The ideal, my friend, is the lifebuoy. Let's say one is taking a swim, floundering around, trying as hard as possible not to sink. One might try to swim in a safe direction despite contrary currents; the essential thing is to use a classic stroke according to recognized swimming principles…Some eccentrics who try to swim faster in order to get there, come what may, splash all over everybody and always end by drowning, involving I don't know how many other poor souls who might have been able to continue splashing around tranquilly enough-in the soup. (Jean Anouilh)
To the casual observer and professional analyst, to the intellectual both here and abroad, American politics have frequently appeared as an amalgam of confusion, frustration and irrationality. The political parties have seemed devoid of cohesion and unity, and innocent of a coherent political philosophy. Long ago, for example, Lord Bryce observed that our major parties have nothing to say on vital issues; that “neither party has any clean-cut principles, any distinctive tenets. Both have traditions. Both claim to have tendencies. Both have certainly war cries, organizations, interests enlisted in their support. But those interests are, in the main, the interests of getting, or keeping, the patronage of the government. Distinctive tenets and policies, points of political doctrine and points of political practice, have all but vanished. They have not been thrown away, but they have been stripped away by Time and the progress of events, fulfilling some policies, blotting out others. All has been lost except office or the hope of It.”