He is the friendly, incisive, thoughtful, learned, conservative I’d most like to have dinner with. We would disagree on a lot, but we would not disagree on the fact that the presidency has become monstrous, excessively powerful, and a threat.
And I would give a lot of thought to his premise that when Congress makes a lot of laws, they are just offering sentiments, leaving the power of the real law making to unelected bureaucrats whose decisions control our lives.
I also like what he has to say about factions and the need for fluid interactions among them, something that we’ve lost in the last couple decades.
But he has much more to say that gives a sharper edge to my progressive point of view, thus demonstrating again that the debate between the conservative and the progressive is embodied in our DNA. That, by the way, makes us so sure of our righteousness that we become capable of going too far with our predilections if given the power to do so.
I’ve thought for a long time that the success of the conservative reaction we are living with began with Reagan, and that it happened because progressives went too far and the body politic could stand no more change in that direction. Now that seems to be happening to conservative thinking.