Dead-end revolutions

It’s hard to believe, but The Graduate was released almost 50 years ago. The story of Benjamin Braddock, age 21, returning home with an Ivy League diploma, regularly appears on best-movie lists: a cinema landmark that “defined a generation.” Seeing it again about 30 years later, I realized it actually did.

Film buffs instantly recognize the one-word catchphrase: plastic. That’s the profound advice Ben receives at his graduation party, symbolizing the brightly colored, synthetic California culture his parents built. The plot traces Ben’s pilgrimage through confusion, disillusion, and cynicism as he fights his way to authenticity. For him, authenticity comes to mean Elaine Robinson, whose mother—the infamous “Mrs. Robinson”—has ruthlessly manipulated Ben into a loveless affair.

Elaine is engaged to the same kind of jerk Ben’s plastic culture is trying to make of him, and in the final moments he races to the glassy, WASP-y church where her wedding is in process. From the balcony, his arms achingly outstretched in imitation of Christ’s passion, our hero wails, “Elaaaaaine!” After agonized soul-searching, reflected on her lovely face, she rushes to meet him. Ben holds off her furious, frustrated parents with a metal cross ripped from the wall, which he then uses to barricade the door. Laughing, the liberated pair run down the sidewalk holding hands, just in time to catch a Santa Barbara city bus. They make their way to the rear seat, past the disapproving stares of elderly passengers.

Establishment haters have long since become the establishment.

This is where a typical romantic comedy/drama would end, but the camera rolls relentlessly on, as we see their grins fade and second thoughts begin: What now?

The Graduate appeared at the height of the Berkeley free speech movement, the days of rage that ignited a generational revolution. The kids were storming their parents’ plastic culture: school, church, state, and home. Like Ben, they hated the rules that seemed “to make themselves up,” but after wrestling their way to leadership they could only replace them with more made-up rules. Their goal of personal liberty and equality seems as far away now as it did then. The establishment haters have long since become the establishment.

As an occasional listener to talk radio, I hear revolution in the air again. I hear somebody needs to smash the system, and Donald Trump is the man to do it. Trump has astutely caught a wave of revolt from the right, after drifting leftward for most of his life. Both friends and foes say he’s the man of the hour. He shares a birth year with the fictional Ben Braddock (1946), and also, perhaps, a dislike of rules that he didn’t make up. His website lays out some fairly concrete reforms for the tax system, the VA, and immigration, but no overarching principle beyond “making America great again.” He seldom refers to the Constitution or limited government. Tracking his stated positions, exaggerated promises, and walk-backs is like following an energetic beagle through the park. To his fans, none of that matters: They’re in the mood for a wrecking ball, not a philosopher.

“Some say the world will end in fire, and some in ice,” wrote Robert Frost. Though this election cycle is probably not the end of the world, I anticipate the latter. Yes, revolution is in the air, and Trump and Sanders are bringing torches (icy Hillary is the very definition of “establishment,” and Cruz strikes many as cold and calculating). But fiery revolutions have a way of cooling down, and systems give way to other systems, all tending to concentrate power in themselves.

I understand anger with the so-called establishment, but Tear it down! is not a plan. Most of the electorate, including Trump, seem impatient with constitutional arguments about checks and balances, and that’s a bad sign. The Constitution ensured the most successful political revolution in history, and ever since, it has kept America safe for revolutionaries who work within its perimeter. What would “smashing the system” do to a document that’s already weakened? Revolt sounds exhilarating, until we all find ourselves in the back of the bus, headed for who knows where.

Email jcheaney@wng.org