In a recent History of Art and Architecture class, I learned that Renaissance architects and politicians considered beautiful buildings to be strategically integral to military defense. They operated under the assumption that opposing forces would be slow to invade a famously beautiful city, loath to destroy examples of the pinnacle of human achievement. In essence, they considered beauty a shield. This struck me as not irrelevant to Garrett’s discussion of politics and aesthetics. All politics are aesthetic but not all politics are beautiful. The same is true of buildings. A building or a political style intended as a defense mechanism would, by the logic of the Renaissance, do well to be beautiful. It follows that it would also do well to be universally accepted to be beautiful. Perhaps this is one of the reasons the Renaissance hearkened back to the architectural vernacular of ancient Rome. At the time, no aesthetic standard was more universally respected or more universally propagated than that of antiquity.

Many Democratic primary voters seem to be subscribers to this philosophy. We supporters of Obama have latched onto a political aesthetic with an inherent grace and a universal appeal. Liberal America loves Obama because he, his family, his words, and his vision strike us as beautiful, and because significant portions of Independent and Conservative America apparently agree with us. He can win and he can look good doing it. He’s a Palladian church, and we know the world agrees with us. No primary opponent, no Republican, and no foreign enemy would dare to launch a missile at his pristine Corinthian columns and his radiant marble floors. Or so we thought. (And think?) Only time will tell.