The Irony of Reform: Roots of American Political Disenchantment by G. Calvin Mackenzie

Author:G. Calvin Mackenzie [Mackenzie, G. Calvin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780429964930
Google: x_7EDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 39203042
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1996-04-18T00:00:00+00:00

The International Presidency

With World War II came the second, prop of the modern presidency: the end of American isolationism. Countries at risk are always under pressure to centralize authority. Protection of national security requires the capacity to mobilize and direct national resources against external threats. The few significant, pre-World War II instances of centralized authority in American history had all come during wartime: Lincoln’s suspension of certain civil liberties, for example, or the enlargement of the federal government to fight World War I. World War II brought the greatest expansion of the federal government in American history, the most widely applied conscription of citizens into the armed forces, a substantial increase in taxes, and widespread government restrictions on the purchase and sale of consumer goods.

But World War II differed from previous American wars. The threat did not go away when the war was over. With little pause for joy or comfort, America moved, almost immediately into what came to be known as the cold war. Here the threat was at least as menacing as the one posed by the Axis powers during the war: a large, furtive, mysterious, aggressive, and competent enemy perceived to be driven by an expcinsionist ideology and equipped with weapons of mass destruction from which America’s geographic isolation offered little protection, it mattered little that some of the threat was rooted in ignorance, paranoia, and. America’s own provocations; the fear of communism was a driving force of American politics for more than four decades after World War II. And Americans looked to their president for protection in the face of that threat. The American people demanded that their presidents be tough and aggressive in “standing up to communism.” The words of John Kennedy’s inaugural address read now like a presidential anthem of the cold war: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Of no cold war president was less expected.

The cold war presidency required a large standing armed force and vast networks of international and domestic intelligence activities. It mandated that presidents be international leaders, that they travel widely, and that they meet often at home and abroad with other world leaders. For the first time in American presidential campaigns, candidates trumpeted their foreign policy experience and boasted of their toughness in holding the line against foreign aggression. The Franklin Roosevelt of the 1930s was cautious about stirring up the isolationist impulses of the American people with talk of impending war. None of his successors would suffer such reluctance. America’s role in the world changed dramatically after World War II, and the presidency changed with it. A better prepared and more vigilant nation required a more potent and better equipped national leader. Americans began to measure their presidents and presidential candidates by their foreign policy views and actions. Expectations were high, and presidents often had to expand and aggressively exercise their powers to meet those expectations.

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