And a good part of the reason Denethor is Like This is 1. he wasn't King and resented it 2. He thought he could handle the Palantir and instead was twisted by Sauron's propaganda.
Tolkien is no progressive in disguise, but he knows that whether you like the changes it has wrought or not, you cannot arrest the passage of time.
A conservative may be someone who stands athwart history yelling "Stop!" but Tolkien is too stubbornly realistic to entertain such an empty fantasy.
Mariah McCourt
Tom Emanuel
In which Denethor articulates the platform of the modern Republican Party: either freeze history or burn it to ashes.
