Articles

"The In-Box Presidency"

What's behind the politics of personality.

Reason , April 2000

This truly is the first presidential race of the 21st century, a period defined not simply by dates but by states of mind. The 20th century was an age of ideological combat, of political visions clashing on printed pages and bloody battlefields, an age of heroic rhetoric and executive power. The century began in 1914, with the start of World War I, and ended in 1991, with the failed Soviet coup. We have been in an interregnum ever since, slowly adjusting to a changed world