Goose-stepping on the campaign trail

There is a pathetic scene in the 1952 movie “Stars and Stripes Forever” in which Clifton Webb, playing John Philip Sousa, tries to write a song for his wife — but not a march. In the movie, he fails repeatedly; try as he might, the love song keeps turning into a march, to Sousa’s anguish.

It’s an amusing scene but painful to watch, for anyone who ever made a living as a high school band leader — as I did. Any high school band leader must revere the name of Sousa, one of the greatest composers of marches who ever lived. I realize that sounds like faint praise — akin to boasting of being the best cheesemonger on the south side of Youngstown, Ohio. But that scene has remained in my mind for decades, though I remember nothing else from the mediocre movie.

The reason is obvious. It shows a man trying to shed his skin and attempt something for which he is manifestly unsuited: like Albert Einstein trying to make it as a linebacker for the Chicago Bears, or Sly Stallone pounding out 1,000 love sonnets in Portuguese.

A parallel to this scene is unfolding day after day in the United States. It’s the attempt of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to present himself as anything other than a Nazified march-meister goose-stepping around the country, trying to get voters to fall in step behind him.

But DeSantis didn’t even write that tune. He got it from somewhere else.

He should limit his ambitions to their proper sphere, which would be a football field somewhere in South Florida, where the junior varsity are warming up, the governor bearing only a little pointy stick in his hand, pointing it at the brass section.

For the fact is, DeSantis is incapable of anything other than issuing marching orders — to the JV squad.

Though Thomas Carlyle coined the phrase “the dismal science” to characterize economics, in our country today the dismal science is politics — or perhaps journalism. (And I use the word “science” loosely.)

As an ink-stained wretch by trade and preference, I am condemned to follow the courses of the many men, and a few women, who would solicit us to elect them next year as our obergruppenfűhrer . That ungainly title was adopted by Hitler’s SS (Schutzstaffel ) in 1933, as a paramilitary rank. It peculiarly suits both DeSantis and that other guy.

They are inciting, encouraging, daring members of their political party to become, in effect, a paramilitary organization. We saw the results on Jan. 6, 2021. We continue to see the results around the country, as city, county, state and federal lawmakers receive death threats, and attempts, daily. Scientists and even a weatherman have been threatened with death by this Republican mob. In the case of the weatherman, it was for reporting on climate change.

DeSantis and Herr Donald Schlumpf are waving their batons, setting the tempo for this alarming, and increasing, orgy of violence: real and implied — an orgy of Know-Nothingism. An orgy that even Bobby Kennedy Jr. has joined. Or perhaps I should say “hath joined,” since these boobs claim that their idiotic pronouncements come straight from the Bible.

I have been following DeSantis’s campaign. I have heard him denounce, impugn, threaten, lie to, lie about and report on imaginary motivations from the bedrooms of his imagined — and therefore our imagined — enemies.

What would you call a guy who spends an inordinate amount of time imagining what other people are doing in their bedrooms? I’d call him a pervert.

What would you call a guy who calls for “retribution” against imaginary enemies? I’d call him a fascist.

What would you call a guy, or guys, who never have a kind word to say about anyone who does not agree to goose-step behind them, who use insult rather than reasoned argument, and who seem so angry all the time , despite their wealth and privileges?

I’d call them the leaders of the Republican Party in Congress — and their presidential contenders.

To conclude where we began: Imagine we return to the 1950s, or the 1850s, when men had their wives goose-stepping around the house, and it was impossible for a man to be charged with raping his wife.

Now write a nice march for the wives.