It’s been 54 years since John F. Kennedy was assassinated on the streets of Dallas. In the half-century since, the iconic images of JFK are accompanied by a jumble of adjectives describing the man: youthful, energetic, graceful, classy, brainy, Irish and witty.
As one writer noted back in 1988, “This is not an age of character, but of personality, and Kennedy gave us that,” adding, “This is also not an age of darkness but of glare . . . and Kennedy gave us that too.” Personality and glare may remind us of Donald Trump, but there is a vast difference between his age and ours. Behind the Kennedy persona was a hard-headed politician shaped by great forces that led him to eschew ideological approaches to the country’s problems.
John F. Kennedy heralded the rise of an “authentic center” that focused on rationality and order. In 1960, sociologist Daniel Bell claimed that the rise of Communism, the Great Depression, and Hitler’s brutal extermination of the Jews left Americans politically and emotionally exhausted: “For the radical intellectual who had articulated the revolutionary impulses of the past century and a half, all this has meant an end to chiliastic hopes, to millenarianism, to apoplectic thinking — and to ideology.” Ideology, claimed Bell, “has come to a dead end.”
Seeking the presidency in 1960, Kennedy echoed Bell by placing high importance on results that ignored ideology and placed a premium on efficient management. That year, CBS commentator Eric Sevareid spoke of a “managerial revolution” that had come to politics. Sevareid maintained that Kennedy was sharp, ambitious and opportunistic, but devoid of strong convictions — unlike the young men of the 1930s who “dreamt beautiful and foolish dreams about the perfectibility of man, cheered Roosevelt, and adored the poor.”
A member of what was sometimes referred to as Kennedy’s Irish mafia, Larry O’Brien, noted liberalism’s passing: “The old generation is gone. . . . Look around and you will see the new generation that is running the party.” The old generation did not easily surrender either its power or its love of ideology. In 1960, Eleanor Roosevelt was deeply skeptical of Kennedy’s candidacy — decrying his audacity at seeking the nomination, and later complaining that he did not share her liberal beliefs.
Kennedy believed that a managerial approach would produce both good results and good politics. Addressing the foreign policy crises of his time, Kennedy’s approach was tempered by a realization of its limits. In a prescient 1954 speech, Kennedy warned that “no amount of American military assistance in Indochina can conquer an enemy which is everywhere and at the same time nowhere, ‘an enemy of the people’ which has the sympathy and covert support of the people.”
Even as he urged action to close a so-called “missile gap” with the Soviet Union, Kennedy proposed adding more resources to support the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. He believed a strong military must be accompanied by an aggressive diplomacy.
As Kennedy put it, “We must find ways to show the people of the world that we share the same goals — dignity, health, freedom, schools for children, a place in the sun — and that we will work together to achieve them.”
At home, Kennedy’s advocacy of a tax cut and civil rights legislation were not matters of ideology, but based on a belief that these laws would grow the economy and ameliorate racial strife. Results mattered.
In 1982, John Gregory Dunne wrote, “There are no new facts about the Kennedys, only new attitudes.” Today, a new attitude is emerging, namely that the crises of our time — 9/11, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a Great Recession, the rise of economic globalization, a climate crisis — go beyond ideology and require an active intellectualism coupled with a managerial approach.
Americans grasp this reality, even as our political leaders do not. At the onset of Donald Trump’s presidency, 72% wanted him to seek compromises with congressional Democrats. Months later, 81% wanted bipartisan hearings on health care.
Trump’s ignoring of the public’s desire for concessions based on what works helps explain his precipitous fall in the polls. As the partisan ideological warfare intensifies, voters yearn for a modern-day “action intellectual” with a strong managerial approach to emerge. Meanwhile, Donald Trump would do well to take a lesson from John F. Kennedy.
White is a professor of politics at Catholic University.
