What if the way to beat Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican primary is not to go low but to go high?
Political consultants and pundits have been advising that the other GOP candidates must fight back and “go through” Trump in order to win. It is hard to see how anyone beats the master of shamelessness at his own game. Trump’s attacks on his opponents are brutal. Just ask Ron “Pudding Fingers” DeSantis or anyone of his 2016 primary opponents.
The answer to our current political situation may just come from the 1500s.
Ambroise Paré was a French barber/surgeon who served four kings. Paré is considered a father of modern surgery and a pioneer in battlefield medicine and surgical techniques. Paré introduced the concept of gentle treatment of human tissue. He is credited with the introduction of the ligature to stop bleeding instead of the application of a hot iron.
During the 16th century there was a belief that gunpowder poisoned the wounds they created. Gunshot wounds were treated by being cleansed and detoxified with boiling oil. In 1533, while serving on the battlefields, Paré ran out of oil to boil. He created a bland soothing lotion of egg yolk and oil of turpentine.
The story goes that the next morning he was stunned by the contrast between the soldiers who were treated: “Those treated with the gentle emollient were comfortable and without evidence of worsened tissue damage.”
The wisdom of Paré’s time was to add more caustic elements to an already inflamed trauma. Might we apply the same techniques to our political discourse?
The latest Battleground Civility Poll by Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service was completed before the fall midterm elections. Voters felt strongly that the country is headed in the wrong direction and expressed a particularly high level of concern over the level of polarization in the country. When asked about political division on a scale of zero to 100 (with zero being no division at all and 100 being the edge of civil war), respondents gave a mean score of 71.74, a slight increase to feelings in the previous poll with a mean score of 70.36.
The poll also highlighted the extent to which voters have separated themselves from others who are not like them. A majority say that most of their close friends and family “vote for the same candidates” and “are in the same political party” as they are.
The poll did shed some rays of hope, as 86 percent of respondents said the main goal of political leaders should be to compromise and find common ground. Two-thirds of respondents said they were more likely to vote for a candidate willing to compromise with others as opposed to a candidate who consistently fights for values.
“With a considerable group of voters preferring compromise-oriented candidates, and a majority who consider themselves centrists, there is hope for those looking for more civility in our politics,” says Georgetown’s Mo Elleithee.
Here are just a couple of examples of ways candidates could put it into practice. After being attacked, they could respond: I will not debase the office of the presidency by dignifying that with a response. Or, I am not looking back but rather prefer to share my vision for the future.
There will be plenty of Republican primary voters who want a fighter, not a lover. Many of those supporters were probably never open to another Republican candidate anyway.
Paré once said, “There are five duties of surgery: to remove what is superfluous, to restore what has been dislocated, to separate what has grown together, to reunite what has been divided, and to redress the defects of nature.” Let’s encourage our prospective leaders to approach their politics the same way.
Lynn Schmidt is a columnist and Editorial Board member of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
