It's easy to get caught up in the presidential horserace and forget how absurd the whole system has become. It isn't just the ridiculousness of modern campaigns that have would-be presidents running around from venue to venue making unkeepable promises to countless constituencies. The Presidency itself today has taken on a role in American life that is completely beyond what the Founders intended.
This is the case that Gene Healy makes in his new book, The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Presidential Power, and in a piece today in Reason Magazine:
This messianic campaign rhetoric merely reflects what the office has evolved into after decades of public clamoring. The vision of the president as national guardian and spiritual redeemer is so ubiquitous it goes virtually unnoticed. Americans, left, right, and other, think of the "commander in chief" as a superhero, responsible for swooping to the rescue when danger strikes. And with great responsibility comes great power.
It's difficult for 21st-century Americans to imagine things any other way. The United States appears stuck with an imperial presidency, an office that concentrates enormous power in the hands of whichever professional politician manages to claw his way to the top. Americans appear deeply ambivalent about the results, alternately cursing the king and pining for Camelot. But executive power will continue to grow, and threats to civil liberties increase, until citizens reconsider the incentives we have given to a post that started out so humble.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. The modern vision of the presidency couldn't be further from the Framers' view of the chief executive's role. In an age long before distrust of power was condemned as cynicism, the Founding Fathers designed a presidency of modest authority and limited responsibilities. The Constitution's architects never conceived of the president as the man in charge of national destiny. They worked amid the living memory of monarchy, and for them the very notion of "national leadership" raised the possibility of authoritarian rule by a demagogue ready to create an atmosphere of crisis in order to enhance his power.
I haven't had a chance to pick up the book yet, but knowing Gene's working, it will undoubtedly be eye opening and entertaining. In the meantime, read the whole article in Reason.
2 Comments
muirgeo | May 13, 2008, 1:34pm | #
Hello Carrie I hear you regularly during your excellent debates on the Thom Hartmann show.
Regarding the presidential elections the reason they are so long drawn out and ridiculous is simply a function of allowing profit driven corporate media to control them because they are a goal mine for their ratings. The elections are an example of where the free-market hurts our democracy. The idea that money is free- speech is simply wrong. The elections need to be run publicly and financed publicly in my opinion.
As far as imperial presidencies this current administration has pushed the idea to the extreme. An administration that is as secretive as any an in my opinion has used the war , the 9-11 tragedy and fear mongering to consolidate its power.
Presidential signing statements, destroyed e-mails, placing generals into the media to push war propaganda when they have conflicts of interest because of their ties to contractors.... and on and on... indeed the founding fathers would look at this administration with disdain and disbelief.
Bottom line is the imperial presidency is a result of poorly regulated markets that allow massive concentration of wealth and power among a few multinational corporations and take it away from the people.
Maureen | May 20, 2008, 2:43pm | #
Please write an article on our truest conservative Independent Candidate Dr. Alan Keyes. He is truly in this race for unselfish reasons. Check him out at www.alankeyes.com