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The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power
The modern presidency has become the central fault line of polarization in America because the president, increasingly, has the power to reshape vast swaths of American life. In The Cult of the Presidency, Gene Healy argues that “We, the People” are to blame. Americans on each side of the red-blue divide demand a president who can create jobs, teach our children well, tend to the “national soul”—and vanquish their culture-war enemies. Our political culture has invested the office with preposterously vast responsibilities, and as a result, the officeholder wields powers that no human being ought to have.
In a new preface to the 2024 edition, Healy argues that the rise of partisan hatred lends new urgency to the cause of re-limiting executive power. In the years since Cult was first published, politics has gone feral, with polls showing that substantial majorities of Democrats and Republicans view members of the other party as “a serious threat to the United States and its people.” At the same time, the most powerful office in the world has grown even more so. That’s raised the stakes of our political differences the issues that divide us most are now increasingly settled by whichever party manages to seize the office. In our partisan myopia, we’ve laid down the infrastructure for autocratic rule and sectarian warfare, making the presidency powerful enough to tear the country apart.
Interweaving historical scholarship, legal analysis, and trenchant cultural commentary, The Cult of the Presidency traces America’s decades‐long drift from the Framers’ vision for the a constitutionally constrained chief magistrate charged with faithful execution of the laws. Restoring that vision will require a Congress and a Court willing to check executive power, but Healy emphasizes that there is no simple legislative or judicial fix. Unless Americans change what we ask of the office—no longer demanding what we should not want and cannot have—we’ll get what, in a sense, we deserve.
In a new preface to the 2024 edition, Healy argues that the rise of partisan hatred lends new urgency to the cause of re-limiting executive power. In the years since Cult was first published, politics has gone feral, with polls showing that substantial majorities of Democrats and Republicans view members of the other party as “a serious threat to the United States and its people.” At the same time, the most powerful office in the world has grown even more so. That’s raised the stakes of our political differences the issues that divide us most are now increasingly settled by whichever party manages to seize the office. In our partisan myopia, we’ve laid down the infrastructure for autocratic rule and sectarian warfare, making the presidency powerful enough to tear the country apart.
Interweaving historical scholarship, legal analysis, and trenchant cultural commentary, The Cult of the Presidency traces America’s decades‐long drift from the Framers’ vision for the a constitutionally constrained chief magistrate charged with faithful execution of the laws. Restoring that vision will require a Congress and a Court willing to check executive power, but Healy emphasizes that there is no simple legislative or judicial fix. Unless Americans change what we ask of the office—no longer demanding what we should not want and cannot have—we’ll get what, in a sense, we deserve.
545 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 10, 2024
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About the author
Gene Healy
9 books6 followersGene Healy's newest book is The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power. As senior editor at the Cato Institute, he is responsible for reviewing and editing Cato policy studies and other publications. His research interests include federalism, criminal justice, constitutional war powers, civil liberties, and the war on terror. From 1994 to 1996, Healy served as managing editor of Cato's Regulation magazine. He returned to Cato in October 2001 after law school and two years of private practice as an attorney in the commercial litigation group at the law firm Howrey Simon Arnold & White. Healy is a contributing editor to Liberty magazine, as well as the editor of Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything. His writing has been published in the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, and elsewhere. Healy holds a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School."
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October 20, 2024
If you believe in checks & balances, separation of power, and government restraint, this can be a depressing book to read. This was originally published during the twilight of the George W Bush administration, with a preface dated right before the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
Throughout all of it, Healy does a good job outlining the American presidency's path from chief magistrate to "extraconstitutional monstrosity." In short, presidents exceed the bounds of their power, the courts are extremely deferential when legal challenges arise, Congress cedes its authority to the executive branch, while voters, historians, and pop culture often lend their applause to this outcome (especially when their side sits in the White House).
A sober reading of this should give one pause when they hear how democracy in America is at stake in our elections. Democracy's ascent in America has coincided with the ascent of the imperial presidency: wars without authorization, constitutional restraints tossed aside, statutes violated, power usurped from other branches of government. Is this what Progressive reformers had in mind when they saw the president as our "national representative"? Is there a meaningful distinction between this and conservative "unitary executive theory"?
Healy's book covers a lot of the same terrain as Andrew Napolitano does in his book Suicide Pact. A reader probably doesn't need to read both books to get the main idea. Healy's book feels a little more focused, although he doesn't cover "enhanced interrogations" beyond addressing the "Torture Memos." Napolitano's strength is his discussion of natural rights. Either book is recommended.
Throughout all of it, Healy does a good job outlining the American presidency's path from chief magistrate to "extraconstitutional monstrosity." In short, presidents exceed the bounds of their power, the courts are extremely deferential when legal challenges arise, Congress cedes its authority to the executive branch, while voters, historians, and pop culture often lend their applause to this outcome (especially when their side sits in the White House).
A sober reading of this should give one pause when they hear how democracy in America is at stake in our elections. Democracy's ascent in America has coincided with the ascent of the imperial presidency: wars without authorization, constitutional restraints tossed aside, statutes violated, power usurped from other branches of government. Is this what Progressive reformers had in mind when they saw the president as our "national representative"? Is there a meaningful distinction between this and conservative "unitary executive theory"?
Healy's book covers a lot of the same terrain as Andrew Napolitano does in his book Suicide Pact. A reader probably doesn't need to read both books to get the main idea. Healy's book feels a little more focused, although he doesn't cover "enhanced interrogations" beyond addressing the "Torture Memos." Napolitano's strength is his discussion of natural rights. Either book is recommended.
Displaying 1 of 1 review