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The Lost Soul of the American Presidency: The Decline into Demagoguery and the Prospects for Renewal
The American presidency is not what it once was. Nor, Stephen F. Knott contends, what it was meant to be. Taking on an issue as timely as Donald Trump's latest tweet and old as the American republic, the distinguished presidential scholar documents the devolution of the American presidency from the neutral, unifying office envisioned by the framers of the Constitution into the demagogic, partisan entity of our day.
The presidency of popular consent, or the majoritarian presidency that we have today, far predates its current incarnation. The executive office as James Madison, George Washington, and Alexander Hamilton conceived it would be a source of national pride and unity, a check on the tyranny of the majority, and a neutral guarantor of the nation's laws. The Lost Soul of the American Presidency shows how Thomas Jefferson's "Revolution of 1800" remade the presidency, paving the way for Andrew Jackson to elevate "majority rule" into an unofficial constitutional principle--and contributing to the disenfranchisement, and worse, of African Americans and Native Americans. In Woodrow Wilson, Knott finds a worthy successor to Jefferson and Jackson. More than any of his predecessors, Wilson altered the nation's expectations of what a president could be expected to achieve, putting in place the political machinery to support a "presidential government."
As difficult as it might be to recover the lost soul of the American presidency, Knott reminds us of presidents who resisted pandering to public opinion and appealed to our better angels--George Washington, John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, and William Howard Taft, among others--whose presidencies suggest an alternative and offer hope for the future of the nation's highest office.
The presidency of popular consent, or the majoritarian presidency that we have today, far predates its current incarnation. The executive office as James Madison, George Washington, and Alexander Hamilton conceived it would be a source of national pride and unity, a check on the tyranny of the majority, and a neutral guarantor of the nation's laws. The Lost Soul of the American Presidency shows how Thomas Jefferson's "Revolution of 1800" remade the presidency, paving the way for Andrew Jackson to elevate "majority rule" into an unofficial constitutional principle--and contributing to the disenfranchisement, and worse, of African Americans and Native Americans. In Woodrow Wilson, Knott finds a worthy successor to Jefferson and Jackson. More than any of his predecessors, Wilson altered the nation's expectations of what a president could be expected to achieve, putting in place the political machinery to support a "presidential government."
As difficult as it might be to recover the lost soul of the American presidency, Knott reminds us of presidents who resisted pandering to public opinion and appealed to our better angels--George Washington, John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, and William Howard Taft, among others--whose presidencies suggest an alternative and offer hope for the future of the nation's highest office.
296 pages, ebook
First published October 31, 2019
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October 31, 2020
Definition of demagogue:
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Few will doubt that my prejudices allow me to see this book as an indictment of the current president. Almost every section has some damning reference that could be applied to the Trump Presidency. As the book goes along the references become more specifically directed at Trump. The author traces the progression of the populist presidents rooted in Thomas Jefferson’s belief that the majority rules from Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, thru to Woodrow Wilson. He then takes on all the modern presidents starting with Franklin Roosevelt, taking down a few heroes along the way.
As a framework he uses the differences between a “Constitutional President” and a “Populist President”. A “Constitutional President” is one who acts as a head of state to inspire people and to prevent a passionate majority from violating the rights of a minority. He cites an example of John Kennedy’s plea for Civil Rights.
A “Populist President” is one who sees themselves as representing the majority of the people due to their election, and being directed to implement their goals (as seen by him). This generally leads to demagoguery.
The author is critical of the current participatory selection of party candidates. He would prefer a form of “superdelegates” made up of party leaders, governors, members of Congress, and mayors to provide a filter to ensure a level of “character, experience, and a minimal sense of the national interest” and “not simply the ability to generate passion and ‘solidify the base’”. He admits that that would have made more difficult the candidacies of John Kennedy and Barack Obama, but it also would have avoided a Donald Trump.
As I said the author starts with Roosevelt and takes down several heroes. His premise is that after Wilson, who advanced the demagogic presidency, and the election of Roosevelt all the Presidents became somewhat too populist. The increased role of the media was a factor aiding the pandering to the public and the spread of conspiracy theories. He does cite many examples, for instance, Roosevelt’s internment of the West Coast Japanese due to pressure from California residents. He did not worry about the East Coast Germans or Italian citizens. This does strikes one as discriminating based on skin color.
However,
I am not ready to give up those ideals, either for a presidential candidate or for a policy.
There is a chapter devoted to the Trump presidency. Although this was a rather depressing read, I did learn some things and found the authors views interesting. Now we wait for next Tuesday.
a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Few will doubt that my prejudices allow me to see this book as an indictment of the current president. Almost every section has some damning reference that could be applied to the Trump Presidency. As the book goes along the references become more specifically directed at Trump. The author traces the progression of the populist presidents rooted in Thomas Jefferson’s belief that the majority rules from Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, thru to Woodrow Wilson. He then takes on all the modern presidents starting with Franklin Roosevelt, taking down a few heroes along the way.
As a framework he uses the differences between a “Constitutional President” and a “Populist President”. A “Constitutional President” is one who acts as a head of state to inspire people and to prevent a passionate majority from violating the rights of a minority. He cites an example of John Kennedy’s plea for Civil Rights.
A “Populist President” is one who sees themselves as representing the majority of the people due to their election, and being directed to implement their goals (as seen by him). This generally leads to demagoguery.
Washington warned of the propensity of demagogues to exploit factions or interests for their own self-interest. “Cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men” will “subvert the power of the people” and “usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust domination”.
(Page 6)
the president, when he chooses to act as head of state, can serve as a healing force in American life. When he chooses to “solidify the base” at the expense of the national interest, the entire country loses.
(Page 200)
The author is critical of the current participatory selection of party candidates. He would prefer a form of “superdelegates” made up of party leaders, governors, members of Congress, and mayors to provide a filter to ensure a level of “character, experience, and a minimal sense of the national interest” and “not simply the ability to generate passion and ‘solidify the base’”. He admits that that would have made more difficult the candidacies of John Kennedy and Barack Obama, but it also would have avoided a Donald Trump.
As I said the author starts with Roosevelt and takes down several heroes. His premise is that after Wilson, who advanced the demagogic presidency, and the election of Roosevelt all the Presidents became somewhat too populist. The increased role of the media was a factor aiding the pandering to the public and the spread of conspiracy theories. He does cite many examples, for instance, Roosevelt’s internment of the West Coast Japanese due to pressure from California residents. He did not worry about the East Coast Germans or Italian citizens. This does strikes one as discriminating based on skin color.
However,
I was part of the generation that was moved by his [JFK’s] eloquence, his humor, his charm, his intellect. He encouraged us to dream of a new world, I felt shattered by his assassination. It was one of the darkest days the nation had known.
A quote by historian and educator Diane Ravitch. (Page 173)
[eradicating] poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning. The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community.
Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 Great Society speech. (Page 176)
I am not ready to give up those ideals, either for a presidential candidate or for a policy.
There is a chapter devoted to the Trump presidency. Although this was a rather depressing read, I did learn some things and found the authors views interesting. Now we wait for next Tuesday.
Unfortunately, it may be impossible to arrest the damage done by Trump, and one shudders to think what may come next. The history of the American presidency indicates a steady, if somewhat halting procession toward decline. Unfortunately, the office may not have hit bottom yet. A reversal of these trends and a return to some semblance of health is possible, but it is equally likely that Trump has permanently redefined the office and will eventually be followed by someone equally demagogic or worse.
(Page 218)
January 11, 2020
This crucial, timely, and scholarly work—Stephen F. Knott’s The Lost Soul of the American Presidency—is a ringing alarm bell that all Americans should heed, that is if they can hear the warning over the ever-more-deafening background noise.
At a superficial glance the book may present as a narrowly-focused political and historical fusillade against the current state of political affairs. But it’s considerably more than that. The Lost Soul of the American Presidency is not just a fresh bead of informed, principled “Never Trump” Conservatism drawn on the sitting executive. Knott goes much deeper than that.
