The ‘Right’ View by Francis P. Sempa

Progressive Hypocrisy About Executive Power

“Energy in the Executive,” wrote Alexander Hamilton in “Federalist 70,” “is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws.” One of the many complaints that progressives raise about President Donald Trump is that he has an expansive view of the executive power of the office of president. They have called Trump a dictator, an authoritarian, a threat to democracy. They have repeatedly held “No Kings” gatherings to express their supposed fears of a too-powerful executive. But their complaints ring hollow when you look at how progressives treat liberal presidents who have expanded presidential power far more than Donald Trump has ever done. The progressive’s hypocrisy first revealed itself in 1973, with the publication of liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s book, “The Imperial Presidency.”

Prior to writing “The Imperial Presidency,” Schlesinger’s reputation rested on two presidential biographies: “The Age of Jackson” (1945) and his multi-volume “The Age of Roosevelt.” Schlesinger’s Jackson is “a noble and impressive figure” who “always made up his own mind” regardless of the advice he received. “Once his mind was made up,” Schlesinger noted, “no threats, no warnings of catastrophe, no dictates of prudence, could sway him.” He subjected advisers and political opponents to “towering rages,” Schlesinger wrote. One contemporary writer said that, for Jackson, “knowledge seemed entirely unnecessary” because “he saw intuitively everything, and reached a conclusion by a short cut while others were beating the bush for the game.”

Schlesinger waxed eloquent on Jackson’s “greatness,” comparing him to “Washington, Lincoln, Wilson, [and] Franklin Roosevelt”—all presidents who had an expansive view of executive power. Schlesinger noted that Jackson sought advice from a small group of advisers that became known as the “Kitchen Cabinet.” Jackson, concluded Schlesinger, “ended up by leaving the presidency stronger than it had ever been.”

In the second volume of “The Age of Roosevelt,” Schlesinger attempted to immortalize Franklin Roosevelt for his expansion of presidential power. “The essence of Roosevelt,” Schlesinger wrote, “the quality which fulfilled the best in him and explained the potency of his appeal, was his intrepid and passionate affirmation. He always cast his vote for life, for action, for forward motion, for the future.” FDR expanded executive power more than Jackson, almost as much as Lincoln, more than Wilson, and far more than Donald Trump, yet he was one of Schlesinger’s historical heroes. He was the epitome of the “imperial presidency” that Schlesinger wailed against when Republican Richard Nixon was in the White House in 1973.

For Schelsinger, presidential power was fine when wielded by progressive presidents, but dangerous to our Republic when wielded by Nixon. The progressive hypocrisy was glaring then, just as it is glaring now during the Trump presidency.  The supposed dictator, autocrat, and king, Donald Trump, never used the IRS to attack his political enemies the way FDR did. Trump never ordered the massive relocation and incarceration of any ethnic group without trial or due process the way Roosevelt did in World War II. Franklin Roosevelt—one of the most deceptive and ruthless men ever to occupy the White House—is lionized by progressives to this day. For progressives, the proper exercise of executive power is not about upholding the Constitution or preserving democracy; it’s about who is in power. 

Francis P. Sempa is the author of the books “Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21st Century” and “America’s Global Role.” He is a contributing editor to “The American Spectator” and writes a regular column for “Real Clear Defense.”

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT NECESSARILY THE VIEW OF ALLOTSEGO AND ITS AFFILIATES.