According to ancient historians, the events took place around 458 BCE. Rome, in the midst of a political crisis, went to war against the Aequi. As was the custom of the time, a dictator was appointed to restore harmony: Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. Torn from his lands for the occasion, the latter gave battle and won the victory. Rome was saved. However, unlike what Caesar would do a few centuries later, once his mission was accomplished, the latter voluntarily withdrew to his lands, putting the common good of his city before his personal interests. Cincinnatus could have tried to remain dictator, he could have brought down the nascent Republic – he chose public happiness rather than personal happiness.
Alas, political history is not rich in men and women who put the public interest above all else. George Washington, who did not run for a third term, comes to mind, as does Nelson Mandela, who did not run for a second. The norm, however, is more depressing: everywhere we see tired and worn-out leaders who hang on, to the point of leading their party, if not their country, to ruin.
It seems that once power is tasted, it must corrupt and vitiate the long-term vision, that beautiful beginnings must be corrupted by a fall; it seems that personal interest (or the belief that one is the only one who can face the enemy, which is often worse) ends up overtaking the collective interest. I suppose this reflex is understandable. After having had such great responsibilities for so long, such great power, who would sincerely have the courage to give it up?
This exhausting political mechanism is repeated today. In Canada, France and the United States, we see politicians, often on the left, who can boast of having done great things, but who risk leading their party to ruin by this selfish refusal to give up their place. Men who, in short, refuse the responsibility of leaving. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, in France, whatever one thinks of the character, acts as a deterrent for a huge part of the electorate: he will have nevertheless continued, throughout the legislative elections, to weigh down the New Popular Front with his practically daily appearances on television. Justin Trudeau has been undermining the Liberal Party of Canada’s chances of re-election for months through his great unpopularity, but is hanging on, certain that he alone will be able to defeat the Conservatives. “Just wait until you see him on the campaign trail!” say his few supporters…
And Joe Biden persists despite his fading abilities and frightening the electorate, helped by an American journalistic class that has been multiplying intellectual contortions for months to avoid seeing the obvious: the president is declining. A cognitive decline that all Americans were recently able to see during the first presidential debate.
The United States is a country where partisan identities are extremely strong—most Democrats and Republicans will vote for their party’s candidate, no matter who he is—and it is the few undecideds who make the elections. In this context, a responsible politician should agree to remove the thorn that is stabbing his political party and nagging the undecided. Even if that thorn is himself. Especially since, if what is really at stake in the presidential election is the future of American democracy, if the threat is really as it is described, no man could be too important not to be sacrificed on the altar of political realism.
In all these cases, the idea that one personally has of the programs of these politicians hardly matters. Contrary to what some Americans, Canadians or French people may claim, it is not playing into the hands of Trump, Poilievre or Bardella to ask Biden, Trudeau or Mélenchon to have the courage and dignity to step down. On the contrary, it is grasping the height of the stakes, carrying out a cold political analysis and recognizing that “our side” can be wrong from time to time.
In 1919, in an equally critical context, the great sociologist Max Weber, addressing German students, distinguished two fundamental ethics of the politician. The first, the ethics of conviction, is that of our worn-out leaders: it claims that we must advance our ideals at all costs, regardless of their real consequences; that the right idea must triumph. The good news is, and the world is lostas the old proverb goes.
The other ethic, which he himself considered preferable in politics, is that of responsibility and displeases all radicals and idealists. Calculating consequences, made of compromises, dirty hands and realism, it is the one which recognizes that from an evil (resignation) can sometimes come a good (victory), and vice versa. The ethics of responsibility command us to look coldly at the political situation and to act not in our personal interest, but in the greater interest of the body politic.
There are times when the ethics of conviction are preferable, such as in these moments full of possibilities when it is a question of rebuilding community and society. There are other times, such as times of crisis when everything seems likely to change, when the ethics of responsibility are vital. Our moment is one of these: whether here, in the United States or in France, we must ask our political leaders to be responsible and to do what is best not for themselves, but for the nation they say they cherish.
In the face of threat, some sacrifices are necessary, even our own. Let us therefore hope that these leaders who are harmful today will know how to choose the right option. As Lucius Cincinnatus knew in his time how to return to plow his garden.