From In These Times
By John R. MacArthur

In the late spring of 2007, I found myself in a Manhattan playground in the midst of what can only be described as a children’s riot. Moving to protect my younger daughter from the mob, I wound up surrounded by kids firing squirt guns and hurling water balloons at a boy who appeared to be the target of an organized attack. The wild intensity of the conflict made me curious, enough to ask the boy, while he fended off his assailants from the upper platform of a jungle gym, to explain his plight. He shouted his reply: “They’re rebelling against me because I’m the dictator!”

So far so good, I thought. At least these 11- and 12-year-old Americans still understood the spirit of democracy. Unfortunately, I wasn’t so sure about their parents. Granted, there were lots of prominent adults, ranging from political right to left, who continued to profess their faith in America as a functioning democracy committed to its Constitution. However, there was plenty of evidence to contradict their optimism.

Some pessimists might, for example, cite the disputed 2000 presidential vote count in Florida. Others could point to the Bush administration’s frequent resort to torture and “rendition” of terrorist suspects, warrantless domestic spying, and presidential “signing statements” intended to nullify the will of Congress as evidence of a decline in U.S. democracy — and a commensurate rise in an imperial presidency.

But these skeptical voices, while significant, still formed a distinct minority. Most established commentators remained insistently upbeat about what they viewed as a fundamental, almost genetically coded American devotion to self-government and freedom — a profound faith that any damage caused by President Bush to the constitutional system was somehow automatically self-correcting.

Typical are the editors of Junior Scholastic magazine. In a Sept. 3, 2007, article titled “Could You Be President?” the magazine’s editors outlined what they said were the basic requirements for the job of “President/Chief Executive.” According to Junior Scholastic, “The presidency has been called the world’s toughest job,” in part because of the “immense responsibility” of being “the leader of the free world.”

But as hard as it is to be president, the editors clearly wanted to suggest that virtually anyone could become president.

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