Here is an interesting essay by Ross Douthat. I have noticed over the years that frustration with Congressional dysfunction has at times fueled the popularity of certain figures. These are guys who we imagine, by the strength of their personality, will lead us out of gridlock and polarization and restore "greatness" to the fruited plain. 

Think of it. First there was Ross Perot. An ideology free technocrat who was going to peak under the nation's hood and get things going. Then Ron Paul. Finally, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. One could even argue that the Obama of 2008 was envisioned to be a magical transformative candidate, rising above the messiness of federalism and Congressional power.

This raises a question. Do we put too much importance on the Presidential election and too little on Congressional politics?
And if, we really want the imperial Presidency, should we change things such that he actually has the power to bring about the change we hunger for? I think that would be exceedingly dangerous, but I'm just one guy.


Give Us a King!
 Ross Douthat

EVERY era gets the heroic founding father it deserves, and thanks to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s celebrated musical, ours has Alexander Hamilton — the immigrant striver, the political genius, and of course, the closet monarchist.

Now “monarchist” is a little unfair. Hamilton floated the idea of a presidency-for-life during the fraught debates over the Constitution, and favored a powerful executive throughout his tumultuous career. But he was probably only a true royalist in the propaganda of his enemies.

Nonetheless, the Hamiltonian influence on our constitutional order — his vision of a highly centralized government with an energetic executive in the saddle — has contributed mightily to the rise of our imperial presidency, the gradual return of what the historian F. H. Buckley calls “crown government” in the land of the free.

And that legacy is at work in the current political moment. Executive-branch Caesarism has been raised to new heights by the last two presidents, and important parts of the country have responded by upping the ante, and — like ancient Israelites in the Book of Samuel — basically clamoring for a king.

That clamor is loudest from the Trumpistas and their dear leader. Donald Trump is clearly running to be an American caudillo, not the president of a constitutional republic, and his entire campaign is a cult of personality in the style of (the pro-Trump) Vladimir Putin.

But the response to Trump is equally telling. The alleged wise men of the center keep imagining that the problem with Trumpism is just its vulgarity and race-baiting, and that a benevolent technocrat could step in and lead the country out of gridlock and polarization, into the broad, sunlit uplands of reform.

Michael Bloomberg sensibly recused himself from this role. But the dream lives on, most recently in the former Politico executive editor Jim VandeHei’s Wall Street Journal op-ed urging the formation of an “Innovation Party,” to be led by our Facebook-Google overlords and our best military minds.

VandeHei’s piece was deservedly mocked on political Twitter, but his impatience with the two-party system as we know it is shared across the country’s upper class, from Silicon Valley to the (ahem, Hamiltonian) world of finance.

Meanwhile, his enthusiasm for military expertise is shared by a portion (the richer portion, in particular) of the #neverTrump movement, which in casting about for a political savior fastened on the retired Marine Corps general James Mattis. Sure, Mattis has neither political experience nor stated positions on any issues, but if you’re going to have a caudillo, why not one with an actual uniform? (Sensibly Mattis recused himself as well.)

Tellingly, none of these Trump-era enthusiasms involve a reinvigoration of congressional prerogatives or a renewed push for federalism and states’ rights.

Quite the reverse: They all imagine that the solution to our problems lies with a more effective and still-more-empowered president, free from antique constitutional limits and graced with a mandate that transcends partisanship.

And equally tellingly, they are enthusiasms of the center-left and center-right rather than the ideological extremes. This is obviously true of the people pining for a Bloomberg era, a Silicon Valley-led administration, or a Mattis man-on-horseback presidency. But it’s true of Trump’s constituency as well: While the G.O.P.’s staunch ideologues are mostly voting for Ted Cruz, Trump is winning with Northeastern moderates and blue-collar populists, with voters who may be xenophobic but on many issues are closer to the political middle than to the poles.

It’s not that our ideologues are averse to an imperial presidency when their side is in charge. (The theory of Bernie Sanders’ campaign assumed a rather … remarkable level of presidential influence.) But the cult of the presidency is clearly strongest in the American center. This means that political polarization probably isn’t pushing us toward a Weimar moment, in which the only question is whether the far right or far left consolidates a dangerous level of power. Instead it’s encouraging a kind of moderate-middle enthusiasm for crown government, as a means of escape from congressional dysfunction and endless right-left war.

The good news for the republic is that this center is itself complex and divided, over specific issues like trade and immigration and then along lines of class and culture. The Bloombergist upper-class moderates fear the Trumpist working-class moderates, and Trump’s middle-American populists loathe the globalist elite right back. As long as that’s the case it’s hard to imagine them finding a centrist Caesar to actually unite behind. (Though they are united in their admiration for the military ...)

But even if the risk of a true post-constitutional power grab is low, the arc of our history still bends toward a Trumpian conception of the presidency, which means the limits on its power will probably continue to erode — justified in the name of pragmatism, of Hamiltonian energy, of the need to “get things done.”

“You’ll be back, time will tell, you’ll remember that I served you well,” George III sings to his rebellious subjects in “Hamilton.”

We still might prove him right.

Last edited by Goose (5/01/2016 7:38 am)