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5. To Flatter and Obey
- The University Press of Kentucky
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5 To Flatter and Obey The Triumph of Ambition The people were to guide their leaders, not their leaders the people; and any intellectual or moral independence and initiative on the part of the leaders in a democracy was to be condemned as undemocratic. The representatives of a sovereign people were in the same position as the courtiers of an absolute monarch. It was their business to flatter and obey. —Herbert Croly, The Promise of American Life The belief that people ambitious for political power ought to serve the people has become incontrovertible for American politics. What began as a philosophy of government based on the consent of the governed and dedicated to forwarding the public’s interest has evolved into the celebrated conviction that leaders ought to “flatter and obey” the people. For Herbert Croly, this confidence in the guiding wisdom of the people was propagated by Thomas Jefferson’s early attacks on the Federalists. In contrast to Hamilton, who “was not afraid to incur unpopularity for pursuing what he believed to be a wise public policy,” Jefferson was “filled with a sincere, indiscriminate, unlimited faith in the American people.”1 Hence, Jefferson believed that popular favor ought to be courted. And most ambitious citizens wanting to hold political office subscribe to Jefferson’s political philosophy, but not without a political cost. Despite continual debate over how democratic leaders can best serve the people, most contemporary politicians believe “what is popular is what is right”—not because what is popular makes good public policy but because what is popular gets candidates elected. Few politicians disagree with the conviction that what is popular should dictate public policy—and woe to the candidate who openly defies this truism. Yet, at the point in American politics when many people think that government is out of touch with their 101 102 Ambition in America lives, that those who govern no longer pay attention to the needs of the people, elected officials appear more beholden to their constituents than ever before. The structuring of opportunities for ambition can explain this seeming contradiction. Democratic citizens who believe that the “will of the people” is both knowable and always right often fear that those who harbor ambitions to rule will—by virtue of being ambitious—set themselves apart from the mass. Citizens worry the ambitious will preempt the desires of the public to serve personal desires or gratify secret passions. And such mistrust creates an environment where citizens select among the politically ambitious in ways that operate at cross-purposes to democratic norms of responsibility and reciprocity. First, if citizens expect ambitious people to generate republican legitimacy through their campaigns and subsequent administrations, then the selection system for choosing democratic leaders needs to build greater public confidence in the judgment of candidates who seek the public trust. Paradoxically, citizen mistrust of ambition compels ambitious people seeking the public trust to flatter popular opinion by pandering to citizens’ fears that ambitious people cannot be trusted with public power. The ambition for power suggests that a person who harbors such ambition poses a potential, perennial threat to republican stability. Ambition, understood in this fashion, is an internal quality approximating a defect in human character—at least a defect in character for republican democracy. But when the focus is exclusively on ambition as an internal determinant of human behavior, citizens ignore the ways selection systems and structures of political opportunity create social scripts for ambitious political conduct. People just assume an ambitious person is only out to maximize individual gain, and by thinking this way, they foreclose the potential for alternative conceptions of democratically accountable political leadership. People’s behavior adjusts and responds to situations and context. Structures of competition for political power can serve as catalysts for ambitious behavior, motivating some while discouraging others. For democratic citizens who fundamentally mistrust the politically ambitious, the selection system in part corrals the threats posed by the ambitious. James Ceaser posits, “The selection system should prevent the harmful effects of the pursuit of office by highly ambitious contenders.” Because “highly ambitious contenders” will tend to “adopt whatever strategies . . . promise results,” ambitious people will readily ditch any policies that do not promote their [18.206.76.160] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 11:32 GMT) To Flatter and Obey 103 individual careers—no matter how high-minded the policy is. He continues, “It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that the ambition of contenders, if not properly guided, can lead to strategies and...