Of John Dillinger and Perry (and Trump et al)

by P.M. Carpenter

There is, it seems to me, an intriguing relationship between political demagoguery and what might be called "populist" crime. The latter doesn't pay, it is said; and when one looks back on the national careers of our most sensational criminals, what is said is true. For all of John Dillinger's fame — which is nearly synonymous with Depression-era criminality — his eminence, if you will, spanned only 13 months. The nationally "distinguished" careers of Baby Face, Pretty Boy, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie Parker and the Barrow brothers and others, a mere 18 months. That spree of bank-robbing and kidnapping that have defined an entire American decade was, in fact, rather short-lived.
Their cardinal sin, outside the usual sins? They made themselves a target; they brought forth the focused eyes and superior firepower of officialdom; in going for national headlines, they squandered what might have been long lives of local, nickel-and-dime grifting. Organized crime figures who have made the same mistake, such as John Gotti, suffered similar truncations of their profession. To survive, one lays low, one opts for big froggism in little ponds, one makes only the smallest of splashes.
Likewise, modern demagoguery is defined by McCarthy. Add an 'ism" to his name and one recognizes not merely an era, but the dark art itself. Yet from launch to exile, McCarthy's national career lasted a mere four years. An assassin's bullet ended Huey Long's — which spanned roughly three — but even he understood he could never whip Roosevelt. (Arguably, the most skilled of all American demagogues was "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman; his political longevity, however, was due largely to tending his garden locally, in South Carolina.) These memorable pols were doomed, for they went on demagogic sprees much like Dillinger's and Nelson's and Floyd's criminal sprees — and sprees, by definition, do not endure.
Thus we note that egregious error in perspective committed by political pundit and best-selling co-author of Bush's Brain, James Moore, in August of 2011. Moore predicted with what is now embarrassingly high confidence that Rick Perry "will spawn the ugliest and most expensive presidential race in U.S. history, and he will win." The Texas demagogue's "money, image and support will become overwhelming." His rugged "good looks" and "podium skills … will create a product Americans will want to believe and buy." After dominating the primaries, wrote Moore, Perry will "turn to" another good-looking demagogue, Sarah Palin, as his running mate. In the general election, "unemployed voters in places like Ohio … will vote against Barack Obama. And in the process, they will write the epitaph to set upon the tombstone of history's greatest democracy: Perry-Palin, 2012."
Or not. Perry's political crime spree endured about one-fourth as long as Dillinger's more honestly straightforward endeavor. Perry was assassinated in Rochester, Michigan on 9 November 2011, by his own hand, for the weaponized Rick Perry hadn't the good sense to keep his two-bit grifting local. Although his shot to the head will be remembered as that which done did him in, it is useful to recall, as does the Post's Chris Cillizza this morning, that "Just more than a week before Perry's 'oops' moment, he had given what can only be described as a bizarre speech in New Hampshire. The speech was so odd that Perry was forced to deny, on the record, that he had been drunk." It was over before it was over.
This year, like a banished Charles Luciano, Perry believed he could stage a comeback. He was no luckier than Charlie. So now he's out, again.
The cavernous, conspicuous moral of this story: Bold demagoguery is thrilling, it's captivating, it's headline news; it's also as self-limiting as a Dillinger on the run. More subtle demagoguery, such as that practiced party-wide by you-know-who, can survive for a generation before the jig comes up. But a Perry, a Cruz, a Huckabee or a Trump? For them there's a splash, and then they're gone.