James Madison

There is nothing like the thrill of getting a White House invitation. Even though I worked there at the time, I vividly recall the sparkly feeling when I read that "The President and First Lady" requested the pleasure of my company at a reception for the US Embassy hostages who had just come home from captivity in Iran. It was a great stroke for my ego, simultaneously a sensation of importance and reward for work well done. My origins are plebeian and it ranked among the most exciting things that happened to me since being unexpectedly invited to tea with Princess Margaret at Oxford. A White House social invitation is an informal tool of presidential power. From George and Martha Washington onward White House invitations have been used to achieve policy aims.

Many commentators (including yours truly) have pointed out that America is divided more now than it has been since the late 1850s and the run up to the Civil War. But as usual, I may have understated the case.  That, anyway, is what Vivek Ramaswamy would say. In a remarkable, just-published interview with Tom Klingenstein, Ramaswamy several time insists that we are not in a pre-war situation. It’s worse than that. “We are,” he insists, “absolutely in a war with the fate of the country at stake.” Hyperbolic? I don’t think so. The war, he acknowledges, could and likely will get worse. But we can already see the troops deployed and the battle lines drawn.

By disposition, conservatives distrust government. They are for “limited government” and worry about the coercive power of the state intruding upon individual liberty. But these days, some conservatives tell us that, when they finally get their hands on the levers of power, they will be energetic in exercising them to achieve their (presumably conservative) ends. Is that a contradiction or indication of hypocrisy? Maybe. Or maybe it is just a sign of how deeply anti-conservative sentiment has burrowed into the tissues of our society. No doubt I would prefer the policies promulgated by a conservative administration to the policies we are saddled with now. But my low opinion of human nature inclines me to distrust government power no matter who is in charge.