We Americans are, at this moment, in the throes of a Constitutional literacy and civics education crisis. But are these conditions unique? Look at the history and you realize, no they are not. Constitutional literacy and civics education seem to have been perpetually in crisis. And when we despair of the present, we are probably just giving in to knee-jerk, myopic declinism.
Over the centuries the American body politic has, in important ways, seldom known and infrequently adhered to the true spirit of the Constitution. Knott furnishes ample evidence that voters, politicians, and intellectuals, have, over and over again in regard to the presidency, conducted themselves in ways out of step with the vision of the men who wrote and ratified the supreme law of the land.
It’s disheartening to start with a sort of background, low-grade dread about how so many have so much to learn about the Constitution and then, after an injection of Knott’s analysis, graduate to a fresher and more acute perception of it. It’s even more disheartening to consider how much we also might need to unlearn first.
Knott (who doesn’t use this term himself) clearly and comprehensively shows us how much we need to unlearn specifically about presidents and the presidency.
The heart of Knott’s lesson here is that what we regard as the role of the president has become distorted. Maybe ruinously, irretrievably so. And the perversion of the office came about not in living memory but far earlier; back when the readout of our national odometer was in no more than double digits.
The Founders knew well that their political posterity would be subject to faction, regional interest, and temptations to cohere around ambitious, would-be leaders. But the Founders failed to take into account how pervasive and influential political parties would become.
Now, we can all know this academically. But it takes something like The Lost Soul of the American Presidency to fully appreciate the yawning, exploitable loophole this left in the Constitution—to the detriment of the political order as a whole and the office of the chief magistrate.
The Constitution’s essential operation is to establish a system of checks and balances. The fashioning of the federal government into coequal judicial, legislative, and executive branches is just one dimension of that system. So is the division of the uncut sum of the nation’s sovereign power into the federal government and the states; the splitting of Congress into a House and Senate; the setting up the apparatus of district and appellate federal courts; the counterweighting of the will of individual voters to the Electoral College; and, originally, rewarding the vice president’s seat not to a presidential candidate’s hand-picked and often like-minded lieutenant, but instead to the election’s runner-up. (Aaron Burr, whom we can also blame for eliminating from the senate rulebook the “previous question motion”—which could force measures to a floor vote instead of allowing for unlimited debate, and thus the kind of strategic inaction we see now by Sen. Mitch McConnell—gets the credit for this perversion of the founders’ original intent. Is any other single man responsible for so much warping of our political system?)
The Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine was meant to limit and diffuse government power over several distinct institutions. Under this model, government power is more difficult and often more time-consuming to wield. Certainly, more so than it would be under monarchies, authoritarian states, and even under parliamentary systems often recognizable as “free” and “democratic.”
The Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine is furthermore intended to impose a certain level of consensus- and compromise-building among political actors, helping to assure that those with minority opinions (or other minority status) cannot typically be so easily dominated by the majority. The way American governments were conceived was meant to assure that decision-making is sober and deliberative, that the decision-makers are known and accountable, and that the pace of change is generally slow. It has been argued (for one by Joseph J. Ellis) that this baked-in conservatism was one of the pillars of genius of the American Revolution, which did not attempt to drastically reorder society or redistribute property, and thereby did not wind up a short-lived experiment that consumed most of its own along the way, like the French First Republic.
But, as Knott points out, the Constitution’s rocky, windy, 25 M.P.H. speed limit is no fit for leaders possessed of doublewide egos and transformational ambitions, and who have a mind to drive a whole lot faster. The same can be said not only of individuals, but of political movements as well.
The sort of politician who naturally craves power, delights in the exercise of it, and is convinced of the urgency of attaining and holding on to it, will by nature seek the presidency. The sort of political movement demonstrating the same characteristics will by nature attack, and chuck aside, any systemic obstacles intentionally placed in its way. Unite a politician of this stripe with a political movement bearing the same character, and you get the kind of presidents and political parties we have today.
Knott empirically builds the case that we have actually been saddled with these kinds of presidents and political parties for almost all of American history. He professionally and dutifully countenances George Washington’s human flaws and missteps, but by Knott’s lights our first president nevertheless bestowed upon the United States initial, buoyant highs of presidential leadership in the true Constitutional spirit.
The Lost Soul of the American Presidency goes on to squarely place the first belly-churning drop in altitude from Washington’s highs when Thomas Jefferson’s self-described “Revolution of 1800” was ushered in.
Readers should take care not to seize upon this accusation as a pattern for the rest of the book. This is no lionization of the “big government” instincts of the Federalist Party and reflexive disparagement of “small government” Jeffersonians. As Knott moves us forward in the timeline, it’s Democratic presidents—Wilson, FDR, JFK, Johnson—highlighted as most responsible for setting the presidency on the path towards Constitutional decay that ultimately leads to Donald Trump.
We might label Knott’s problematic, populist executives—whom he characterizes as both self-aggrandizing and proposing dead-on-arrival transformative projects like ending war, ending poverty, “ridding the world of evildoers,” and even remaking man himself—as “Lost Soul Presidents.” (Knott himself never resorts to such a cute, reductive term. In fact, he often credits even those he identifies as the most Constitutionally-repugnant of the bunch with at least some aspects of favorable legacy.)
What Lost Soul Presidents threaten, Knott contends, is the total erosion of the separation of powers doctrine. The regime of minority representation that the Constitution idealizes and tried to put permanently in place goes out the window as well. When these are not preserved, national stability is just one of a host of casualties the country suffers.
When a president and a Congress (and arguably a federal bench, but it’s beyond the scope of the book to comment too in depth about that) all come to share the same partisan objectives, throughout history they have demonstrably abandoned their institutional duties to check and balance each other. They may also willingly abandon their oaths of office, imposed to encourage compliance with the letter and spirit of the Constitution in other respects.
The prospects for disorder here are worse than a president becoming a rubber stamp for a runaway Congress. It can be a Congress becoming a rubber stamp for a runaway president—an elected leader who isn’t, after all, designed as a lawmaker-in-chief, but instead an administrator-in-chief. Yet when these two separate branches of government both converge under the sway of a single ambitious political party or movement, it proves too enticing not to demote Congress—with all its attending friction and minority prerogative—and instead fix as much legislative prowess as possible in the executive. The Constitution gets turned upside down and inside out.
Lost Soul Presidents, and the blows they issue to Constitutional integrity, do more than just bruise what sentimental attachments to the Founders we might have. And they do more than simply theoretical damage to American politics. When multiple political parties, who go in and out of power, adopt the same tactics to elect their presidents of choice and sustain them in power—capturing two or three branches and subsequently jamming through wildly fluctuating, even contradictory, policies and styles of leadership—we, the governed, suffer from whiplash. (So do our foreign allies, as we can see most pointedly since January 2017).
Government comes to oscillate between serving some of us and punishing some of us. All the volatility strips people and institutions from the capability of planning for the future. Elections and transfers of power become ugly, divisive, and potentially violent. The parties themselves can at best pursue short-term goals. New administrations and new congresses, before they can move on to new business, must first sacrifice portions of whatever political capital they’ve arrived with in undoing the work of their predecessors.
Where once inspiring and uniting national figures were possible, now no one is above politics. All must pick a side. And when they do, they suffer derision from political enemies and, all too often, are made subjects of a worshipful savior complex from political friends. Americans whipsaw between reviling the federal government and expecting too much from it. We lose any common national interest. We are left bereft of political and, alongside it, social coherence.
Even more disturbing, Knott elucidates how, in a government system at least theoretically built on the popular consent basis, the path of least resistance for the most power-hungry presidents and parties involves stooping to demagoguery, censorship, voter suppression, the aforementioned impossible-to-keep-promises, debasement of the press, use of official police powers to surveil and harass enemies, viciously personal demonization of political opponents and the ends they pursue, the spread of conspiracy theories, and dirty tricks.
