By David Harsanyi
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
This incessant clamoring by voters and punditry for
better “leaders” and more “leadership” is one of the most unsavory, dangerous,
and un-American tendencies in political discourse.
When Donald Trump was asked last week by Joe Scarborough
what he made of an endorsement from Vladimir Putin—a thug who’s probably
murdered journalists and political opponents, and more—the GOP frontrunner
responded: “He’s running his country and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we
have in this country,” before offering an incredibly dumb moral equivalency
about the United States also doing “plenty of killing.”
There was plenty of well-earned criticism directed at
Trump’s comments. Most commenters weren’t offended because the Russians are
being aggressively “led,” mind you, but that Putin does things we don’t approve
of. Perhaps if the Russian strongman had used his muscle to tackle global
warming, like the Chinese communists are pretending to do, The New York Times editorial page would praise him for his
forethought and willingness to act. If Putin banned protests aimed at abortion
clinics instead of Pussy Riot, how many progressives would cheer him?
In contemporary American parlance, and maybe it’s always
been this way, a “leader” typically describes someone who will aggressively
push your preferred policies. How much do Americans really care what this
aggressiveness entails?
Trump’s entire case is propelled by the notion that a
single (self-identified) competent, strong-willed president, without any
perceptible deference to the foundational ideals of the nation, will be able to
smash any cultural or political obstacles standing in the way of making America
Great Again.
But this is certainly not the first time we’ve seen
voters adopt a cultish reverence for a strong-willed presidential candidate
without any perceptible deference to the foundational ideals of the country
whose personal charisma was supposed to shatter obstacles standing in the way
of making America great again. Many of the same people anxious about the
authoritarian overtones of Trump’s appeal were unconcerned about the intense
adulation that adoring crowds showered on Obama in 2008, though the spectacle
featured similarly troubling signs—the iconography, the messianic messaging,
and the implausible promises of government-produced comfort and safety. Just as
President Trump fans will judge every person on how nice or mean they are to
Trump, so too, those rooting against Obama were immediately branded unpatriotic
or racist.
Obama’s inevitable failure to live up to the hype has had
many repercussions, and none of them healthy.
One: the hypocrisy of liberalism, which only a few years
before was lamenting how W.’s abuses had destroyed the republic, now justify
Obama’s numerous executive overreaches because they correspond with liberal
political aims. Obama’s argument—and thus, the contention of his fans—seems to
pivot on the notion that the president has a moral imperative to “act” on his
favored policies because the law-making
branch of government refuses to do so. That is weird. This reasoning will
almost certainly be modus operandi
for presidents unable to push through their own agendas—which, considering
where the country is headed, will be every president.
Two: other liberals (and maybe many of the same ones)
argue that Obama hasn’t done enough
with his power; that the president is unwilling to lead, even if there
procedural or constitutional barriers for him to achieve what they demand. Too
many Americans seem to believe presidents can make laws if they “fight” hard
enough, and now view checks and balances as antiquated and unnecessary
impediment to progress.
Three: many one-time small-government conservatives,
frustrated with president’s success and the impotence and corruption of their
party (often a legitimate complaint, but often an overestimation of politicians
can accomplish) are interested in finding their own Obama—or what they imagine
Obama is: which is to say, a dictator.
Not that this fetishizing of ‘leadership’ is confined to
the progressive left or the conservative right. In fact, more than anyone in
American discourse, the self-styled moderate pundit loves to talk about
leadership. It would be a full-time job cataloging how often a person will read
about the nation’s dearth of genuine leadership—which is, in essence a call to
ignore the democratic forces that make truly free governing messy and
uncomfortable. There are entire conferences teeming with DC technocrats trying
to figure out how proles can be led to preferred outcomes and decisions. The
moderates seem to believe that organic disagreements can be smoothed over by a
smart speech or two, while they always mythologize the political leadership of
the past.
For many, it’s always the worst of times, and we’re
always in need of the greatest of leaders. It’s worth mentioning that Putin is
democratically elected, with polls showing his approval rating usually
somewhere in 80s. Unity! Regrettably, sometimes I think that’s how unity would
look here, as well. We, on the other hand, have disparate forces with an array
of concerns, outlooks, and conflicting worldviews. This is why we might be
thankful that federalism and individual freedom, often scoffed at, are at the
heart of the American founding.
“There is danger from all men,” wrote John Adams, in what
might be the most genuinely conservative of all positions. It crossed my mind
recently that today the president of the United States has more power than any
king or queen in Europe. Now, obviously you have to have a certain skill set to
bring people to some consensus, to make decisions about war and to administrate
a massive body like our government. But the president is not your savior. A
person empowered to make everything great also has the power to make everything
horrible. If a president can alone transform America, then something has gone
terribly wrong with the system.
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