David Brooks has been writing some fine columns lately, but today he writes about something that I know quite a bit about — the American Revolution — and he stumbles. He writes:
This leadership crisis is eminently solvable. First, we need to get over the childish notion that we don't need a responsible leadership class, that power can be wielded directly by the people. America was governed best when it was governed by a porous, self-conscious and responsible elite — during the American revolution, for example, or during and after World War II. Karl Marx and Ted Cruz may believe that power can be wielded directly by the masses, but this has almost never happened historically.
I don't buy the idea that America "was governed best" by an "elite" "during the American revolution." First of all, the government, such as it was, during the Revolution was so weak — the Continental Congress and the Articles of Confederation — that the whole system had to be overhauled and replaced, after the Revolution, with the system set up by the Constitution. It is easy to idealize in retrospect, but at the time people were well aware of its faults. Second, the "elite" during the revolution were the loyalists and the colonial governors. John Hancock and George Washington were to some degree exceptions. There were plenty of instances during the Revolution and the lead-up to it of power being wielded directly by the people against the elite. Think of the Boston mob attacking Governor Hutchinson's house, for example. Third, this dichotomy between "the masses" and the "elite" or a "leadership class," even a "porous" one, is a false one. Into which category would Mr. Brooks place Paul Revere? Ben Franklin? Bill Clinton?