We have an all-too-powerful president, warring and dysfunctional Congress, and disintegrating local government. It’s a woeful picture, especially set against the backdrop of opioid addiction, familial breakdown, and declining religious and civic participation. Things are broken, it’s true. But how do we respond to the brokenness? We’re at a moment in which, like the French, we’re tempted to disband and destroy—to “despise everything that belongs to us.” 

 For some progressives, this translates into a deep contempt for the constitutional principles we’ve inherited. Bernie Sanders progressives advocate for a system of government that is deeply antithetical to America’s tradition of limited government and subsidiarity. It’s analogous to installing an IKEA kitchen in an eighteenth-century manor house. 

 But many so-called “conservatives” are also eschewing Burke’s vision of conservatism. In their zeal to destroy political correctness and progressivism, they’ve embraced executive power, seeking a charismatic leader who might destroy all their cultural and governmental pet peeves in one fell swoop. No matter if that requires executive orders or messianic assurances of political salvation.

Gracy Olmstead, "Why We Need Edmund Burke Now More Than Ever"