What American liberals could learn from France's neo-Bonaparte

On Emmanuel Macron and the imperial style in politics

Emmanuel Macron.
(Image credit: Illustrated | LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP/Getty Images, Wikimedia Commons)

I have long been convinced that most people who reject liberalism do so not because they think it is false or immoral, but because it is boring. One reason for this is that American liberals have by and large abandoned what I have come to think of as the "imperial style" in politics.

Like the elephant, the imperial style is somewhat difficult to describe but utterly unmistakable in appearance. The gold-flecked parody of luxury exemplified by Trump Tower, the harem-like succession of the president's wives and concubines, the restless White House alive with the whispers of sinister viziers and the gossip of palace eunuchs — all of it probably as close as many of us can come to imagining the life of an Oriental despot — this is the imperial style. So too is the rather pleasant image of Emmanuel Macron dining at Versailles with the CEOs of Microsoft, Snapchat, and JPMorgan Chase. In fact, for reasons that I shall explain, the French president seems to me the imperial style's greatest living exemplar.

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.