The Presidency: Shifting Conservative Perspectives?

It is obvious that Gerald Ford has tried to “de-imperialize” the Presidency and make much more informal the personal image of the President. In doing this, he responds not only to a widespread mood—which considers that under Nixon the White House became much too arrogant—but to a settled and received view among American conservatives, Ford himself included, who formed their attitudes during the 1930s and 1940s. American conservatives have been all but unanimously opposed to a strong and activist Presidency.

This received attitude among conservatives has been articulated any number of times, but perhaps most importantly by the late Willmoore Kendall, an enormously colorful figure in American intellectual history: child prodigy, Rhodes Scholar, professor of political science at Yale, Stanford, and the University of Dallas. Kendall, in company with most conservatives, disapproved of a strong Presidency, and he made his case in a famous essay, first published in 1960, called “The Two Majorities in American Politics.”

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Jeffrey Hart

Jeffrey Hart is a contributor to National Review.

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It is obvious that Gerald Ford has tried to “de-imperialize” the Presidency and make much more informal the personal image of the President. In doing this, he responds not only to a widespread mood—which considers that under Nixon the White House became much too arrogant—but to a settled and received view among American conservatives, Ford himself included, who formed their attitudes during the 1930s and 1940s. American conservatives have been all but unanimously opposed to a strong and activist Presidency.

This received attitude among conservatives has been articulated any number of times, but perhaps most importantly by the late Willmoore Kendall, an enormously colorful figure in American intellectual history: child prodigy, Rhodes Scholar, professor of political science at Yale, Stanford, and the University of Dallas. Kendall, in company with most conservatives, disapproved of a strong Presidency, and he made his case in a famous essay, first published in 1960, called “The Two Majorities in American Politics.”