no more prevent the continuing decline of the American Republic than Emperor Claudius restored the Roman Republic.
I fear also that, like the ancient Romans, post-modern Americans, both right and left, are in the grip of suicidal political fantasies that are an irreversible part of the decline of republics. Since our children and grandchildren don’t seem to have the slightest idea about what a republic or constitutional democracy is, it may be merciful that they will be blissfully ignorant of the precious heritage there are losing.
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