The most highly operative power moves under this state of affairs plow right through unpopular minorities. For instance, the Jefferson-Jackson dynasty, often celebrated for helping abolish voting rights’ property requirement, was partially built on the back of disenfranchising blacks and smearing the “elites” in favor of industry and banks. Progressive Era presidents like Roosevelt allowed Japanese internment and looked the other way when Jewish refugees from increasingly Nazi-dominated Europe sought sanctuary in America.
What are the qualities of the few presidents who, according to Knott, were most in proper relation to their intended Constitution role? The Lost Soul of the American Presidency rates George Washingtonian dignity very highly, perhaps as the most invaluable. Dignity, being or at least appearing above the fray, allows a president to serve as the ceremonial head of state that can lend stability when societies need it most. A good president, fulfilling the duties of office without bias for party, race, region, or socio-economic subset, will have to defy opinion and make unpopular decisions. Dignity allows the president to withstand the fallout that will inevitably follow, as Washington did after the controversial Jay Treaty that turned so many Americans against him midway through his second term.
Other presidential qualities Knott singles out as deserving of accolades are rhetorical restraint (perhaps best seen in Lincoln’s refusal to demonize secessionists), personal humility, and the adequate integrity to substantively place the nation’s interests above his own. Knott lambastes those who would be “change agents” and bids us to reconsider the legacies of “boring” and “caretaker” presidents—this latter point being one of the book’s most original and interesting. Where else but in The Lost Soul of the American Presidency will Gerald Ford and William Howard Taft receive nominations for presidential excellence? Yet Knott makes a compelling case. Historians paying tribute to Lincoln is hardly uncommon. But Knott leads us to focus on some of the Rail-splitter’s lesser-appreciated qualities, while also burnishing the reputations of John Quincy Adams and Dwight Eisenhower. His treatment of the Obama presidency, I felt, bore too little careful, contextual thought: both Obama and Clinton governed more from the center than they are given credit for, yet their political opponents were so suffused with passionate hatred for them that they were never given credit for trying to rise above party. There was, legitimately, something of a cult of personality around Obama. But I think it’s not fair to say that Obama was the architect of this, and that the gravest sin he can be condemned for on this point is welcoming it as wind at his back. The media strategies and statements of Obama’s Knott chooses as evidence of the man’s populism feel overreaching.
Tremendously valuable in the book are details about Jefferson’s worldview and his administration (I had not previously known about his proposals for “ward-republics,” nor duly considered his Francophilia and other personal manias in light of Living Constitutionalism). Knott gives us an insightful and disturbing account of parallels between Trump and JFK. The book is a handy primer on how 20th Century intellectual fads affected Constitutional interpretation. For instance, a sort of pop Darwinism arguably motivated Wilson to decry the Constitution as a relic of “horse and buggy” days, ill-suited to the appreciably faster pace even of 1910s communication and industry.
Metal becomes brittle when it is repeatedly, rapidly warmed and cooled. Knott warns the same phenomenon is happening to our republic, catalyzed by a long succession of overheated presidents who promise to heap piles of gold on their political base
At a superficial glance the book may present as a narrowly-focused political and historical fusillade against the current state of political affairs. But it’s considerably more than that. The Lost Soul of the American Presidency is not just a fresh bead of informed, principled “Never Trump” Conservatism drawn on the sitting executive. Knott goes much deeper than that.
We Americans are, at this moment, in the throes of a Constitutional literacy and civics education crisis. But are these conditions unique? Look at the history and you realize, no they are not. Constitutional literacy and civics education seem to have been perpetually in crisis. And when we despair of the present, we are probably just giving in to knee-jerk, myopic declinism.
Over the centuries the American body politic has, in important ways, seldom known and infrequently adhered to the true spirit of the Constitution. Knott furnishes ample evidence that voters, politicians, and intellectuals, have, over and over again in regard to the presidency, conducted themselves in ways out of step with the vision of the men who wrote and ratified the supreme law of the land.
It’s disheartening to start with a sort of background, low-grade dread about how so many have so much to learn about the Constitution and then, after an injection of Knott’s analysis, graduate to a fresher and more acute perception of it. It’s even more disheartening to consider how much we also might need to unlearn first.
Knott (who doesn’t use this term himself) clearly and comprehensively shows us how much we need to unlearn specifically about presidents and the presidency.
The heart of Knott’s lesson here is that what we regard as the role of the president has become distorted. Maybe ruinously, irretrievably so. And the perversion of the office came about not in living memory but far earlier; back when the readout of our national odometer was in no more than double digits.
The Founders knew well that their political posterity would be subject to faction, regional interest, and temptations to cohere around ambitious, would-be leaders. But the Founders failed to take into account how pervasive and influential political parties would become.
Now, we can all know this academically. But it takes something like The Lost Soul of the American Presidency to fully appreciate the yawning, exploitable loophole this left in the Constitution—to the detriment of the political order as a whole and the office of the chief magistrate.
The Constitution’s essential operation is to establish a system of checks and balances. The fashioning of the federal government into coequal judicial, legislative, and executive branches is just one dimension of that system. So is the division of the uncut sum of the nation’s sovereign power into the federal government and the states; the splitting of Congress into a House and Senate; the setting up the apparatus of district and appellate federal courts; the counterweighting of the will of individual voters to the Electoral College; and, originally, rewarding the vice president’s seat not to a presidential candidate’s hand-picked and often like-minded lieutenant, but instead to the election’s runner-up. (Aaron Burr, whom we can also blame for eliminating from the senate rulebook the “previous question motion”—which could force measures to a floor vote instead of allowing for unlimited debate, and thus the kind of strategic inaction we see now by Sen. Mitch McConnell—gets the credit for this perversion of the founders’ original intent. Is any other single man responsible for so much warping of our political system?)
The Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine was meant to limit and diffuse government power over several distinct institutions. Under this model, government power is more difficult and often more time-consuming to wield. Certainly, more so than it would be under monarchies, authoritarian states, and even under parliamentary systems often recognizable as “free” and “democratic.”
The Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine is furthermore intended to impose a certain level of consensus- and compromise-building among political actors, helping to assure that those with minority opinions (or other minority status) cannot typically be so easily dominated by the majority. The way American governments were conceived was meant to assure that decision-making is sober and deliberative, that the decision-makers are known and accountable, and that the pace of change is generally slow. It has been argued (for one by Joseph J. Ellis) that this baked-in conservatism was one of the pillars of genius of the American Revolution, which did not attempt to drastically reorder society or redistribute property, and thereby did not wind up a short-lived experiment that consumed most of its own along the way, like the French First Republic.
But, as Knott points out, the Constitution’s rocky, windy, 25 M.P.H. speed limit is no fit for leaders possessed of doublewide egos and transformational ambitions, and who have a mind to drive a whole lot faster. The same can be said not only of individuals, but of political movements as well.
The sort of politician who naturally craves power, delights in the exercise of it, and is convinced of the urgency of attaining and holding on to it, will by nature seek the presidency. The sort of political movement demonstrating the same characteristics will by nature attack, and chuck aside, any systemic obstacles intentionally placed in its way. Unite a politician of this stripe with a political movement bearing the same character, and you get the kind of presidents and political parties we have today.
Knott empirically builds the case that we have actually been saddled with these kinds of presidents and political parties for almost all of American history. He professionally and dutifully countenances George Washington’s human flaws and missteps, but by Knott’s lights our first president nevertheless bestowed upon the United States initial, buoyant highs of presidential leadership in the true Constitutional spirit.
The Lost Soul of the American Presidency goes on to squarely place the first belly-churning drop in altitude from Washington’s highs when Thomas Jefferson’s self-described “Revolution of 1800” was ushered in.
