Two days before Christmas, Abby, our gloriously naughty, brilliant Boxer-mix dog, was hit by a car and killed instantly.
It happened when she was returning from her early morning run along a rural trail, exuberantly dashing from side to side, exercising both her body and her freedom as she and my son made their way back to his truck. In what my son terms “15 seconds of bad luck,” their fate and that of an approaching driver literally collided.
A dense pall of despair settled over our holidays and a week after her death my son said he could not stand the silence of his home without his little “agent of chaos.” He wanted another sidekick, even as he wept for the loss of his friend.
We looked for a month at animals available for adoption and finally found a rescue group that was importing three nice North Carolina dogs, all of whom had been condemned to death in their native state. For once, we were first in line for consideration.
A month ago, we brought home a great, white pit bull mix—80 pounds of muscle and bone who would be fearsome were it not for his sensitive face and goofy disposition. He had been rescued from a premises that housed 26 dogs, six of whom were already dead.
Never have I met an adult dog with less information. He had no name that he responded to (we dubbed him Burble for the little noises he makes when he puts his head in your lap). He apparently had never been in a house as each new piece of furniture terrified him.
The wind blowing a dried-up hydrangea blossom flattened him against the earth in fright. He was not housebroken but difficult to walk on a leash because he endlessly sniffed clumps of snow for information and could not attend to business.
Then, I made a discovery: Big Burr likes pens. My niece-in-law, who lives in the front part of my house, has a pen for her dogs and Burr headed that way each time we started out.
One morning I took him in, and he instantly relieved himself. Next morning, same thing. Apparently, having to deal with even the limited freedom of walking on a leash is too daunting for him.
One problem solved, but as I thought about the dog’s experience and his broadening life canvas, my thoughts somehow turned to America’s reverse psychology, how we, accustomed to personal liberty, have now become the equivalent of Burble, looking for the “security” of an ideological pen.
Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
I’m willing to give Burble a pass on that—he is, after all, only a confused dog—but what about us? What are we thinking to so willingly cede our own liberties, even as we trample on the rights of others.
A study by Agata Mirowska, Raymond Chiu and Rick Hackett, published in the Journal of Business Ethics, suggests that humankind’s cyclical attraction to “strongmen” tyrants is informed by cultural, religious and familial factors, but most especially by fear.
If people see the world around them as dangerous, unpredictable and threatening, it predisposes them to choose a leader who, although problematic, is perceived to be better able to maintain the safety of the group.
The “strongman” asserts he is the “only one” capable of solving a country’s problems, espouses disdain for liberalism and democracy, and claims to protect the general populace against the elites. He or she often attempts to stay in power indefinitely by appointing close family members and loyalists to high positions.
Now, the Founding Fathers would have been alarmed by this. Remember, they were revolutionaries only one hair’s breadth away from a monarchy and couldn’t even decide on what to call the chief executive lest they invoke the image of a king.
Americans have been free of a dictatorship for nearly 250 years, so the centralization of power in one branch of government may now seem comfortable to those who feel disenfranchised by the messiness of a democratic system.
But in an article titled, “Liberty and Security: Hostile Allies,” Benjamin Wittes argues that the balance of liberty and security must be nuanced by personal and social considerations. Given the nature of tyrants, his statement that “the absence of liberty will tend to guarantee an absence of security” cannot be taken lightly.
Presidential power has increased exponentially since the Founding Fathers established three co-equal branches of government designed to provide checks and balances. In a presentation at a 2023 Conference on the American Presidency, political scientists William Howell and Terry Moe, presented their paper, “The Rise of the Strongman Presidency.” They argued that, traditionally, presidential politics featured fights over policy, principle and power, with presidents and Congress jostling for advantage within the norms of civility, tolerance and forbearance.
What was normal in the past no longer prevails, however. Howell and Moe argue that periods of transition during the modern era, rooted in the progressive presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, began a process that dramatically expanded the power of the executive branch. Eighty years of progressive values spawned a large bureaucracy that gave presidents of both parties “enormous opportunities,” to expand the influence of the presidency.
A conservative backlash that began with the Regan administration initiated a war against the administrative state, however. The authors say that conservatives became convinced that Congress was not the key to reversing the situation and that the solution lies in a presidency capable of wielding extraordinary unilateral power.
A populist form of conservatism emerged, concentrated among portions of the population that feel culturally and economically threatened. They are ready for a strongman who promises to take action on their behalf.
So disenchanted have some Americans become with the Washington gridlock that an amazing 20 to 25 percent of Americans—both Democrats and Republicans—said they favor a dictatorship, according to a 2024 study conducted by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
That changing political landscape was evidenced in our recent election. Some may feel more secure within the confines of this new landscape, but we should be careful that we do not poop so much in our pen that we befoul our country.
Kathryn Boughton is editor of the Kent Dispatch. The views expressed in Out on a Limb are hers alone, and do not necessarily reflect those of Kent News, Inc., the parent company of the Dispatch.
