Filed under: Politics
Gene Healy describes the modern presidency in his fantastic “The Cult of the Presidency”:
“Neither Left nor Right sees the President as the Framers saw him:a constitutionally constrained chief executive with an important, but limited, job: defend the country when attacked, check Congress when it violates the Constitution, enforce the law–and little else. Today, for conservatives as well as liberals, it is the president’s job to protect us from harm, to “grow the economy,” to spread democracy and American ideals abroad, and even to heal spiritual malaise–whether it takes the form of a “sleeping sickness of the soul,” as Hillary Clinton would have it, or an “if it feels good, do it” ethic, as diagnosed by George W. Bush.
Few Americans find anything amiss in the notion that it is the president’s duty to solve all large national problems and to unite us all in the service of a higher calling. The vision of the president as national guardian and redeemer is so ubiquitous that it goes unnoticed.
…
The Imperial Presidency is the price of making the office the focus of out national hopes and dreams.”
America has plenty of political problems to worry over. Patriots lose sleep over America becoming the world’s biggest debtor nation, American adventures abroad that are a boon for funeral parlors near military bases but leave Americans confused and scared and America hated abroad, or the growing conservative love affair with a behemoth executive. These are reasons to fear for America that do not involve imaginary existential threats abroad. But don’t tell that to the power-class as they celebrate themselves at the national conventions.
The spectacle so far has been enough to send the Joe Bauers of the world to the booby hatch. American policy may not be made at national party conventions, but at the conventions, these policies–products of nothing more or nothing less than battles between political interests–are packaged and delivered to the populace with a $25 gas card to ensure we don’t miss their sincerity.
I’ve been told I should lighten up, but I just can’t deny what is right in front of my eyes. I hated pep-rallies in high school, but at least their stated objective–beating a rival school in a game long since forgotten–was as trivial as the display preceding it. I wish I could say the same here, but I can’t. As we continue to spend trillions on foreign wars and domestic entitlements, we celebrate a candidate that will do little to curb the former and will expand the latter, while we will continue to borrow and borrow our way back into “prosperity.” We celebrate the right of a woman to chose death for her delicate, unborn child. Platitudes are not in short supply for the brain-dead in Denver.
And we haven’t even turned our attention to the bear-taunting bully McCain yet. The GOP convention–with liberal fear-mongerer Giuliani giving the keynote and rumors of VP candidates consisting of former liberals or current liberals–is hard to be seen as anything but a public show trial where traditional conservatism and non-intervention will be declared guilty of past evils, forced to the wall, and shot dead once and for all. The elephant will wear a sign declaring “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door… AS LONG AS THEY SUPPORT OUR WAR!“
There is always hope. Our history is full of it. Not Obama-hope. No, this hope can’t fit on a t-shirt. This little Republic will survive, I am sure of that. But how long will it take for the American people to realize that they are not watching a daytime drama or a Sunday-night sporting event, but the degradation and destruction of everything this country was built to stand for? As the great Ron Paul said on Neil Cavuto’s show:
“Our economy? Ok, let’s say we stay in Iraq for the next five years. I’m not going to argue about that any more. Let’s just stay indefinitely. How are we fiscally responsible republicans going to pay for it. Did you know we borrow billions from China every day to pay for the Iraq war? My finances would be in great order if I borrowed a million dollars a day, but some day the bill is going to come due.”
But it’s not just the economy. The chickens of our foreign entanglements, our destructive trade policy, our excessive culture, are coming home to roost. Let’s hope the folks wake up soon!