Readers should take care not to seize upon this accusation as a pattern for the rest of the book. This is no lionization of the “big government” instincts of the Federalist Party and reflexive disparagement of “small government” Jeffersonians. As Knott moves us forward in the timeline, it’s Democratic presidents—Wilson, FDR, JFK, Johnson—highlighted as most responsible for setting the presidency on the path towards Constitutional decay that ultimately leads to Donald Trump.
We might label Knott’s problematic, populist executives—whom he characterizes as both self-aggrandizing and proposing dead-on-arrival transformative projects like ending war, ending poverty, “ridding the world of evildoers,” and even remaking man himself—as “Lost Soul Presidents.” (Knott himself never resorts to such a cute, reductive term. In fact, he often credits even those he identifies as the most Constitutionally-repugnant of the bunch with at least some aspects of favorable legacy.)
What Lost Soul Presidents threaten, Knott contends, is the total erosion of the separation of powers doctrine. The regime of minority representation that the Constitution idealizes and tried to put permanently in place goes out the window as well. When these are not preserved, national stability is just one of a host of casualties the country suffers.
When a president and a Congress (and arguably a federal bench, but it’s beyond the scope of the book to comment too in depth about that) all come to share the same partisan objectives, throughout history they have demonstrably abandoned their institutional duties to check and balance each other. They may also willingly abandon their oaths of office, imposed to encourage compliance with the letter and spirit of the Constitution in other respects.
The prospects for disorder here are worse than a president becoming a rubber stamp for a runaway Congress. It can be a Congress becoming a rubber stamp for a runaway president—an elected leader who isn’t, after all, designed as a lawmaker-in-chief, but instead an administrator-in-chief. Yet when these two separate branches of government both converge under the sway of a single ambitious political party or movement, it proves too enticing not to demote Congress—with all its attending friction and minority prerogative—and instead fix as much legislative prowess as possible in the executive. The Constitution gets turned upside down and inside out.
Lost Soul Presidents, and the blows they issue to Constitutional integrity, do more than just bruise what sentimental attachments to the Founders we might have. And they do more than simply theoretical damage to American politics. When multiple political parties, who go in and out of power, adopt the same tactics to elect their presidents of choice and sustain them in power—capturing two or three branches and subsequently jamming through wildly fluctuating, even contradictory, policies and styles of leadership—we, the governed, suffer from whiplash. (So do our foreign allies, as we can see most pointedly since January 2017).
Government comes to oscillate between serving some of us and punishing some of us. All the volatility strips people and institutions from the capability of planning for the future. Elections and transfers of power become ugly, divisive, and potentially violent. The parties themselves can at best pursue short-term goals. New administrations and new congresses, before they can move on to new business, must first sacrifice portions of whatever political capital they’ve arrived with in undoing the work of their predecessors.
Where once inspiring and uniting national figures were possible, now no one is above politics. All must pick a side. And when they do, they suffer derision from political enemies and, all too often, are made subjects of a worshipful savior complex from political friends. Americans whipsaw between reviling the federal government and expecting too much from it. We lose any common national interest. We are left bereft of political and, alongside it, social coherence.
Even more disturbing, Knott elucidates how, in a government system at least theoretically built on the popular consent basis, the path of least resistance for the most power-hungry presidents and parties involves stooping to demagoguery, censorship, voter suppression, the aforementioned impossible-to-keep-promises, debasement of the press, use of official police powers to surveil and harass enemies, viciously personal demonization of political opponents and the ends they pursue, the spread of conspiracy theories, and dirty tricks.
The most highly operative power moves under this state of affairs plow right through unpopular minorities. For instance, the Jefferson-Jackson dynasty, often celebrated for helping abolish voting rights’ property requirement, was partially built on the back of disenfranchising blacks and smearing the “elites” in favor of industry and banks. Progressive Era presidents like Roosevelt allowed Japanese internment and looked the other way when Jewish refugees from increasingly Nazi-dominated Europe sought sanctuary in America.
What are the qualities of the few presidents who, according to Knott, were most in proper relation to their intended Constitution role? The Lost Soul of the American Presidency rates George Washingtonian dignity very highly, perhaps as the most invaluable. Dignity, being or at least appearing above the fray, allows a president to serve as the ceremonial head of state that can lend stability when societies need it most. A good president, fulfilling the duties of office without bias for party, race, region, or socio-economic subset, will have to defy opinion and make unpopular decisions. Dignity allows the president to withstand the fallout that will inevitably follow, as Washington did after the controversial Jay Treaty that turned so many Americans against him midway through his second term.
Other presidential qualities Knott singles out as deserving of accolades are rhetorical restraint (perhaps best seen in Lincoln’s refusal to demonize secessionists), personal humility, and the adequate integrity to substantively place the nation’s interests above his own. Knott lambastes those who would be “change agents” and bids us to reconsider the legacies of “boring” and “caretaker” presidents—this latter point being one of the book’s most original and interesting. Where else but in The Lost Soul of the American Presidency will Gerald Ford and William Howard Taft receive nominations for presidential excellence? Yet Knott makes a compelling case. Historians paying tribute to Lincoln is hardly uncommon. But Knott leads us to focus on some of the Rail-splitter’s lesser-appreciated qualities, while also burnishing the reputations of John Quincy Adams and Dwight Eisenhower. His treatment of the Obama presidency, I felt, bore too little careful, contextual thought: both Obama and Clinton governed more from the center than they are given credit for, yet their political opponents were so suffused with passionate hatred for them that they were never given credit for trying to rise above party. There was, legitimately, something of a cult of personality around Obama. But I think it’s not fair to say that Obama was the architect of this, and that the gravest sin he can be condemned for on this point is welcoming it as wind at his back. The media strategies and statements of Obama’s Knott chooses as evidence of the man’s populism feel overreaching.
Tremendously valuable in the book are details about Jefferson’s worldview and his administration (I had not previously known about his proposals for “ward-republics,” nor duly considered his Francophilia and other personal manias in light of Living Constitutionalism). Knott gives us an insightful and disturbing account of parallels between Trump and JFK. The book is a handy primer on how 20th Century intellectual fads affected Constitutional interpretation. For instance, a sort of pop Darwinism arguably motivated Wilson to decry the Constitution as a relic of “horse and buggy” days, ill-suited to the appreciably faster pace even of 1910s communication and industry.
Metal becomes brittle when it is repeatedly, rapidly warmed and cooled. Knott warns the same phenomenon is happening to our republic, catalyzed by a long succession of overheated presidents who promise to heap piles of gold on their political base
January 1, 2020
This is a thought-provoking book. The author argues that populist presidents like Jefferson, Jackson, Andrew Johnson, Wilson, FDR, JFK, and the rest of the modern presidents (including Trump) led to the decline of the presidency with high expectations and hurting minority groups.
Knott is a conservative intellectual, and he does attack progressives wanting a certain kind of active presidency, and progressive scholars in their study and ranking of presidents, and although he reminds us about this throughout the book, his argument is thoughtful, but I wanted to warn readers.
I think this book is part of a larger effort to reconsider what kind of presidency we have today. I read The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America's Highest Office earlier this year, and Knott echoes some of Suri's arguments. Knott also echoes the articles I read elsewhere that call for stronger party gate-keepers in the presidential selection process, as well. Finally, there must be stronger checks and balances.
I'm still mulling over Knott's thoughts about presidents that do things that are not of popular opinion. For Knott, this is a good thing: a mechanism to protect minority groups. Civil rights and slavery are good examples. Another good example is the U.S. bank. It actually did good things, but Jackson, in a populist mode, cut it down. Federalists opposed slavery, while Democratic-Republicans saw the majority in the South as the winning move. It's interesting take on it and it makes me re-think the Federalist Party. Knott brings up Lincoln as a president bucking popular opinion to do the right thing. I think doing what is right is key here, because the Trump presidency operates not from a majority, but a 40% populist base, populist being key here. He certainly is hurting minorities. If we base decision-making on morality and fulfilling the constitution, we will need some common understanding, though.
