Nearly a half-century on the national stage surely entitles a leader to some valedictory words, and if Jerry Brown were a conventional politician one could easily imagine what those words might be:
Though the sun is setting on my time of public service, it will always be rising for this great state et cetera, et cetera, and though we face daunting challenges let me assure you that I have never been more optimistic about the endless promise of blah, blah, blah.
But if Jerry Brown were a conventional politician he would never have been on the national stage for a half-century. He would have been shooed off it several decades ago, to a chorus of mockery about his supposedly eccentric style and mournful commentary about faded promise and what might have been.
Instead, at age 80, Brown is leaving the governorship of the nation’s largest state in a few hours, at noon on Monday. If this departure seems a bit reluctant—he pauses slightly, before demurring when I ask him if he wishes he could keep his job—it is emphatically on his own terms. A leader who at times has been treated as a figure of ridicule has vindicated his place as one of the most serious people in American life across two generations.
During an interview with POLITICO at the governor’s mansion here in late December, Brown was indeed serious. He is not full of warm words about the native wisdom of the people: They strike him as scared, easily prone to distraction and cynical manipulation. He is not more optimistic than ever: He is worried the planet is hurtling toward catastrophe.
How does he see the world in 2019? “Dangerous—and we’re lucky to be alive,” Brown said, his voice rising. “Humankind has created—certainly since the invention of the atomic bomb, but also biological breakthroughs, cyber capacities—humankind has the capacity of vast, vast destruction, even the elimination of human beings themselves, all over the planet. That could be in a matter of days, certainly with the nuclear.”
And yet, as he sees it, America’s entire political culture—elected officials, the news media, intellectuals—seems blithely disengaged from the magnitude of the peril, endlessly distracted by trivia. On climate change, nuclear proliferation and the new awareness that technology can be an instrument of oppression as well as individual empowerment, he continued: “The threat is huge; the response is puny; and the consciousness, the awareness is pathetically small.”
Brown has been reading lately about World War I and sees contemporary parallels between the inability of that generation’s elites to comprehend or control the forces thrusting civilization toward disaster: “I find the metaphor most congenial to describing this problem is sleepwalking.”
Brown may be the most brooding of any major figure in American life, as arresting in its own way as President Donald Trump and his jeremiads about “American carnage.” He regards Trump as a dangerous fraud but also “a symptom” of “widespread estrangement” of people from institutions and leaders they no longer trust—a phenomenon he has observed and often agreed with for decades. He wasn’t surprised that Trump stood out from the “pabulum and predictability” that conventional candidates were offering in 2016.
The message is not “Morning in America,” to borrow the phrase of Brown’s immediate predecessor. Ronald Reagan, of course, after winning the governorship in 1974, went on to a job that Brown very much wanted.
Early in his career Brown was widely seen as an interesting figure but too young to be president. Then for a time he was seen as interesting but too weird. Now he is undeniably still an interesting figure—and, in key respects, at last powerfully in synch with the politics of the moment—but too old.
After years as a second-tier issue, climate change is finally moving to a central place in the Democratic debate; Brown has been a prominent voice on energy and environmental matters since the 1970s. Mistrust of big money and corrupt elites is now shaping the politics of both major parties; Brown has been offering a similar critique and promoting citizen empowerment for decades. At the same time, his emphasis on fiscal discipline has sometimes put him at odds with California liberals.
A couple hours before our interview, at an appearance at the Sacramento Press Club, Brown said it was a mistake to run for president three times—“one too many times,” he lamented, of his bids in 1976, 1980 and 1992—and acknowledged a nugget of political wisdom he first learned from another governor, his father Pat Brown: “Everything is timing.” (...)
Brown belongs with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy as figures who shaped American politics in recent decades more than anyone who did not actually achieve the Oval Office.
It is a rare politician who could generate enthusiasm for offices so much lower than ones he has already held. Why was Brown not too proud for that? “Well, because I’m practical,” he told me. “My skills lie in the political domain. So, outside of office I have less to accomplish and less to do. … I never saw my father work on a car. I never saw him pick up a hammer. I never saw him pick up a broom. But I did hear him talk. I did see him go to meetings. And so I learned the skills of the political and that’s why I pursued it.”
When he returned as governor eight years ago, Brown resolved that he would not be confined narrowly to state issues, and instead would use the office as a platform for existential issues affecting the planet, like climate change and the nuclear peril. He speaks often with former Defense Secretary William J. Perry, for instance, and once burrowed away reviewing a book by Perry arguing that the nuclear catastrophe remains much more probable than people realize.
But Brown says he is not expecting these efforts to loom large in history. My colleagues have noted that Brown is allergic to the word “legacy,” a point he proved in the interview. “Who can remember the legacy?” he said, bristling at my question. “Presidents have legacies in ways that governors don’t. They don’t write the history of governors.”
