3. Key weasel sentence in Douthat: Obama has "become, in certain ways, more imperial than his predecessor" - "in certain ways" covers a lot
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5.
@DouthatNYT false suggests assassination policy under Obama is a novelty. It was well in place under Bush.3 replies 1 retweet 4 likes -
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6. Of course, Obama can and should be criticized for carrying on these policies, but they have deep roots in National Security State.
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7. But the very language of Caesarism used by
@DouthatNYT has roots in American history and far right which are worth pondering.4 replies 3 retweets 4 likes -
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8. As Bernard Bailyn and other historians have taught us, language of civic Republicans, Whig-inflected, formative during USA Revolution.
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9. During 19th century, republican language deployed by wide variety of groups including emerging labor (see Sean Wilentz, etc).
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10. But the component of Republicanism that feared Caesarist president who would overturn social order found special salience in South.
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11. Even before Civil War, leading Southern thinkers worried about Presidency becoming home for egalitarian & imperialist policies.
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12. It's not an accident that John Wilkes Booth shouted "sic semper tyrannis" after shooting Lincoln. Booth saw himself as Brutus reborn
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13. In the context of modern right, language of Caesarism-as-menace revived by James Burnham & Willmoore Kendall in 1950s.
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14. Although there were aspects of this language already in 1930s in opposition to FDR (and Huey Long).
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15. A key text here is James Burnham's "Congress and the American Tradition" (1959).
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