Today, we live in a world where a very strong executive whose source for policy is opinion polls and populist rhetoric. I don't think it happens for every decision for sure, but lately, Trump rarely ever makes a move without checking his base. And as Knott effectively argues, a populist demagogue can create huge damage to our republic.
Knott is a conservative intellectual, and he does attack progressives wanting a certain kind of active presidency, and progressive scholars in their study and ranking of presidents, and although he reminds us about this throughout the book, his argument is thoughtful, but I wanted to warn readers.
I think this book is part of a larger effort to reconsider what kind of presidency we have today. I read The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America's Highest Office earlier this year, and Knott echoes some of Suri's arguments. Knott also echoes the articles I read elsewhere that call for stronger party gate-keepers in the presidential selection process, as well. Finally, there must be stronger checks and balances.
I'm still mulling over Knott's thoughts about presidents that do things that are not of popular opinion. For Knott, this is a good thing: a mechanism to protect minority groups. Civil rights and slavery are good examples. Another good example is the U.S. bank. It actually did good things, but Jackson, in a populist mode, cut it down. Federalists opposed slavery, while Democratic-Republicans saw the majority in the South as the winning move. It's interesting take on it and it makes me re-think the Federalist Party. Knott brings up Lincoln as a president bucking popular opinion to do the right thing. I think doing what is right is key here, because the Trump presidency operates not from a majority, but a 40% populist base, populist being key here. He certainly is hurting minorities. If we base decision-making on morality and fulfilling the constitution, we will need some common understanding, though.
Today, we live in a world where a very strong executive whose source for policy is opinion polls and populist rhetoric. I don't think it happens for every decision for sure, but lately, Trump rarely ever makes a move without checking his base. And as Knott effectively argues, a populist demagogue can create huge damage to our republic.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 2, 2020
Throughout the book of The Lost Soul of the American Presidency, this nonfiction
masterpiece touches on what the founding fathers intended for the presidency to look like; as
well as what it represented, and the relatively few that kept with the ideals and principles of
those beliefs. Of course, with George Washington being one of them. Throughout much of the
novel this book touches on the most progressive of the populist presidents. This was a
contradiction to the way the founders of the constitution believed the president should go
about his job, as well as the way Stephen Knotts believed it should be handled. While at the
same time he touches on the few presidents that were able to thwart the fast-moving pace at
which the populist presidents were taking over. Stephen Knotts has made it a passion of his as
well as a career to learn all about the founding fathers in addition to the shaping of America
based off those presidents. As he says, he pursued his interests in the presidency, after
graduating with his bachelors, by receiving an offer to work at John F. Kennedy Library in
Boston. He ended up pursuing a doctorate in Political Science with a focus on the presidency.
He also became the codirector of the center’s presidential oral history program. Besides writing
this insightful nonfiction book, he is also the author of a few note-worthy works; like Rush to
Judgment: George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of
Myth. So, he is well accredited to speak on this subject. Stephen Knotts talks in this book about
the presidents that in a sense did the most harm, and effectively changed the way the
presidency was thought of; a good quote that signifies that is by a man who was part of that populist agenda of presidents, because of his appeal, Progressivism and charm on camera. His
name is John F. Kennedy and that quote is as follows: “Man can be as big as he wants.”1
The Purpose for this nonfiction work is as Stephen knotts explains best in his own
words; “this book was written in the hope that restoration and renewal are still possible.”2 He
argues that we may still be able to get back to the roots of our framers visions by subsiding to
the populist movements in office and by returning to a more constitutional presidency; one not
based off of passion or popular consent, and more on sober judgement and a solid foundation
of principled values. One person that could be placed in this category of a good constitutional
president is Abraham Lincoln; he had decency, he wouldn’t make big scenes about his opposing
political opponents, and he didn’t believe in demoralizing other candidates to look better or try
to advance his agenda. He was opposed to the concept of “a majority is to govern” as well as
the popular consensus. Among other presidents that had these views and ideals were Alex
Hamilton, John Quincy Adams, Madison, and Dwight Eisenhower.
While this book goes over some of the most renowned creators of the progressive
populist presidency, it also touches on the small pond, or rather handful of presidents that I
mentioned in the previous paragraph, that were true to the dreams of the framers, and their
ideals for what it meant to be a president of the united states. An thee effect on the
government as well as America since the notably reliable ones have since passed from the
position of leader of the free world; which that term in itself could be considered a model of the populist movement that has swept through our united states presidency. Though this book
Is about demagoguery and its affects, he doesn’t list every populist president; he only lists the
most influential ones. For example, many believe, and so does Stephen Knotts, that Thomas
Jefferson was the founder of the populist presidency and was when it originated. People
sometimes refer to this time as the “Revolution of 1800.” This is because it was the first time a
change in political views in office was taking place, or rather the first switch of political parties
in the office.
Thomas Jefferson had a belief that it was important for the majority to have their say,
incorporating into the presidency the first president that believed it was best for the popular
opinion of the majority to dictate the decisions that needed to be made. Changing the
presidency into something of a popularity contest for lack of a better word. To be fair though,
he did also mention in his first inaugural address that the minority still hold their equal rights
because for them not to; would be oppression. Jefferson really set the stage for the popular
consent of presidents, as Stephen Knotts explains here; “upending the role of the president in
the system of separation of powers and fundamentally altering the way the president would
relate to the citizenry,” and adds a little later that he “undermined the intentions of the framers
of the constitution.”3 he later goes on to talk about how Jefferson inevitably changed and
replaced the original constitution, putting it on a course for the popular presidents to be the
leaders of the democratic system. This is somewhat problematic though, because this directly
goes against what Jefferson himself wrote in the declaration of independence; “prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light &
transient causes.”4 Even though it was an informal change, it was consequently a change to the
long established constitution that had been instituted; it had already been a reality for 15 years,
and a direct contradiction to what the founders believed was the right form of presidency.
Of the presidents covered that had this demagogue view; I don’t think there is one that
tops the extremist views and passions that lead him to quite a few of his decisions, and that
was Andrew Jackson. In a way, he kind of pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable from
a president, even though it was a bad extension of that boundary. For a majority of his first
term, he fought tooth and nail against the national bank because he believed that the federal
government shouldn’t be able to establish a national bank, because he believed it benefitted
the small centralized elites rather than the common everyday man, which was the majority.
Even though it was a national bank that would have helped to progress foreign commerce as
well as trade. As is explained here in Federalist Paper no.12, written by one of the few non-
populist presidents Alex Hamilton that didn’t lead by passion and popular consent; “one
national government would be able, at much less expense, to extend the duties on imports,
beyond comparison, further than would be practicable to the States separately, or to any
partial confederacies.”5
Not everybody agrees though with the way Knotts thinks, for example; while Knotts
believed that George Washington and Adams were men who didn’t care much to be in the spotlight and to be in a position of glamour, the views are quite differently represented in the
textbook Lands of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story. In this book the author
Wilfred M. McClay explains George Washington and Adams differently; “Washington and
Adams both believed it important to surround the presidency with an aura of grander and high
dignity” and that it was “meant to serve an important public purpose.”6 Even though these
presidents weren’t part of the popular presidency views or the “majority.” They didn’t try to
appeal to the bigger crowd. He also has a different view of Jefferson saying; “he decided to walk
rather than ride to and from the Capitol for his inauguration, and he went on to establish a tone
of low-key, unpretentious republican informality in his dress, his manners, and his way of
entertaining visitors.”7 While this may be true, Thomas Jefferson definitely didn’t stay low-key,
he was a popular majority style president.
