By: Casey E Armstrong

Casey E Armstrong — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 15:09:00 +0000

I was reminded of this post when Mike Allen reported, today, that David Axelrod is reading Richard J. Hofstadter’s oft-cited essay ‘The Paranoid Style in American Politics,’ presumably in preparation for the return to the poetry of the campaign field. Often, that essay is applied on a psychological level; extreme conservatives movements are made up of politically paranoid individuals. However, I think Weber shows us an application on the institutional level. When the Republicans, as Jeff suggests, made total opposition a political commitment, they abdicated their roles as true politicians and became mere spokesmen for a very specific ideology. From that essay: “The paranoid spokesman . . . does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician….Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began.” It will be interesting to see how, and if, Axelrod incorporates Obama’s Weberian political responsibility with his own prerogative to campaign with knives out. We know that he likes to, correctly I think, portray Obama as the responsible adult in a city of children. Will he take the next step and characterize Republican irresponsibility as a failure to fulfill their duty as statesmen?

Comments on: Obama’s Dilemna: Responsible or Principled Politics?

By: Casey E Armstrong