What follows are excerpts of POLITICO’s conversation with outgoing California Gov. Jerry Brown. The questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Though the sun is setting on my time of public service, it will always be rising for this great state et cetera, et cetera, and though we face daunting challenges let me assure you that I have never been more optimistic about the endless promise of blah, blah, blah.
But if Jerry Brown were a conventional politician he would never have been on the national stage for a half-century. He would have been shooed off it several decades ago, to a chorus of mockery about his supposedly eccentric style and mournful commentary about faded promise and what might have been.
Instead, at age 80, Brown is leaving the governorship of the nation’s largest state in a few hours, at noon on Monday. If this departure seems a bit reluctant—he pauses slightly, before demurring when I ask him if he wishes he could keep his job—it is emphatically on his own terms. A leader who at times has been treated as a figure of ridicule has vindicated his place as one of the most serious people in American life across two generations.During an interview with POLITICO at the governor’s mansion here in late December, Brown was indeed serious. He is not full of warm words about the native wisdom of the people: They strike him as scared, easily prone to distraction and cynical manipulation. He is not more optimistic than ever: He is worried the planet is hurtling toward catastrophe.
How does he see the world in 2019? “Dangerous—and we’re lucky to be alive,” Brown said, his voice rising. “Humankind has created—certainly since the invention of the atomic bomb, but also biological breakthroughs, cyber capacities—humankind has the capacity of vast, vast destruction, even the elimination of human beings themselves, all over the planet. That could be in a matter of days, certainly with the nuclear.”
And yet, as he sees it, America’s entire political culture—elected officials, the news media, intellectuals—seems blithely disengaged from the magnitude of the peril, endlessly distracted by trivia. On climate change, nuclear proliferation and the new awareness that technology can be an instrument of oppression as well as individual empowerment, he continued: “The threat is huge; the response is puny; and the consciousness, the awareness is pathetically small.”
Brown has been reading lately about World War I and sees contemporary parallels between the inability of that generation’s elites to comprehend or control the forces thrusting civilization toward disaster: “I find the metaphor most congenial to describing this problem is sleepwalking.”
Brown may be the most brooding of any major figure in American life, as arresting in its own way as President Donald Trump and his jeremiads about “American carnage.” He regards Trump as a dangerous fraud but also “a symptom” of “widespread estrangement” of people from institutions and leaders they no longer trust—a phenomenon he has observed and often agreed with for decades. He wasn’t surprised that Trump stood out from the “pabulum and predictability” that conventional candidates were offering in 2016.
The message is not “Morning in America,” to borrow the phrase of Brown’s immediate predecessor. Ronald Reagan, of course, after winning the governorship in 1974, went on to a job that Brown very much wanted.
Early in his career Brown was widely seen as an interesting figure but too young to be president. Then for a time he was seen as interesting but too weird. Now he is undeniably still an interesting figure—and, in key respects, at last powerfully in synch with the politics of the moment—but too old.
After years as a second-tier issue, climate change is finally moving to a central place in the Democratic debate; Brown has been a prominent voice on energy and environmental matters since the 1970s. Mistrust of big money and corrupt elites is now shaping the politics of both major parties; Brown has been offering a similar critique and promoting citizen empowerment for decades. At the same time, his emphasis on fiscal discipline has sometimes put him at odds with California liberals.
A couple hours before our interview, at an appearance at the Sacramento Press Club, Brown said it was a mistake to run for president three times—“one too many times,” he lamented, of his bids in 1976, 1980 and 1992—and acknowledged a nugget of political wisdom he first learned from another governor, his father Pat Brown: “Everything is timing.” (...)
Brown belongs with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy as figures who shaped American politics in recent decades more than anyone who did not actually achieve the Oval Office.
It is a rare politician who could generate enthusiasm for offices so much lower than ones he has already held. Why was Brown not too proud for that? “Well, because I’m practical,” he told me. “My skills lie in the political domain. So, outside of office I have less to accomplish and less to do. … I never saw my father work on a car. I never saw him pick up a hammer. I never saw him pick up a broom. But I did hear him talk. I did see him go to meetings. And so I learned the skills of the political and that’s why I pursued it.”
When he returned as governor eight years ago, Brown resolved that he would not be confined narrowly to state issues, and instead would use the office as a platform for existential issues affecting the planet, like climate change and the nuclear peril. He speaks often with former Defense Secretary William J. Perry, for instance, and once burrowed away reviewing a book by Perry arguing that the nuclear catastrophe remains much more probable than people realize.
But Brown says he is not expecting these efforts to loom large in history. My colleagues have noted that Brown is allergic to the word “legacy,” a point he proved in the interview. “Who can remember the legacy?” he said, bristling at my question. “Presidents have legacies in ways that governors don’t. They don’t write the history of governors.”
What follows are excerpts of POLITICO’s conversation with outgoing California Gov. Jerry Brown. The questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.
by John F. Harris, Politico | Read more:
Image: Stephen Lam/Getty