Knotts goes on to talk about more of the populist presidents that influenced and shaped
the presidency into what it is now, all the way up to the Obama presidency, and including
Donald trumps so far; who has in Knotts views rivaled and in some ways surpassed Andrew
Jackson in the extremist methods he has used. Woodrow Wilson is an honorable mention also
with his dissent for the minority to comfort the majority. While showing his consent for popular
sovereignty. I do think it is interesting and worth noting that over the duration of this book he
talks about the populist presidents being on the democratic side from the revolution of 1800 to
the foreseeable future, a majority of the presidents mentioned in this book. Even though this journal article on JSTOR named The Populist Style in American Politics: Presidential Campaign
Discourse, 1952–1996 mentions; “Populist voices within the Republican Party have received the
most sustained attention.”8 So as you can see, they are in direct contradiction to each other.
Though to be fair, Stephen Knotts is correct because there was a stretch of time besides with
John Quincy Adams when the populist movement was being conducted by the democratic side.
Another notable mention is the fact that Adams was not a populist president.
I think it is also worth mentioning that Stephen Knotts says that within the last 30-40 years the
populist movement has soared, and the decline into demagoguery has become its worst yet.
Though the same article as mentioned previously has a different result; “other research
suggests that populism in presidential discourse has decreased over the years.”9
Overall, after reading The Lost Soul of the American Presidency, while not agreeing with
every claim he made, I can say in all he did a great job of showing the presidents like they were
and not filtering to much of his beliefs into it. Based off all the material he cited to back up his
views. This is a perfect book for anyone who wants to learn more about the reasons the
founders an some of the later presidents did what they did, and how the things that were
happening around them at that time directly affected the decisions they made. It is quite a
good book in terms of painting the founding fathers the way they really were rather than the
bigger than life images some textbooks show them as.
masterpiece touches on what the founding fathers intended for the presidency to look like; as
well as what it represented, and the relatively few that kept with the ideals and principles of
those beliefs. Of course, with George Washington being one of them. Throughout much of the
novel this book touches on the most progressive of the populist presidents. This was a
contradiction to the way the founders of the constitution believed the president should go
about his job, as well as the way Stephen Knotts believed it should be handled. While at the
same time he touches on the few presidents that were able to thwart the fast-moving pace at
which the populist presidents were taking over. Stephen Knotts has made it a passion of his as
well as a career to learn all about the founding fathers in addition to the shaping of America
based off those presidents. As he says, he pursued his interests in the presidency, after
graduating with his bachelors, by receiving an offer to work at John F. Kennedy Library in
Boston. He ended up pursuing a doctorate in Political Science with a focus on the presidency.
He also became the codirector of the center’s presidential oral history program. Besides writing
this insightful nonfiction book, he is also the author of a few note-worthy works; like Rush to
Judgment: George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of
Myth. So, he is well accredited to speak on this subject. Stephen Knotts talks in this book about
the presidents that in a sense did the most harm, and effectively changed the way the
presidency was thought of; a good quote that signifies that is by a man who was part of that populist agenda of presidents, because of his appeal, Progressivism and charm on camera. His
name is John F. Kennedy and that quote is as follows: “Man can be as big as he wants.”1
The Purpose for this nonfiction work is as Stephen knotts explains best in his own
words; “this book was written in the hope that restoration and renewal are still possible.”2 He
argues that we may still be able to get back to the roots of our framers visions by subsiding to
the populist movements in office and by returning to a more constitutional presidency; one not
based off of passion or popular consent, and more on sober judgement and a solid foundation
of principled values. One person that could be placed in this category of a good constitutional
president is Abraham Lincoln; he had decency, he wouldn’t make big scenes about his opposing
political opponents, and he didn’t believe in demoralizing other candidates to look better or try
to advance his agenda. He was opposed to the concept of “a majority is to govern” as well as
the popular consensus. Among other presidents that had these views and ideals were Alex
Hamilton, John Quincy Adams, Madison, and Dwight Eisenhower.
While this book goes over some of the most renowned creators of the progressive
populist presidency, it also touches on the small pond, or rather handful of presidents that I
mentioned in the previous paragraph, that were true to the dreams of the framers, and their
ideals for what it meant to be a president of the united states. An thee effect on the
government as well as America since the notably reliable ones have since passed from the
position of leader of the free world; which that term in itself could be considered a model of the populist movement that has swept through our united states presidency. Though this book
Is about demagoguery and its affects, he doesn’t list every populist president; he only lists the
most influential ones. For example, many believe, and so does Stephen Knotts, that Thomas
Jefferson was the founder of the populist presidency and was when it originated. People
sometimes refer to this time as the “Revolution of 1800.” This is because it was the first time a
change in political views in office was taking place, or rather the first switch of political parties
in the office.
Thomas Jefferson had a belief that it was important for the majority to have their say,
incorporating into the presidency the first president that believed it was best for the popular
opinion of the majority to dictate the decisions that needed to be made. Changing the
presidency into something of a popularity contest for lack of a better word. To be fair though,
he did also mention in his first inaugural address that the minority still hold their equal rights
because for them not to; would be oppression. Jefferson really set the stage for the popular
consent of presidents, as Stephen Knotts explains here; “upending the role of the president in
the system of separation of powers and fundamentally altering the way the president would
relate to the citizenry,” and adds a little later that he “undermined the intentions of the framers
of the constitution.”3 he later goes on to talk about how Jefferson inevitably changed and
replaced the original constitution, putting it on a course for the popular presidents to be the
leaders of the democratic system. This is somewhat problematic though, because this directly
goes against what Jefferson himself wrote in the declaration of independence; “prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light &
transient causes.”4 Even though it was an informal change, it was consequently a change to the
long established constitution that had been instituted; it had already been a reality for 15 years,
and a direct contradiction to what the founders believed was the right form of presidency.
Of the presidents covered that had this demagogue view; I don’t think there is one that
tops the extremist views and passions that lead him to quite a few of his decisions, and that
was Andrew Jackson. In a way, he kind of pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable from
a president, even though it was a bad extension of that boundary. For a majority of his first
term, he fought tooth and nail against the national bank because he believed that the federal
government shouldn’t be able to establish a national bank, because he believed it benefitted
the small centralized elites rather than the common everyday man, which was the majority.
Even though it was a national bank that would have helped to progress foreign commerce as
well as trade. As is explained here in Federalist Paper no.12, written by one of the few non-
populist presidents Alex Hamilton that didn’t lead by passion and popular consent; “one
national government would be able, at much less expense, to extend the duties on imports,
beyond comparison, further than would be practicable to the States separately, or to any
partial confederacies.”5
Not everybody agrees though with the way Knotts thinks, for example; while Knotts
believed that George Washington and Adams were men who didn’t care much to be in the spotlight and to be in a position of glamour, the views are quite differently represented in the
textbook Lands of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story. In this book the author
Wilfred M. McClay explains George Washington and Adams differently; “Washington and
Adams both believed it important to surround the presidency with an aura of grander and high
dignity” and that it was “meant to serve an important public purpose.”6 Even though these
presidents weren’t part of the popular presidency views or the “majority.” They didn’t try to
appeal to the bigger crowd. He also has a different view of Jefferson saying; “he decided to walk
rather than ride to and from the Capitol for his inauguration, and he went on to establish a tone
of low-key, unpretentious republican informality in his dress, his manners, and his way of
entertaining visitors.”7 While this may be true, Thomas Jefferson definitely didn’t stay low-key,
he was a popular majority style president.
Knotts goes on to talk about more of the populist presidents that influenced and shaped
the presidency into what it is now, all the way up to the Obama presidency, and including
Donald trumps so far; who has in Knotts views rivaled and in some ways surpassed Andrew
Jackson in the extremist methods he has used. Woodrow Wilson is an honorable mention also
with his dissent for the minority to comfort the majority. While showing his consent for popular
sovereignty. I do think it is interesting and worth noting that over the duration of this book he
talks about the populist presidents being on the democratic side from the revolution of 1800 to
the foreseeable future, a majority of the presidents mentioned in this book. Even though this journal article on JSTOR named The Populist Style in American Politics: Presidential Campaign
Discourse, 1952–1996 mentions; “Populist voices within the Republican Party have received the
most sustained attention.”8 So as you can see, they are in direct contradiction to each other.
