ABSTRACT
Deep in the political culture with which the President must deal are four themes, old in the American spirit, new in contemporary content. For Wilson, Hoover, Johnson, and Nixon, and for active-negative Presidents in the future, the temptation to stand and fight receives wide support from the culture. The most dangerous confusion in that connection is the equating of political power—essentially the power to persuade—with force. The affectionate side of politics appeals to a people broken apart less by conflict and rivalry than by isolation and anxiety. In our culture the religious-monarchical focus of the Presidency—the tendency to see the office as a sort of divine—right kingship—gets emphasized less in dynastic, evangelical, or even ecumenical ways than in a quest for legitimacy. Active-positive Presidents are more open to evidence because they have less need to deny and distort their perceptions for protective purposes.
