The Origins of Trumpism (Part 4): Gingrich

The gathering storm

Robert Reich

Aug 16

From my Washington diary: April 20, 1994

Bob Michel, the House minority leader, has invited me by to talk about what’s going on in the Labor Department. He has a kindly face topped by a shock of white hair and spoke in a mellifluous baritone. The overall effect is grandfatherly. 

Michel has just announced his decision to retire from the House and not seek another term, and in our conversation I sense his ambivalence and sadness.

“This place used to be very civil,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Republicans and Democrats often saw things differently, of course, but we respected one another. We could actually get something done. We respected the institution.”

“You see that changing?” I asked, naively.

“It’s becoming a different world up here. That’s a big part of why I’m getting out. There’s a new breed. They don’t care about getting anything done. All they want to do is tear things down. The right wing is gaining ground. It will be our undoing, eventually.”

“You mean Gingrich?”

“And his friends.” Michel’s voice grew softer. “They talk as if they’re interested in ideas, in what’s good for America. But don’t be fooled. They’re out to destroy. They’ll try to destroy anything that gets in their way, using whatever tactics are available. They don’t believe in bipartisanship. I don’t really know what they believe in.”

Michel’s observation is true of Washington as a whole, maybe even the nation. The media isn’t what causes Americans to feel this way; it simply mirrors their feelings. Mean-spirited politicians don’t simply appear on the national scene by accident: they’re put there by angry voters whose feelings they reflect.

I’ve sensed it in my travels around the country: People are surly, resentful, anxious. The economic stresses that have been building for years are taking their toll, and anyone with power and visibility in our society is a potential target of resentment. It’s like the electricity in storm clouds

January 7, 1995

The press is declaring Newt Gingrich [who has just taken over as House majority leader] the new king of Washington and according him the celebrity normally reserved for new presidents at inaugurations. I couldn’t help thinking how different it would be had Bob Michel remained. Bob Dole has taken over the Senate and is trumpeting his victory as well. Gingrich and Dole seem to have taken command of the United States government. In our system, power is found where the public seems to have conferred it, and the two of them are credibly claiming to have most of it.

Bill is angry and pained. He came to Washington two years ago with his own bold agenda, and now all the boldness seems to be on their side. And part of the reason they’ve gained the upper hand is they spent much of the last year pillorying Bill and Hillary, attacking and ultimately defeating their health-care plan and raising questions about their ethics.

How to respond? Several of us have joined him in the ornate Map Room in the basement of the White House. We’ve talked for more than an hour but haven’t come up with anything he finds helpful.

Finally, Bill stood up. Worry and frustration showed on his face. “You have to help me,” he said, slowly. “I don’t want to use their tactics. I don’t want to be mean.”

There was a long pause. Then he said more softly, “This is a cynical age. Doing good and right aren’t sufficient anymore. Being mean isn’t a disqualification anymore.”

Something was going on here. Bill’s mind seemed to be operating on a different plane than ours. He was considering questions and choices that none of us completely understood.

His voice rose. “Gingrich isn’t the only mean one. Dole went on TV a year ago today, on the very day I was burying my mother, crapping on me about Whitewater. Then he told his troops in the Senate not to do what was right on the crime bill but to vote to defeat me.” He pleaded, “I don’t want to be like them. But you have to help me.”

No one said anything for about a minute. Then Al Gore responded softly. “The people have to see you as optimistic, confident, sure of the direction you’re taking the country. If I’d been the object of as much unfair criticism as you and Hillary, I’d be much angrier. But we have the time. There’s no reason to panic.”

Time? Panic? I couldn’t keep a mordant thought out of my mind. If Bill and Al Gore were to die right now, the law of the land would confer the presidency on Newt Gingrich.

Gingrich is a brilliant political operator and an intellectual opportunist. I’ve met with him several times, and each time gone away with the distinct impression of a military general in an age where campaign strategy has supplanted military strategy, where explosive ideas have become more important sources of power than bombs. He professes to understand this, and in fact spends a great deal of time and energy trying to persuade others that he alone possesses the strategy and the ideas entitling him to be the general of the new Republican right.

Gingrich likes to think of himself as a revolutionary force, but he behaves more like a naughty boy. He grins uncontrollably when I congratulate him on a devious legislative ploy; he becomes overly defensive when I gently scold him for misusing certain historic ideas in support of one of his grand theses; his office is adorned with figurines of dinosaurs, as you might find in the bedrooms of little boys who dream one day of being huge and powerful. To characterize Gingrich as “mean” misses this essential quality of naughtiness. His meanness is real, but it’s the meanness of a nasty kid rather than a tyrant. And like all nasty kids, inside is an insecure little fellow who desperately wants attention.