Tim Alberta, in his deeply-reported The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory (Harper Collins, 2023), paints a particularly devastating portrait of Donald Trump’s most influential political promoter, Ralph Reed, a “master manipulator” with a “wedding-photo smile… polished rings on both hands, cuff links the size of half-dollars.” Time in 1995 put Reed at age 33 on its cover as “The Right Hand of God.”
My own interactions with Reed were slight. He impressed me in 1999 during a dinner at the Governor’s Mansion in Austin with George W. Bush, Karl Rove, and my wife and myself. He depressed me in 2006 when World reporter Jamie Dean exposed his role in that year’s Abramoff scandal. Reed was running for lieutenant governor of Georgia that year, but after World’s story he narrowly lost the Republican primary, and it’s probable that our coverage made the difference.
One view of history embraces chaos theory, which emphasizes the butterfly effect: at the extreme, a butterfly flapping its wings makes a tiny change in wind currents, and two weeks later a hurricane hits. Or, as the father of theoretical computer science, Alan Turing, wrote in 1950, “The displacement of a single electron by a billionth of a centimeter at one moment might make the difference between a man being killed by an avalanche a year later, or escaping.”
In political history, one small change can make a huge difference down the road. Assassination attempts are the clearest: a change of an inch or two in a bullet’s flight, and Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, Ronald Reagan in 1981, and Donald Trump in 2024 die. If Reed had not lost that Republican primary, he probably would have become lieutenant governor. He could then have used that as a steppingstone to the Senate, and then run for president on his own in 2016, instead of supporting Donald Trump.
Three views of history collide. In a 20th century materially deterministic view, individuals don’t matter. In a 19th century “great man” view, individuals are crucial, but they rise to power through chance circumstances. In a first century and 21st century Christian view, as Jesus teaches in Matthew 10:29-31, not a single sparrow falls to the ground apart from God’s providence—often mysterious, always active.
Marvin Olasky edited World from 1992 to 2021.
After -Bragging- Your article probably changed History- You then Sashay off into a ton of -IFs. No real
Point to your article.