Curb Your Presidentialism
Presidentialism is American Exceptionalism transferred to the arena of
politics. It is a vast and dangerous delusion. The sooner we wake up to that
fact the better for our democracy.
byAndrew Bacevich
A law enforcement officers guards the parade route in front of the White
House early morning ahead of the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Joe
Biden on January 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. During today's inauguration
ceremony Joe Biden becomes the 46th president of the United States. (Photo
by Mark Makela/Getty Images)
A law enforcement officers guards the parade route in front of the White
House early morning ahead of the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Joe
Biden on January 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. During today's inauguration
ceremony Joe Biden becomes the 46th president of the United States. (Photo
by Mark Makela/Getty Images)
As a self-professed conservative with no party affiliation, I join with my
progressive friends in viewing the approaching end of the Trump presidency
as cause for celebration. To quote a notable piece of presidential oratory,
"This American carnage stops right here and stops right now." Let us hope
so.
I do not wish to offer my own entry into the ongoing competition to describe
just how execrable Trump has been. My thesaurus (Roget's International, 5th
edition) contains literally dozens of synonyms for bad, ranging from "nasty"
and "malodorous," to "dangerous" and "evil." In one way or another, almost
all of them apply to President Trump and his administration.
That said, perhaps unlike some of my progressive friends, my expectations of
the incoming Biden administration presiding over a Great American
Restoration are muted.
Dr. King's "giant triplets" remain, posing a greater threat to our democracy
than Trump ever did even at his most devious. Should we be serious about
addressing that threat, we must look not to the White House but to
ourselves.
As Joe Biden prepares to take the Oath of Office as our 46th President, I
wish him well. I am confident that his intentions are honorable. Unlike his
predecessor, he takes office having already acquired considerable experience
in governing. Unlike his predecessor who seemingly viewed the presidency
less as a job than as a performance venue, Biden will tend seriously to his
duties. He will apply himself. He will work hard.
But let's face it: At 78, he is an old man. With advancing age comes a loss
of energy, memory, and intellectual acuity. To defend myself against charges
of ageism, let me just say that I speak from personal experience.
There is also the fact that as a career politician, Biden never figured as a
candidate for inclusion in a revised and expanded edition of Profiles in
Courage. Most writers are hacks. Most ballplayers are journeymen. Most art
is forgettable and most artists quickly forgotten. Few politicians ever
leave a legacy worth remembering. Over the course of several decades serving
in the U.S. Senate, Biden has never numbered among those few.
In 1957, a Senate committee chaired by John F. Kennedy recommended Henry
Clay (Ky.), John C. Calhoun (S.C.), Daniel Webster (Mass.), Robert Taft
(Ohio), and Robert La Follette, Sr. (Wis.) for inclusion in a senatorial
"hall of fame." Were such a committee to convene today, it would not add Joe
Biden to the ranks of senatorial demigods.
No doubt our 46th president will represent a distinct improvement over our
45th. But it does not fall within his capability to expiate the sins
besetting our nation. To my knowledge, no one has improved on Martin Luther
King's description of those sins: the "giant triplets" of racism,
materialism, and militarism.
Among the many baffling aspects of political tradition, surely the strangest
must be the widely held conviction that the occupant of the Oval Office
determines the fate of the country and of the planet. Call it
presidentialism.
Presidentialism is the Big Lie of American politics. It is a far bigger lie
than all the middling lies that Donald Trump told over the course of his
four years in the White House.
Every time I hear a U.S. president referred to as "the most powerful man in
the world," I am reminded of that lie. After Biden is inaugurated today,
let's ask Mitch McConnell if our new president is the most powerful man in
the world. Or we might pose the same question to Xi Jinping or Jeff Bezos
or-heck, why not-Pope Francis.
The last days of the Trump presidency should suffice to refute the Big Lie.
The supposedly most powerful man in the world attempted to overturn the
results of the November 2020 election and failed. In a despicable act,
hooligans trashed the Capitol. They never came close to overturning the
Constitutional order.
Presidentialism is American Exceptionalism transferred to the arena of
politics. It is a vast and dangerous delusion. The sooner we wake up to that
fact the better for our democracy.
Although 2020 was a rotten year, our Republic has survived worse. Trump's
departure from office is cause for celebration. But Dr. King's "giant
triplets" remain, posing a greater threat to our democracy than Trump ever
did even at his most devious. Should we be serious about addressing that
threat, we must look not to the White House but to ourselves.
