A recent article in Newsweek by Jon Meacham points out one of the ways in which American politics has become infantilized and power-obsessed in the wake of 9/11. Meacham writes:
But I think we should be taking the possibility of a Dick Cheney bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 more seriously, for a run would be good for the Republicans and good for the country. (The sound you just heard in the background was liberal readers spitting out their lattes.)
Why? Because Cheney is a man of conviction, has a record on which he can be judged, and whatever the result, there could be no ambiguity about the will of the people.
As Matthew Yglesias has pointed out, this is problematic in a lot of ways. But it is also another example of the mindlessness of the politics of so-called conviction. Recent elections have been full of voters, pundits, and others who heap praise on politicians who supposedly “stick to their guns” rather than “waffling.” It is as if merely having strong convictions (or being stubborn) has made secondary the matter of what those convictions are.