Though to be fair, Stephen Knotts is correct because there was a stretch of time besides with
John Quincy Adams when the populist movement was being conducted by the democratic side.
Another notable mention is the fact that Adams was not a populist president.
I think it is also worth mentioning that Stephen Knotts says that within the last 30-40 years the
populist movement has soared, and the decline into demagoguery has become its worst yet.
Though the same article as mentioned previously has a different result; “other research
suggests that populism in presidential discourse has decreased over the years.”9
Overall, after reading The Lost Soul of the American Presidency, while not agreeing with
every claim he made, I can say in all he did a great job of showing the presidents like they were
and not filtering to much of his beliefs into it. Based off all the material he cited to back up his
views. This is a perfect book for anyone who wants to learn more about the reasons the
founders an some of the later presidents did what they did, and how the things that were
happening around them at that time directly affected the decisions they made. It is quite a
good book in terms of painting the founding fathers the way they really were rather than the
bigger than life images some textbooks show them as.
February 10, 2020
The Lost Soul of the American Presidency: The Decline Into Demagoguery and the Prospects for Renewal by Stephen F. Knott is published by the University of Kansas Press.
This book surveys a number of Presidents from the past to the present. This is not, however, a mere survey of Presidential lives or biographical sketches. Dr. Knott strongly contends that the model was established by President Washington and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. A restrained and yet vigorous executive was conceived by Hamilton, and explained largely through his contributions to The Federalist Papers, and was executed through Hamilton’s mentor and boss, President Washington.
In contrast to Washington and Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson pushed and prodded more toward a majoritarian style of leadership. This entailed pandering to as well as discerning what the majority of the people wanted. In part, this seems like part and parcel of what I tend to like about the early era of American politics. Wars rage between Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians. These battles enlist historians, political theorists, political scientists, and the American public. Many people may not realize how often they are reciting a Hamilton mantra or a Jefferson mantra. The main thrust of our time is toward Knott’s view of Jefferson’s vision.
The main concerns that Knott has is toward a style of leadership begun by Jefferson and then extended in the Presidency of Andrew Jackson and from there expanded even more by Twentieth Century Presidents Wilson, both Roosevelts, and finally President Trump. In part, it is based on using the Presidency as a means of dealing with personal vendettas. Knott gives praise to some Presidents who normally get less acclaim on the grounds that they were more careful to stick to the most basic duties, the Constitution, and not public opinion. Some of his choices here include John Quincy Adams, William Howard Taft, and Gerald Ford.
Part of the fun of this book is cheering and booing as Knott works his way through different styles of leadership. His praise of Lincoln, while careful, was not satisfactory to me. And I was really furious at his dealing with Andrew Johnson, but he marshalled enough evidence to make me cry “Uncle” at several points. I will still credit Johnson with being on the right side of the battle against the Radical Republicans in Congress at the time with acknowledging that Johnson was not ever bit the racist Knott says he was.
The last part of the book focuses on more recent Presidents. Patterns and expectations devolve upon the holders of that office. More often than not, those patterns and expectations are derived from the examples of more popularity-based and programs-based Presidents. All recent Presidents get a score card from their first 100 Days in office. This goes back to when Franklin Roosevelt took office and he signed a flurry of legislative bills into law. The time context–deep into the Great Depression–gave momentum to this activity. But Presidents still get measured in comparison to that standard.
All Presidents have had enemies, and while the Nixon White House was condemned for its “enemies list,” such lists exist in every administration. Some Presidents, those that Knott is most critical of, went after their personal enemies as well as those who opposed their programs. President Jefferson famously and nobly said in his inaugural address, “We are all Federalists; we are all Republicans.” (Remember that Republicans of that time is the party that became the Democrat party in later years.) Shortly after taking office, however, Jefferson privately conveyed his wish to destroy the Federalist Party. Andrew Jackson was the most vindictive man to hold office. He entered office convinced that John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay had wickedly delayed him four years in getting there. In time, he became a bitter foe to John Calhoun and every person in Washington who snubbed Peggy Eaton. Deep in his psyche, he was loathsome toward the British and the Bank of the United States.
In spite of his spite, Jackson did quite a bit of good, in my opinion, not Knott’s. I confess to having sympathy with some of Jackson’s rage, having agreement with some of his policies, and having some of the same suspicions as he had. I also confess to having some sympathy and support for the current President, Donald Trump. But Knott’s concerns about President Trump’s style, language, work pattern, lack of knowledge of the job, and unpredictability really uncovered some of the same, but not articulated concerns I have.
I know that when the President is criticized in conservative and Republican circles, people respond with “But Hillary.” Mrs. Clinton was not the only alternative people had in 2016, and I am not talking about the near comic line-up of third party candidates. The actions that forced us to choose between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton were made in the cold snows of Iowa and New Hampshire and the myriad of primaries and caucuses along the way. On that November election day in 2016, we were faced with two candidates who were prone to measure political actions by standards other than the Constitution, who were prone to vindictiveness toward enemies, who were quick to use harsh language describing those who disagreed, and who were bound to govern by appealing to their political bases far more than any moral compass.
The Lost Soul of the American Presidency is a history study. But it is not just a collection of facts or interpretations over the past. It is a call for some rethinking and debating about what we will do with this office in the future. Is the soul of the Presidency lost? Certainly, no one is going to win an election by promising to do less and less and to simply try to carry out the Constitutional mandates rather than election mandates.
The first step will be for us to read this book and others like it. Agree with Stephen Knott’s assessments or disagree or both. Political thought, which almost never occurs in the daily news accounts and discussions, will take us down the road to restoring civility and sanity to the process. Books like this one give me some hope that all is not lost.
This book surveys a number of Presidents from the past to the present. This is not, however, a mere survey of Presidential lives or biographical sketches. Dr. Knott strongly contends that the model was established by President Washington and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. A restrained and yet vigorous executive was conceived by Hamilton, and explained largely through his contributions to The Federalist Papers, and was executed through Hamilton’s mentor and boss, President Washington.
In contrast to Washington and Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson pushed and prodded more toward a majoritarian style of leadership. This entailed pandering to as well as discerning what the majority of the people wanted. In part, this seems like part and parcel of what I tend to like about the early era of American politics. Wars rage between Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians. These battles enlist historians, political theorists, political scientists, and the American public. Many people may not realize how often they are reciting a Hamilton mantra or a Jefferson mantra. The main thrust of our time is toward Knott’s view of Jefferson’s vision.
The main concerns that Knott has is toward a style of leadership begun by Jefferson and then extended in the Presidency of Andrew Jackson and from there expanded even more by Twentieth Century Presidents Wilson, both Roosevelts, and finally President Trump. In part, it is based on using the Presidency as a means of dealing with personal vendettas. Knott gives praise to some Presidents who normally get less acclaim on the grounds that they were more careful to stick to the most basic duties, the Constitution, and not public opinion. Some of his choices here include John Quincy Adams, William Howard Taft, and Gerald Ford.
Part of the fun of this book is cheering and booing as Knott works his way through different styles of leadership. His praise of Lincoln, while careful, was not satisfactory to me. And I was really furious at his dealing with Andrew Johnson, but he marshalled enough evidence to make me cry “Uncle” at several points. I will still credit Johnson with being on the right side of the battle against the Radical Republicans in Congress at the time with acknowledging that Johnson was not ever bit the racist Knott says he was.
The last part of the book focuses on more recent Presidents. Patterns and expectations devolve upon the holders of that office. More often than not, those patterns and expectations are derived from the examples of more popularity-based and programs-based Presidents. All recent Presidents get a score card from their first 100 Days in office. This goes back to when Franklin Roosevelt took office and he signed a flurry of legislative bills into law. The time context–deep into the Great Depression–gave momentum to this activity. But Presidents still get measured in comparison to that standard.
