The World According to Roger Stone

Roger Stone, top Republican political strategist, broke the mold and turned American political life into a full contact sport - or so he tells us in the documentary ‘Get Me Roger Stone’. History, however, proves otherwise.

The documentary currently available on Netflix features a character, probably unknown to most of the Danish public, but infamous in the dark corners and hallways of Washington. If we are talking about appearance, Roger Stone is not one of your run of the mill politicos. The dash he cuts with his overbearing style is an odd one. Stagey in its self-promotion, but ultimately fit for purpose, it cues an important message to the world. What counts is not who you are, but what you appear to be. An adage that makes perfect sense when considering that as early as the 1980s when he was one of the premier Republican consultant and lobbyists on Capitol Hill, Stone grasped how a real estate tycoon, Donald Trump - low on substance, but high on self-regard - could one day emerge as a viable presidential candidate. He absorbed the reality that in American politics celebrity matters most. As a result, Stone surfaced as one of Donald Trump’s most trusted advisers, showing off his special talents, some say, by orchestrating the WikiLeaks dump of Hillary Clinton’s emails in 2016. Whatever shady dealings occurred, the current Mueller Investigation intends to get to the bottom of it.

Yet, even before the arrival of Election Day, Stone had fallen out of favor with the Trump tribe. Precisely for much of the same reason why another political ‘middleman’ Steve Bannon was banished not so long ago: he soaked up too much limelight.

Whereas the President truly stands ignominiously alone, an unprecedented phenomenon chipping away at the fabric of the nation daily in the flash of 140 characters, Stone is by no means a one-off. His kind have been trudging around Washington DC for ages, since the place was, well, literally a swamp more than 200 years ago.

The political fixer has always been around
​No matter how much Americans mythologize the country’s founding as a veritable golden age, the early Republic was a rough business. Dueling days they were, in which politicians would meet with pistols at dawn. Barbaric as it was, American politics back then, at least came packaged with a dose of decorum. Emphasis on honor and comportment, quaint to modern ears, was as much part of the American ethos as the demand for liberty. When not risking their lives to shield their reputations, the “Founding Fathers” relied on their own cadre of political fixers who were willing to get their boots more than just muddy.

Standing between the nexus of politics and journalism, they were known as pamphleteers. Men like Benjamin Bache, William Cobbett and the most reptilian of them all, James T. Callender who worked as an agent for Thomas Jefferson no less, author of America’s Declaration of Independence. All the historical evidence now points to that deep down, Jefferson was the equivalent of a Borgen binge-watching political beast. In his public life, however, Jefferson tried his hardest to give off a vastly different impression. Routinely selling himself as either a humble yeoman farmer or the serene “man of letters” with the nickname “Sage of Monticello”. As any political consultant will tell you, feigning a disinterest in politics is the best way to appeal to the voting public. Which is why in going after his main rival in the upcoming 1800 Presidential election, the first Secretary of the Treasury in US history, Alexander Hamilton, Jefferson required the services of someone to meddle on his behalf. Enter Callender, rogue émigré from Scotland on the run for sedition, little to lose, the perfect behind the scenes attack dog.

Showing his cleverness right away, Callender was able to ferret out a blockbuster scandal involving Hamilton committing adultery, whispers of a cover up, Hamilton allegedly arranging “hush money”, directly from Treasury coffers. Backed into a corner, Hamilton went to great lengths to “get ahead of the story,” to use the parlance of our times. He publicly confessed to committing adultery in order to clear his name over what he believed to be far severer crime which he did not commit: financial impropriety. In admitting adultery, Hamilton forfeited his best chance to become President. Again, risking one’s political career to defend one’s reputation was a choice never that far away for Hamilton’s generation, a connection of thought that our modern day politicians seemingly refuse to ponder.

At any rate, Callender’s gift for mischief won Jefferson’s approval, but their clandestine partnership proved short lived. Jefferson, having won the presidency, refused to appoint Callender as a postmaster (a position of prized status in the early years of the American Republic). Feeling betrayed, Callender deserted his former patron for the Federalists, the party of Alexander Hamilton, and wreaked his vengeance. He flooded shocking stories across the country about Jefferson fathering illegitimate children with one of his slave mistresses, Sally Hemmings; a controversy that still clings heavily to Jefferson’s legacy today.

In a swift volte face that mirrors Callender’s, Stone has hinted at something similar. Promising to write a tell all book on what he sees as Trump’s oncoming demise, though he hopes he doesn’t have to, always keeping the door open for a rapprochement with the White House. Callender, on the other hand, never got the option to make amends with his benefactor Jefferson. Shortly after abandoning him, he was found dead mysteriously drowned on a riverbank in three feet of water.

An endangered species
If we are to believe that before Roger Stone nothing like him existed in Washington, we ought to think again. There is another point of interest, though, looming larger. What does the future hold for Stone when elected officials no longer even try to pretend to be respectable? What happens when they come to realize that alleged villainy is not a liability, but an electoral asset? Voters begin to infer that such behavior as the makings of winner? If there is one sweeping trend that is apparent in our 21st century, it is that ‘the middleman,’ regardless of field or occupation, is on the way out. That means the day is approaching when political operatives like Stone will be an endangered species. Why get someone else to secretly “grease the wheels”, as it were, when you can brazenly expedite it yourself on the cheap. Just peer across the ocean to the current example of the President of the United States.

This comment is an extended version of an analysis published in Jyllands-Posten on 19 February 2018.