(Written 23 September 1998.Published in the Neighborhood
Journal.Posted
13 July 2009.)
When all is said and done, and the Clinton
years are looked back upon by future generations, how will Clinton be viewed?What will be his legacy?
It has been repeated time and time again that Clinton is concerned
about his legacy.Of course, given recent
events, it would be logical to conclude that his legacy will be one of damage
to the presidency and the nation.However, that may not necessarily be the case.In fact, when Clinton
is looked back upon from the future, it may very well be said that Clinton was good for the
country.
No, not because of the economy.As any civics student knows, it is the Federal Reserve Bank, not the President, that actually controls the economy.
No, Clinton
has not been good for the country because of his stellar foreign policy,
because, well, he hasn't had one, a policy, that is.
It's not his social programs, either.If you look at all the social programs that Clinton has proposed,
very few have become law.In fact, other
than Americorps, I can't really think of any significant
Clinton social
programs that have actually become reality.
The Clinton presidency may
prove to be good for the country because of the current pickle that Clinton is in, namely,
the Monica Lewinsky fiasco.You must
admit, the events of the past month have riveted the nation.Just about any person you talk to has an
opinion on the president, and whether or not he should leave office.The fact that just about any person has an
opinion of the shenanigans in Washington
is good for the nation.
The worst thing for any nation is apathy.If you look throughout history, whenever the
people of the great nations lost their passion and began taking things for
granted is when those nations went into decline.Take Rome,
for instance.As long as the Romans were
passionate about expanding Roman influence throughout the world, the Empire was
strong.However, once the emperors
defined the frontiers with walls, the Empire went into decline.Think about it--as long as Roman citizens
thought they had something to gain by serving the nation (namely, fulfillment
of civic duty, not to mention fame and fortune), then they were willing to make
sacrifices for the nation.Conversely,
when Roman citizens no longer felt duty-bound to serve their country, they
didn't, and the country disintegrated.In short, apathy, more than any outside force, killed the Roman
nation.The Romans destroyed themselves.
The Clinton
years may turn out the be the watershed event that
saved us from ourselves.Let's face
it--up until recently, nobody (except for a few newspaper columnists) wanted to
talk politics.In fact, few people cared
enough to even vote.Let's look at the
last presidential election.We have a
president who was elected by not even a quarter of all of those citizens
eligible to vote.We know that not
everybody who is eligible to vote is registered.Of those registered to vote, only about
one-half bothered to vote in the last presidential election.Of that one-half who did vote, less than
one-half voted for Clinton.Right now, the majority is being ruled by a
minority, because the majority was too apathetic to exercise its power.
The country will survive Clinton.But we may not be so lucky with the next minority ruler.Remember, Lenin and the Bolsheviks were a minority.So, too, were Hitler and the Nazis.
Because of Clinton,
people have become more politically conscious than any time I can remember (and
I remember Watergate).Part of it is the
result of the ready availability of information.Part of it is a result of Clinton's personality--he is a lightning-rod,
and you either love him or hate him.
Perhaps this splash of water in the face of the American
voters is the perfect tonic for lifting the electorate out of its apathy.As a result of Clinton, then, we will never again have
minority rule.Hopefully.