All Presidents have had enemies, and while the Nixon White House was condemned for its “enemies list,” such lists exist in every administration. Some Presidents, those that Knott is most critical of, went after their personal enemies as well as those who opposed their programs. President Jefferson famously and nobly said in his inaugural address, “We are all Federalists; we are all Republicans.” (Remember that Republicans of that time is the party that became the Democrat party in later years.) Shortly after taking office, however, Jefferson privately conveyed his wish to destroy the Federalist Party. Andrew Jackson was the most vindictive man to hold office. He entered office convinced that John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay had wickedly delayed him four years in getting there. In time, he became a bitter foe to John Calhoun and every person in Washington who snubbed Peggy Eaton. Deep in his psyche, he was loathsome toward the British and the Bank of the United States.
In spite of his spite, Jackson did quite a bit of good, in my opinion, not Knott’s. I confess to having sympathy with some of Jackson’s rage, having agreement with some of his policies, and having some of the same suspicions as he had. I also confess to having some sympathy and support for the current President, Donald Trump. But Knott’s concerns about President Trump’s style, language, work pattern, lack of knowledge of the job, and unpredictability really uncovered some of the same, but not articulated concerns I have.
I know that when the President is criticized in conservative and Republican circles, people respond with “But Hillary.” Mrs. Clinton was not the only alternative people had in 2016, and I am not talking about the near comic line-up of third party candidates. The actions that forced us to choose between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton were made in the cold snows of Iowa and New Hampshire and the myriad of primaries and caucuses along the way. On that November election day in 2016, we were faced with two candidates who were prone to measure political actions by standards other than the Constitution, who were prone to vindictiveness toward enemies, who were quick to use harsh language describing those who disagreed, and who were bound to govern by appealing to their political bases far more than any moral compass.
The Lost Soul of the American Presidency is a history study. But it is not just a collection of facts or interpretations over the past. It is a call for some rethinking and debating about what we will do with this office in the future. Is the soul of the Presidency lost? Certainly, no one is going to win an election by promising to do less and less and to simply try to carry out the Constitutional mandates rather than election mandates.
The first step will be for us to read this book and others like it. Agree with Stephen Knott’s assessments or disagree or both. Political thought, which almost never occurs in the daily news accounts and discussions, will take us down the road to restoring civility and sanity to the process. Books like this one give me some hope that all is not lost.
March 31, 2020
An excellent overview of how we moved from a President whose role was to protect the Constitutional order, protect minorities from tempestuous majorities and serve more of a "head of state" than a partisan leader of 51% who voted for him, to a popular president who thinks of himself as the tribune of the people, pushing aside moral and legal boundaries to their whims.
February 12, 2020
Knott weighs in on the degradation of the presidency beginning with Thomas Jefferson and his spirit animal Andrew Jackson, comparing and contrasting both to Washington and Lincoln, and how Jefferson and Jackson's populist fervor set in motion changes to the presidency that have not recovered to this day.
Through two centuries Knott describes how demagoguery has not only weakened the office of the president, but also the other two branches of government. Focusing on the likes of Woodrow Wilson, FDR, JFK, LBJ and Nixon, as well as more recent office holders, Knott delineates where each president has used populism to his advantage, but to the ultimate disadvantage of the country at large.
Through two centuries Knott describes how demagoguery has not only weakened the office of the president, but also the other two branches of government. Focusing on the likes of Woodrow Wilson, FDR, JFK, LBJ and Nixon, as well as more recent office holders, Knott delineates where each president has used populism to his advantage, but to the ultimate disadvantage of the country at large.
August 19, 2021
Dnf. It’s too right wing and tedious for me.
June 15, 2020
I just finished "The Lost Soul of the American Presidency" by Stephen F. Knott, a book given to me by Marjorie Cole, my mom. It argues that the original intention of the Constitution was to give the President very limited powers that are balanced by the legislative and judicial branches. He is not supposed to act like both King and Prime Minister. He is not supposed to solve all of our problems. The President is supposed to represent the entire country and not just one sectional party, and if necessary, be the leader in war. Alexander Hamilton was adamant about this. He thought the biggest risk to the Republic was that a demagogue would take over and ruin everything. Furthermore, Knott argues that over time the role of the president has devolved into the very nightmare that Alexander Hamilton feared would happen. His name is Donald Trump whose birthday is today (he was born on June 14, 1946).
"Trump is the logical culmination of a century of experimentation with the Wilsonian presidency. Alexander Hamilton began and ended the Federalist Papers by warning that demagogues represent the primary threat to the republic." (p. 206)
I used to like Woodrow Wilson because of his idealism, but after reading what Knott has to say about him, I no longer do. Woodrow Wilson was a strong believer that a great man could solve all of the world's problem and he was that great man. He was very racist, ignoring the KKK lynchings that were going on during his presidency. He thought the views of minorities got in the way of the majority viewpoint of being very efficient, and that blacks, hispanics, and American Indians were all lesser orders that needed to be instructed by our superior reasoning. They needed our instruction. Wilson did not believe in the checks and balances of the constitution, but in the continual progress of man through leadership that only he could provide.
Further down the line of the President losing his soul is Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton had sex with an intern (Lewinsky), but lied about it after he was administered an oath by a federal judge in a sexual harassment suit of something he was accused of when he was governor of Arkansas. Knott quotes Susan Glasser of the Washington Post. "I believe that Donald Trump has learned from and will take to heart the lesson how Clinton survived politically the year 1998. It was political genius how he [Clinton] handled it by lying. Lying was proven to work in some way that has enabled further the cynical and divisive political culture of Washington."
Spiritual renewal is not possible through the president of the United States, whether Republican or Democrat or Independent. We have lost our way by thinking like that. Woodrow Wilson was wrong.
"Trump is the logical culmination of a century of experimentation with the Wilsonian presidency. Alexander Hamilton began and ended the Federalist Papers by warning that demagogues represent the primary threat to the republic." (p. 206)
I used to like Woodrow Wilson because of his idealism, but after reading what Knott has to say about him, I no longer do. Woodrow Wilson was a strong believer that a great man could solve all of the world's problem and he was that great man. He was very racist, ignoring the KKK lynchings that were going on during his presidency. He thought the views of minorities got in the way of the majority viewpoint of being very efficient, and that blacks, hispanics, and American Indians were all lesser orders that needed to be instructed by our superior reasoning. They needed our instruction. Wilson did not believe in the checks and balances of the constitution, but in the continual progress of man through leadership that only he could provide.
Further down the line of the President losing his soul is Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton had sex with an intern (Lewinsky), but lied about it after he was administered an oath by a federal judge in a sexual harassment suit of something he was accused of when he was governor of Arkansas. Knott quotes Susan Glasser of the Washington Post. "I believe that Donald Trump has learned from and will take to heart the lesson how Clinton survived politically the year 1998. It was political genius how he [Clinton] handled it by lying. Lying was proven to work in some way that has enabled further the cynical and divisive political culture of Washington."
Spiritual renewal is not possible through the president of the United States, whether Republican or Democrat or Independent. We have lost our way by thinking like that. Woodrow Wilson was wrong.
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January 27, 2021The author takes a narrow view of the presidency as proscribed by the Constitution, i.e. the further a president ventures from the narrow definition of his prescribed duties, the worse the president. Therefore nonentities like Howard Taft and John Quincy Adams are awarded high marks--for performing strictly in accordance with the limitations imposed by the Constitution. Both of these men were, by all accounts, mediocre presidents. The stringent requirements outlined by the Constitution may have served well enough in 1776, but are far short of the obligations and skills required by modern presidents. I believe there were better presidents, those who understood their times and the needs of their constituents, generally dismissed by Mr. Knott. I judge them for the way they managed their responsibilities in stressful times. Therefore I find the best presidents to have been: Lincoln and FDR. They broke most of Knott's 'rules' but saved the nation. After that, according to most historians come: Jefferson, Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, Truman, Jackson, and Eisenhower. Of course, one point of agreement: Knott's thorough disgust for Donald Trump.
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