Always Flight 93, Never Flight 93 (IV)

I think it has always been this way.  We are certainly seeing an age in which public standards of behavior and speech are degraded; but they have never been particularly good, especially in any place touched by politics.  If you don't believe me, spend a little time with the history of Tudor England, Imperial Rome, the early American Republic, or (probably) any other point random point in history.  Political leaders have always been sketchy at best; political rhetoric has always been disgusting.  It's always been a Flight 93: one is always constrained to choose between a bad man and a worse man, always forced to rely on checks and balances, on senates and parliaments and busybody nobility, and hope that they do their job keeing the king, the emperor, or the president in check.

And that means, of course, that in another sense it's never really a Flight 93 election.  If political choices are always constrained between bad and worse, then--however execrable our own political period may seem (and there is no doubt that it is execrable)--and however poised on the point of civil strife we may be (and there is no doubt that the civil unrest in our country is real)--nevertheless, our historical position is not entirely unique.  We cannot justify anything by appealing to our current situation.  The ordinary rules of political choice--the need to choose for the sake of the good, and to decry what is evil--still apply.  It's just that those rules have always been sadder, and more attuned to our fallen condition, than some of us would like to acknowledge.