AND ANOTHER THING
Epiphany of a little man with jug ears
PAUL JOHNSON
If I were an American, my vote would go to Ross Perot. There are four reasons for my choice. First, I like the look of him. I like those awkward jug ears, that brutal short-back-and-sides haircut, those sharp, squiggly eyes, that rapping voice. He looks exactly what he is: an unadorned, unprivi- leged, ugly little American who has come up from nowhere, is not ashamed of him- self and who would rather die than employ an image-agent. Whereas George Bush is a Waspy East Coast toff, whose claim to be Texan deceives nobody, and Bill Clinton is unmistakably an easy-sleazy Southern-style operator — pretending to be a black sax- player was his last crummy act — Perot is just an American. He could have come from anywhere — LA, Peoria, Brooklyn, Miami, North Dakota or the Appalachian back country. He is what America was always about, ought to be now and can be again: hard work, being savvy, cute, getting on, getting rich, then serving the people.
Second, America to fulfil its destinies needs to renew itself every so often, to go into a political convulsion which prevents it from slipping into the middle-aged habits of an 'ordinary' country. So, in 1824, when ruling it appeared to be firmly shared by the smug dynastic oligarchies of Virginia and Boston, Andrew Jackson rose from wild and unkempt Tennessee to challenge the powers.that-be in Washington. He got the most popular votes and the largest chunk of the Electoral College. But because no candidate had an absolute majority, the decision went into the House of Representatives where Congressional wheeler-dealers made a 'corrupt bargain' and picked the Boston Brahmin John Quincy Adams. Thus robbed, 'Old Hickory' Jackson fought back on an anti-Washing- ton, anti-establishment ticket, and made no mistake in 1828. He turned America deci- sively into a working democracy and trans- formed the presidency into the greatest elective office the world has ever seen. Perot's mandate, as I see it, is to redemocratise America, to allow the peo- ple to punch a mighty hole into a two-party carve-up which delivers to nobody except the political professionals.
You may say, wasn't that what Ronald Reagan was supposed to do? Indeed it was, and to a great extent he succeeded. He gave Americans back their pride and self- respect, he shared and reflected their views and emotions, and — thus empowered — he broke the will to survive of America's external enemy, the Soviet Union. But there was one fatal lacuna in his achieve- ment. Though he always referred to gov- ernment in the third person and appeared to rule Washington from the outside, he came up through the two-party system itself and found it easier, as president, to work from within the assumptions of the Con- gressional system. So he failed totally to resolve America's budgetary problems. Far from producing, as he expected and promised, a surplus of $28 billion in 1986, his accumulated deficit had by then risen to the astronomic sum of $1,193 billion and rose still further thereafter.
This brings me to the third reason why I like Perot. Unlike Reagan, who was a per- former, dealing in states of mind, confi- dence, feeling of well-being — in appear- ances and illusions if you like — Perot is a businessman who deals in financial reali- ties. I am not worried by what the US media, his enemy, has dragged up about his business past. They produced far worse things against Jackson, including a `Coffin Handbill' listing all the people he had killed. The salient thing about Perot's busi- ness record is that he is a genuine billion- aire. Unlike the phoney success-stories of our times — unlike Maxwell and Alan Bond, for example — he is not an idol with feet of debt. He knows that debt is accept- able only if there is a reasonable chance of repaying it within the calculable future. America in the past has thrived on debt and repaid it fast by industry and ingenuity. Andrew Jackson reduced the National Debt to zero. Perot knows that, this time, 'Oh my! Sorry, Mr Rushdie, we thought you were Andrew Morton.' the way in which his country is acquiring debt is quite new: it is unconscionable, irre- sponsible, indefensible and almost unre- payable. In effect, Congress, with the defeatist acquiescence of successive admin- istrations, is buying votes to keep itself in power with money it does not possess, and is doing so not on a short-term but on a permanent basis. Perot, by coming from outside the system — indeed, to get to the White House he must beat it — can break the will to survive of America's internal enemy, a corrupt Congress, and so make it possible to produce what every decent busi- nessman knows is essential to solid success — an honest balance sheet.
But there is a fourth reason why I fancy Perot, and perhaps it is more important than all the others. He does not seem to speak the vernacular of politics. He talks in the way ordinary Americans talk. Over the last half-century the United States has ceased to be proud of the fact that it is the archetype melting-pot society, and has in consequence dissolved into a multitude of races and pressure-groups, Hispanics, Afros, Anglos, Natives and God knows what, stressing their diversity and divisions and claims, flaunting their fighting alle- giances. Asked what they were, people in Jackson's day might reply: 'I'm from the Bay State.' I'm a New Yorker.' I'm from the Old Dominion.' Today they might say anything: 'I'm gay.' I'm an unmarried mother.' 1'm a Senior Citizen.' I'm Kore- an.' I'm a Moslem.' They speak the lan- guage of entitlements and grudges because they have been taught it by the professional office-seekers, whose road to Congress has been paved by sectional grievances and whose divisive patois envenoms this Balka- nisation. If Perot can be swept to office on a wave of popular disgust — and hope — which transcends party, race, class, status, region, creed and colour, sex and age- group, then perhaps the way will be clear for a rebirth of republican values. Some 250 million people can then rediscover that what they have in common — the equal rights and duties of responsible citizens, the confident belief in the democratic process, the respect for the rule of law, the freedom and opportunity to work for a better future for thetnselves, their families, their country and, indeed for the world — is infinitely more important than what divides them. Then, asked who they are, all can answer with a full heart: 'We're Americans.'
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