Shawn Macomber reviews Gene Healy’s book, The Cult of the Presidency.
I came of political age in the ’90s, with the conservative critique of Waco, and during a time when conservatives often opposed foreign adventurism. Though I identified myself as a libertarian, I always associated conservatism with a realistic view of human nature and, accordingly, skepticism toward unchecked power. And the conservatives I knew best had spent the ’90s trying to convince the country that the executive branch had been seized by an utterly corrupt bunch of people who could not be trusted with power. Yet here they were in the new century, endorsing every one of the Bush administration’s extravagant constitutional claims. This seemed especially odd when all the while the odds-on favorite to win the office was another candidate named Clinton.
Well, I came of political age in the early 1960s, not the 90s, and it’s just as much a mystery to me why conservatives did that. It’s just as disheartening to me as the discovery, in the very late 60s, that so many conservative Republicans didn’t really oppose civil rights laws on constitutional grounds after all. They were just racists.
It was so depressing that by 1972 I had become an anti-Nixonite McGovernite. I had partially recovered by 1976, and fully recovered soon after Ronald Reagan’s administration began in 1981.
I’m not sure what I’ll do about it this time.