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“The more things change, the more they remain the same” (plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose) --French aphorism attributed to Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr
U.S. Congressman John Larson lost to former Mayor of Hartford Luke Bronin in a Democrat nominating convention by a sliver. Bronin captured 214 deletes, Larson 204 in what one newspaper called “a stunning upset.”
Because the constituencies in party nominating conventions, primaries and general elections are different, politicians jockeying for elections often appear to be speaking, so to speak, out of both sides of their mouths. Having achieved office, the elected politician is free to throw off all three masks and do as he or she likes. Former President Joe Biden, for example, campaigned as the usual, moderate Democrat but, once in office, governed as a neo-progressive. His second run for the presidency was derailed by members of his own party, among others, who thought he was not up to the job. They thought they had nothing to lose once Biden had been thrown into the ashbin of history because they had in reserve Biden’s Vice President Kamala Harris, who was a female —likely the first female president – and Biden’s soulmate.
History, it turned out, was not obliging.
The Democrat Party in Connecticut has been swinging left for decades. A non-incumbent Democrat in a primary election has more mobility than an incumbent Democrat of long standing, who will in most political contests be forced to defend his or her “record in office.” There are people, both in the media and in politics, who continue to track glaring inconsistencies in campaigns. Political consistency remains a virtue among us and inconsistency a vice. Among journalists, the political vice most often condemned is hypocrisy, a mismatch between one or more of the faces a politician presents as he wends his way through varying constituencies.
A cynical friend insists that hypocrisy is the only truly “sinful” – that is to say, indefensible and instantly punishable – vice in American politics. “Better to divorce your wife or eat your children than to be accused of hypocrisy,” says he. Cynics and comedians sometimes engage in exaggeration to make a point or raise a laugh, considered a virtue among politicians who usually bore us to death with stale platitudes.
Bronin thankfully addressed the delegates following their vote with some gaudy platitudinous remarks: “We just saw a political earthquake in this convention hall. Every Democrat in this room believes that we need to stop the damage that Donald Trump is doing to our country every single day, that we need to rebuild the guardrails to stop the brazen corruption and self-enrichment that he has taken to unimaginable heights. This is one stage in the process, but it’s an important one.”
Addressing reporters following his eupeptic acceptance speech, a hymn to change Bronin remarked that the upset “sends a powerful signal to Democrats out there that they have a real choice. What we usually see at these conventions is a coronation of the incumbent. What we saw tonight was a sea change. What we saw tonight was (sic) the most active Democrats in the district sending a message that we want change. I think what that means for the voters is that, for the first time in 28 years, they realize that they have a choice.”
At the next stage in his march to the governor’s mansion, someone in Connecticut’s media may mention that the whole of Connecticut’s government – the governor’s office, the membership of the state’s U.S. Congressional Delegation, all the state’s constitutional offices, the state’s largest cities, and the General Assembly -- have been Democrat Party strongholds for the last few decades.
The last Republican mayor of Hartford, Connecticut’s capital city, was Ann Uccello, who held office from 1967 to 1971. The 46 year old Bronin was 9 years short of being a twinkle in his daddy’s eye in 1971. Change would seem to imply a wresting of some political power from hegemonic Democrats. In what sense will a change from Larson to Bronin represent a cleansing different political change? The Democrat Party in Connecticut is the party of stasis, not the party of change. More Democrats in office can only mean more of the same.
Connecticut Democrats running for office on a platform of “change” will eventually be forced to confront honestly the question put to Vice President Kamala Harris during her presidential bid: Assuming you are elected, in what important respects will your presidency differ from that of the rudely dethroned Joe Biden? Harris was understandable flummoxed by the question and in time learned how to deflect it with some grace. But the unanswered question hung over her campaign like the sword of Damocles.
If Bronin replaces Larson as a member of Connecticut’s all Democrat U.S. Congressional delegation, how will his approach to legislation, domestic policy or foreign policy differ from that of Larson – or indeed, any other Democrat in the delegation, all of whom appear to march rigidly in lockstep with each other on important issues of the day?
Change implies directional difference. Will Bronin’s approach to the war on terror in the Middle East, to choose but one sundering instance among many, be more like that of Democratic Sen. John Fetterman or Democrat Senator Chris Murphy?
In Connecticut, restorative change can only occur through a principled and sustained assault on the status quo, resulting in more power to the people and less to double-tongued self-serving politicians.
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