Keep the midterms in perspective
by Michael McKenna · The Washington TimesOPINION:
In the summer of 1529, an Ottoman army of about 150,000, led by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, headed toward Vienna, intending either to take the city intact or to sack it and use it as a gateway to expand farther into Europe.
The Ottomans hoped that the momentum from their crushing defeat of the Hungarian army in 1526 and the divided attention of Charles V, then the Holy Roman emperor and ruler of about half of Europe, would help them emerge victorious.
Suleiman started the campaign by taking Buda and driving toward Vienna. The city was then defended by fewer than 20,000 soldiers, including Germans, Austrians, Spaniards and townspeople.
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The Ottoman army arrived at the gates of Vienna in late September, having been delayed and disrupted by heavy rains and the attendant muddy roads that made moving an army, especially siege guns, difficult.
Fighting was fierce, as the defenders understood that to lose would mean the citizens of Vienna would be put to the sword.
Fortunately for them, the weather grew progressively worse, causing Ottoman supply lines, which depended on good roads, to break down.
On Oct. 16, 1529, Suleiman gave up, put the wounded in wagons and headed east for Constantinople. The Ottoman Empire’s first effort to crush Europe had failed.
They would be back, besieging Vienna again in 1683, but they had already missed their best chance. By then, the West was ready, and the Ottomans would be crushed outside the walls by the allied relief forces under the command of Jan Sobieski, king of Poland.
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I mention all this on the anniversary of perhaps the most important single battle in the history of Christendom because we are, again, in an election season where partisans on all sides would like us to believe that the outcome of these particular elections will be eschatologically dispositive to the future of the United States.
The reality is that elections, especially in the United States, tend to be conducted within a very narrow range of philosophical and intellectual preferences. They also tend to reflect and collect sentiments that already exist in the populace. That means they rarely surprise with a sudden lurch to the left or right.
In the course of this election season, for example, both sides have run campaigns that have been, for the most part, bereft of meaningful policy preferences. That is because, although the electorate in the United States may be more polarized than usual, it is polarized within a very narrow band of the political spectrum.
In other words, despite the number of people on the margins, there is considerable agreement on the fundamentals of our society.
Finally, it is important to understand what elections are and what they are not. They are hardly ever a veiled or obvious demand for truly fundamental change. They are rarely a prelude to social disintegration, except for that one time. They are not aspirational statements about our lives. They have nothing to do with your personal salvation.
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They are simply the way we select those who will rule over us for a very limited period. The genius of the American experiment is that power is diffused across society, and political power is diffused among numerous actors working on different timelines and in different jurisdictions. The system is specifically designed to minimize the importance of any specific election.
So, as you go to vote, keep your perspective. Think about the defenders of Vienna in 1529 who made decisions that legitimately defined and defended a civilization, as well as their own personal lives. It will help you limit the natural impulse to inflate the importance of your electoral decisions.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.
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