Profiles in Courage

If you know me, you know that I love John F. Kennedy. Nearly three years ago when I bought Profiles in Courage from a used bookstore, that was why. It was $5 and it was by JFK — a no-brainer. I finally got around to reading it in July, and I’m glad I waited. The timing was right. I read it almost entirely at the Starbucks just a couple of blocks away from the Capitol and the Supreme Court. Even then though, I felt hesitant writing about it. Then a month later, John McCain died. The phrase “political courage” appeared a number of times in articles that I read about him. I thought about writing then, but I didn’t. Today, Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in as our newest Supreme Court Justice, and now I have no choice but to write. 

I was sitting at my desk at the American Historical Association when I got the CNN notification that Justice Anthony Kennedy was retiring, and I’m pretty sure I let out an audible “Oh no.” The midterms seemed so far away then, and after Justice Gorsuch was pushed through so quickly, my hopes weren’t high. Usually I’m pretty optimistic, but sometimes I just have a bad feeling. It happened the day of the 2016 election before the votes really started coming in. It happened with Kavanaugh. The midterms are coming up. I don’t want to have that feeling again.

JFK wrote Profiles in Courage in 1955 when he was a Senator. In the book, he focuses on eight senators from history who he chose to represent political courage — John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton, Sam Houston, Edmund G. Ross, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, George Norris, and Robert A. Taft. I’m not going to go in to what each of these men did that got them a place in the book. For that you can look them up or read the book yourself (which I highly recommend). But what matters are Kennedy’s analyses of the importance of courage in our society. When he was writing, and during his presidency in which he displayed his own courage, one of our country’s biggest concerns was nuclear warfare. Today, though nuclear warfare is certainly still a concern, it somehow doesn’t measure up to the destruction that we’re causing ourselves. And I say we, because whether you feel like it or not on any given day, especially lately, this is our country. It belongs to every single one of us. You might disagree with everything else I have to say as far as political ideology is concerned, but you can’t disagree with that. 

And because this country belongs to all of us, we all have a vote. We all have a say. "And thus neither demonstrations of past courage nor the need for future courage are confined to the Senate alone. Not only do the problems of courage and conscience concern every officeholder in our land, however humble or mighty, and to whomever he may be responsible — voters, a legislature, a political machine or a party organization. They concern as well every voter in our land — and they concern those who do not vote, those who take no interest in Government, those who have only disdain for the politician and his profession. They concern everyone who has ever complained about corruption in high places, and everyone who has ever insisted that his representative abide by his wishes. For, in a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, ‘holds office’; every one of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those will responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve," Kennedy said. People I know who didn’t vote in 2016 said that they didn’t because their vote doesn’t matter. If everyone who had thought that and was opposed to Donald Trump HAD voted, guess what would’ve happened? 

If you haven’t registered to vote yet, you still have a couple of days, and it takes two minutes. If you don’t live in the state or district where you're registered, you can apply for an absentee ballot. Don’t know where to get a stamp? You can buy them at Publix. You can buy them at Walmart. You can buy them ONLINE. None of this is hard. None of it takes very long. And I’ll be damned if you try to convince me your vote won’t make a difference.

Political courage is noticeably absent from our current government (I’m looking at you, Susan Collins). It’s up to us to replace these people with Senators and Representatives who will do what is right and not just what is easy. Who will do what is right and not just what they think will win them their next election. Who will do what is right even with the knowledge that it will probably end their career or at least prevent them from moving up to the next office or position. “And thus, in the days ahead, only the very courageous will be able to take the hard and unpopular decisions necessary for our survival in the struggle with a powerful enemy — an enemy with leaders who give little thought to the popularity of their course, who need pay little tribute to the public opinion they themselves manipulate, and who may force, without fear of retaliation at the polls, their citizens to sacrifice present laughter for future glory. And only the very courageous will be able to keep alive the spirit of individualism and dissent which gave birth to this nation, nourished it as an infant and carried it through its severest tests upon the attainment of its maturity,” Kennedy wrote. 

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is courageous. Brett Kavanaugh’s high school and college friends and others who know him who have spoken out against him are courageous. Brett Kavanaugh is not. Susan Collins is not. Mitch McConnell is not. Lindsey Graham is not. 

Brett Kavanaugh is the newest Supreme Court Justice, and will be until he either dies or resigns. That is the way our system works. And though I’ve seen a lot of comments lately, for the last two or three years even, talking about how our system has failed, I don’t think that’s true. I think there are certainly parts of it that could be better — obviously, things have changed since our Constitution was written, and it’s always worth revisiting and reinterpreting. But I don’t think our system has failed us. I think that we’ve failed our system. I think that, assuming we vote, we sometimes, maybe even often, vote for people for the wrong reasons. I think that we vote uninformed, and that we even sometimes vote apathetically. For instance, we vote for a third party candidate or we write in somebody not because we know anything about them or actually agree with what they say, but because we don’t like the other choices. So not only do we have to vote, we have to get smart about it. We have to vote thinking not only what’s best for us as individuals but about what is best for us as a country. We all have to have political courage, and courage in general, because if we don’t how can we expect our elected officials to? Kennedy had a lot to say in Profiles in Courage. Here's some of what I underlined.

To conclude Profiles in Courage, Kennedy said this: “To be courageous, these stories make clear, requires no exceptional qualifications, no magic formula, no special combination of time, place and circumstance. It is an opportunity that sooner or later is presented to us all. Politics merely furnishes one arena which imposes special tests of courage. In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience -- the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men -- each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient -- they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his soul.”

It is time for us to look into our souls. What we find is up to us. I pray that we all find some courage.