By CHRIS POWELL
His doctor says Connecticut U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy’s stroke was minor and a full recovery is expected. Even so, that recovery is said to require weeks of rehabilitation, rest, and absence from from the senator’s job, which will be left to his staff members, who can do many things for him but can’t cast his vote in the Senate.
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Meanwhile the state’s Democratic Party has many ambitious officeholders whose wishes for the senator’s recovery may not be so heartfelt.
The circumstances here invite reflection by the senator and everyone involved in politics.
For strokes can be caused by high blood pressure, and Murphy has spent much of this year traveling the country stridently agitating against the Trump administration and riling people up in his pursuit of the leadership of the leftward faction of the Democratic Party. It seemed like preparation for a presidential candidacy. Murphy’s senatorial duties did not require that; his ambition did.
Of course there would be no progress without ambition, and maybe there is no successful ambition without high blood pressure, but the country’s political blood pressure lately has been far too high. Murphy is only 53 and a stroke at that age suggests excessive strain.
Responsibility for the country’s high political blood pressure rests first with President Trump’s crude and often hateful demeanor and megalomania, for which his party, the Republicans, paid heavily in the elections last week. But that demeanor has been answered just as crudely and hatefully by many Democrats and their supporters, sometimes to the point of censorship and violence.
Trump and Murphy each have been appealing to the angriest people, the political extremes, seeing them as the best sources of political advantage.
While the president says he wants to work with the new Democratic majority in Congress, it’s probably too much to expect him to appreciate the country’s recent verdict against him and to try to suppress his megalomania and improve his demeanor.
But the senator now has a medical reason to think things over and consider a different approach to getting attention, and even in the Democratic Party there may be many people who don’t have to be shrieked at and enraged before they take notice and listen. When so many people are angry and convinced of their own righteousness, the most notable voice may be a calm, reasonable one. For soft words still turn away wrath, and the spirit of liberty is still, as Learned Hand said, the spirit that is not too sure that it’s right.
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Richard Blumenthal served so long as Connecticut’s attorney general — 20 years — that his young son came to think his father’s title was “eternal general.” Now that Blumenthal, 80, has represented Connecticut in the U.S. Senate for 15 years and indicated the other day that he will seek a fourth six-year term in 2028, when he would be 82, maybe he will come to be considered the eternal senator.
Could Blumenthal really accomplish that? He seems to be in good health, doesn’t look a day over 75, and still finds ways of highlighting political issues (and himself) nearly every week. In any case the results of last week’s election in Connecticut suggest that as long as Blumenthal was on the Democratic line he could be re-elected even if he had departed to the real eternity.
The senator can be admired for his work ethic; he long ago could have retired to luxurious leisure. He seems to be one of those people who can’t imagine doing something else or taking it easy, people who can conceive of no other identity or purpose in life. But he is expected to become the oldest serving Democratic senator next year, and ambitious younger Democratic politicians who are not praying too hard for Senator Murphy’s recovery might start to wonder if Blumenthal has become as vulnerable within the party as U.S. Rep. John B. Larson was shown to be in the Democratic primary he lost this year. Indeed, Democratic primaries may become Connecticut’s only competitive elections.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
