I just received an astute remark from an American friend:

"Note how even conservative Republican administrations today still automatically adopt all the basic approaches of liberalism: federalization of local problems, giveaways, paternalism, and demagogy. Every civic problem or event has come to require the president in his capacity of priest/king of the civic cultus to manifest publicly some emotional response suitable for the occasion, and to conduct the fundamental ritual of the Leviathan state, the propitiatory hecatomb of large amounts of tax dollars."