The Dangerous Fantasy of Lincoln: Framing Executive Power as Presidential Mastery

Julie Novkov

In recent years, invoking Lincoln has been a troubling political maneuver in significant ways that the movie Lincoln highlights. Calls out to Lincoln by presidents and their political interlocutors (including the media) tend to take on two forms: either the president or interlocutor is claiming the mantle of Lincoln and calling attention, implicitly or explicitly, to his own Lincolnesque behavior, or a critic of the president is claiming that the president’s behavior or rhetoric is not, in fact, Lincolnesque. In either scenario, what is Lincolnesque is normatively good—an example of effective leadership in a context of crisis. The Lincolnesque president is one beset by conflict and turmoil, both in internal political circles and in the surrounding atmosphere, which is one of grave threat to the nation. He responds by managing the turmoil effectively, shouldering the burdens of leadership and bearing them with grace, self-deprecating humor, and ruthless pursuit of ultimate success. The Lincolnesque president is also one who promotes a narrow vision of racial equality properly centered between extremes of overt racism on the one hand and illegitimate racial reparations on the other.