is Caesaropapism, the belief that the head of state should also be the head of the official church. It’s sort of the reverse of theocracy. That’s what George Will says Americans want:
Barack Obama recently said, “I believe in our ability to perfect this nation.” Clearly there is something the candidate of “change” will not change—the pattern of extravagant presidential rhetoric. Obama is trying to replace a president who vowed to “rid the world of evil”—and of tyranny, too.
But then, rhetorical—and related—excesses are inherent in the modern presidency. This is so for reasons brilliantly explored in the year’s most pertinent and sobering public affairs book, “The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power,” by Gene Healy of Washington’s libertarian Cato Institute.
Healy’s dissection of the delusions of “redemption through presidential politics” comes at a moment when liberals, for reasons of liberalism, and conservatives, because they have forgotten their raison d’être, “agree on the boundless nature of presidential responsibility.” Liberals think boundless government is beneficent. Conservatives practice situational constitutionalism, favoring what Healy calls “Caesaropapism” as long as the Caesar-cum-Pope wields his anti constitutional powers in the service of things these faux conservatives favor.
It’s not a new phenomenon. In the English-speaking world it goes back at least to Henry VIII.
It’s not what I want but I think there are a lot of Americans who do. As Bill Clinton put it Republicans want to fall in line, Democrats want to fall in love. I think he’s wrong about Republicans. They want a priest-king, too.
I’d be satisfied with a president (and Congress) that limited themselves to their enumerated powers. But, then, I’m a dreamer.
