In The Lost Soul of the American Presidency, Stephen F. Knott tackles a subject on the minds of many Americans: How did we get to where we are? That is, how did we get to our highly polarized country, complete with a highly divisive and arguably demagogic president? Knott offers an answer worth thinking about: our condition is at least partly the logical outgrowth of the transformation of the presidency from a constitutional office to a popular office.
Knott’s argument is unabashedly Hamiltonian. He puts forward as the starting point the “constitutional presidency” as understood by Hamilton and Washington. In this original conception of the presidency, the president would be a stout defender of the rule of law and would strive to maintain the dignity of the office. He would serve a unifying function, prioritizing his role as head of state over a diverse and fractious republic. Although elected by the people indirectly, he would be independent from public opinion, and one of his most important tasks would be a willingness to exercise his powers to check legislative excess and defend unpopular minorities. Washington, in particular, would be both personally and politically humble and would think institutionally, understanding that the office was not coterminous with its temporary inhabitant. This model both compelled and allowed for a certain magnanimity from the president.
After establishing this baseline, Knott proceeds to trace key moments in what he calls the “degradation” of the presidency, culminating in our current dyspeptic moment. In stages, Knott argues, pivotal presidents shed the elements of the constitutional presidency.
This process began with the election of Thomas Jefferson in the “revolution of 1800.” Although Jefferson curtailed the pomp of the presidency, he loosened the bonds holding the presidency to the Constitution. He prioritized a new presidential role of partisan leader over the role of head of state and pronounced that his foremost task was to facilitate the wishes of the majority. In his partisan role he curtailed civil liberties and treated political opponents as enemies and traitors.
Andrew Jackson adopted Jefferson’s foundation while going far beyond Jefferson in degrading the dignity of the office. His efforts on behalf of the “common man” among the majority were offset by his offenses against the minority, whether free blacks or the victims of the Trail of Tears.
Woodrow Wilson represented the next leap in the “popular presidency,” as he advanced a theory of presidential power overcoming the separation of powers through rhetoric dominated by utopian promises. Franklin Roosevelt built on Wilson’s innovations, marshaling mass communications to propound an “us versus them” rhetoric.
To Knott, John F. Kennedy, despite his short tenure, was a crucial figure in this transformation, emphasizing himself as a “man of action”—operating largely outside the strictures of his party, building a personalistic culture of celebrity around his presidency, and using modern television to build a personal connection with voters. Since then, in Knott’s telling, it has been mostly downhill, with only a few examples of presidents slowing the trend and then only partially.
Knott appropriately concedes that it is risky to judge presidencies while they are still in office, but he holds that Donald Trump “has hastened the office’s descent into a media-saturated, cultish, hyperpartisan, public-opinion pandering enterprise.… Trump is completing the task that was initially undertaken by Jefferson and Jackson, updated for the twentieth century by Wilson, and slightly re-packaged by Franklin Roosevelt and Kennedy, and their successors” (pp. 206–7). He acknowledges that many of these predecessors would likely be appalled by Trump, but the institutional consequences of their presidencies include the creation of a divisive, partisan office that treats opponents as enemies and that fuels public discontent through consistent overpromising.
Overall, Knott offers an extended argument for drastically revising our notions of what constitutes an admirable presidency, and consequently the way we rank particular presidents. In this view, Jefferson, Jackson, Wilson, FDR, and Kennedy would be significantly downgraded. Their diminishment of the constitutional presidency and puffing up of the popular presidency had enormous negative consequences for their own times, as well as our own. Conversely, a set of unsung heroes should be elevated in rank. These are presidents whose fidelity to the rule of law and whose humility and magnanimity were in keeping with the constitutional presidency: John Quincy Adams, William Howard Taft, Calvin Coolidge, Gerald Ford, and George H. W. Bush (at least once the 1988 campaign was over). Knott also points to Abraham Lincoln and Dwight D. Eisenhower, already highly ranked among scholars, as worthy of the praise they receive and perhaps more.
The Lost Soul of the American Presidency is a timely contribution to scholarship on the presidency. As Knott points out, although Donald Trump is unique in some ways, it is a mistake to see him as an aberration. It is important to come to grips with the institutional trends that have made him possible, if not inevitable. The president’s supporters will not be satisfied, as Knott’s treatment of Trump lacks the even-handedness he applies to most other presidents; it could be argued, for example, that, despite his many faults, Trump has used the presidency to defend the rights of vulnerable minorities such as gun owners, Americans whose conscience does not permit them to genuflect before modern progressive social notions, and even (for pro-life voters) the unborn. Progressive scholars will be equally discomfited, as Knott relentlessly notes the demagoguery, divisiveness, and assaults on civil liberties characteristic of the pantheon of progressive presidential heroes. But we live in a discomfited time, and Knott is challenging all to reconsider. Broadly speaking, his argument is thoughtful and defensible. One can support an energetic presidency without insisting on the popular presidency with its problematic personalism and hubris.
There are some questions that might have received greater attention, however. Knott glides over the presidents of the late nineteenth century while acknowledging that they tended to hew more to the constitutional model. A case study of Grover Cleveland might have been in order. Some greater attention might have been paid to the potentially ameliorative role of presidential rhetoric. And it would have been helpful to think more systematically about how to weigh varying elements. Does Kennedy’s gradual embrace of minority rights outweigh the negative consequences of facilitating the celebrity status and communications dominance of the popular presidency? It is not quite clear.
Perhaps the biggest question—at most only partially answered—is how we should think about consent of the governed and majority rule relative to the presidency or, more broadly, how to restore a presidency of humility and self-control within a society increasingly defined by narcissism and instant gratification. As Knott admits, “Trump is a representative man of his era” (p. 208).
In the end, Knott expresses pessimism that the degrading of the presidency can be reversed. His study provides much evidence that the task will be quite difficult, not least because Americans seem to like the popular presidency, even if they do not like its consequences. Most of the unsung heroes Knott extols were defeated when they attempted to hold onto the White House. Yet Knott provides two politically successful examples—Lincoln and Eisenhower—as well as partial examples, like Reagan, who embraced elements of the popular presidency but also revived elements of the constitutional presidency.
Perhaps a first step would be simply to find a president who will reemphasize his role as head of state and be capable of conducting himself with magnanimity and a modicum of both personal and political humility. Perhaps that is not asking too much.
