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Donald Trump Is VOLUME XX, NUMBER 2, SPRING 2020 A Journal of Political Thought and Statesmanship William David Voegeli: Azerrad: Tyranny of Racism & the Minorities Anti-Racism Angelo M. Joseph M. Codevilla: Bessette: e Original Why Trump Is Fascist Not a Demagogue Steven F. Allen C. Hayward: Guelzo: Reagan in the Progressives Age of Trump Unmasked Paul W. Algis Ludwig: Valiunas: Delba Winthrop’s Samuel Aristotle Johnson Christopher Christopher Flannery: Caldwell: American The Chinese Threat Against Dual Indians by David P. Goldman Citizenship A Publication of the Claremont Institute PRICE: $6.95 IN CANADA: $9.50 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Book Review by Joseph M. Bessette Sounding Presidential The Lost Soul of the American Presidency: The Decline into Demagoguery and the Prospects for Renewal, by Stephen F. Knott. University Press of Kansas, 312 pages, $39.95 A dangerous ambition more often against “the military despotism of a victori- and demagogic appeals. It promoted sober lurks behind the specious mask of zeal ous demagogue.” By the time Knott’s history expectations about what government could for the rights of the people than under reaches the office’s present occupant, we learn accomplish. It was dignified and respectable. the forbidding appearance of zeal for that “[President Donald] Trump is precisely It was guided by republican ideals. It sought the firmness and efficiency of govern- the type of demagogue Hamilton and the neither to mold nor inflame but to check ment…. Of those men who have over- other founders feared.” Knott writes in bold public opinion. And it eschewed partisan- turned the liberties of republics, the strokes, with little nuance or subtlety. ship in favor of the president’s symbolic role greatest number have begun their ca- A professor of national security affairs at as head of state. reer by paying an obsequious court to the United States Naval War College, Knott the people; commencing demagogues, chronicles the presidency’s decline from the lmost immediately after wash- and ending tyrants. high-toned administration of George Wash- ington left office, Knott argues, the —The Federalist, No. 1 ington (and Alexander Hamilton) to Donald Apresidency began its descent into par- Trump’s “hasten[ing] [of] the office’s descent tisanship, rhetorical excess, pandering and tephen knott takes this warning into a media-saturated, cultish, hyperpar- demagoguery, inflated expectations, attacks from the firstFederalist essay as the epi- tisan, public-opinion pandering enterprise.” on the rule of law, and the enshrinement of Sgraph for his new book, The Lost Soul He ends with a chapter on “The Prospects majority rule. Only a few presidents have of the American Presidency: The Decline into for Renewal” for the Washington-Hamilton sought to stand against the tide, including Demagoguery and the Prospects for Renewal. model. This first presidency was energetic John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln (in He repeats it a few pages later—adding, for and committed to the rule of law. It embod- a qualified sense), William Howard Taft, good measure, Alexander Hamilton’s admo- ied moderation and prudence. It embraced Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, and George nition at the end of The Federalist to guard rhetorical restraint, rejecting pandering H.W. Bush—none with lasting success. Claremont Review of Books w Spring 2020 Page 32 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm The Lost Soul of the American Presidency the office to be broadly responsive to popu- view that the Constitution is more concerned takes its place in a larger project of under- lar sentiment. He praises Howard Zinn and with resisting public desires than facilitating standing and recovering the strong consti- Noam Chomsky for focusing “on the un- responsible self-rule. tutional presidency of The Federalist, Wash- democratic nature of the founders’ Constitu- ington’s administration, and Hamilton’s tion”; he claims “the American framers…did he office of the presidency,” he Pacificus essays (1793)—a project inspired not believe in government by the majority”; writes, “was designed to rebuff pub- by Charles Thach’sThe Creation of the Presi- he asserts that “most of the nation’s founders”“T lic sentiment, if need be, or at the dency, 1775–1789: A Study in Constitutional would have disagreed with Woodrow Wil- very least moderate these sentiments.” There History (1922). (Revival of scholarly interest son’s belief that the United States stands for is some truth in this. Nonetheless, the fram- in the strong constitutional presidency can “the sovereignty of self-governing peoples.” ers viewed the president’s selection by electors be dated to the 1969 reissue of Thach’s work, The founders did reject direct democracy. (initially chosen either by democratic state which included an introduction by the Uni- Elected officials, they believed, ought to refine legislatures or the people themselves) as a type versity of Chicago’s Herbert J. Storing.) For and enlarge public views, and natural rights of popular election through which, in Ham- several decades, political scientists, histori- ought to trump public opinion. But they ilton’s words, “the sense of the people [would] ans, and law professors have explored and also thought they were creating institutions operate.” Moreover, indefinite re-eligibility af- elaborated the constitutional presidency and through which the people would rule them- ter four-year terms would give the community its relationship to American political and selves. In the same paragraph of The Federalist regular opportunities to judge the president’s institutional development. Until this revival, in which James Madison says that representa- performance. It is unlikely that the people scholars saw the presidency as constitution- tives will “refine and enlarge the public views,” would support for president someone they ally weak but (potentially) politically strong, he calls the results of legislative deliberations suspected would frequently “rebuff” their ignoring Hamilton’s Publius and Pacificus “the public voice.” And later when he praises views, or reelect a president who frequently essays. the Senate for its ability to resist unwise did so. In short, the Constitution framed the Knott is less interested in questions of popular desires, he affirms that “the cool and presidency to be a more popular office than constitutional power than in the president’s deliberate sense of the community ought… Knott concedes. relation to public opinion. “As this book at- ultimately [to] prevail over the views of its As David Nichols reminds us in The Myth tempted to convey,” he writes in closing, “the rulers.” Would Madison (or, for that matter, of the Modern Presidency (1994), the Hamil- problem is not one of the ‘imperial presidency’ Hamilton or Washington) have denied that tonian presidency was not the only one that but the populist presidency.” This focus on the United States stands for “the sovereignty motivated friends of a strong chief executive the problems of populism causes Knott to of self-governing peoples”? Though Knott is at the Constitutional Convention. Regretta- overlook the very ways the founders created no progressive, he embraces the Progressive bly, The Lost Soul of the American Presidency Claremont Review of Books w Spring 2020 Page 33 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm says nothing about Gouverneur Morris’s and meetings at which citizens passed resolutions Trump’s rhetoric on the wall). Nothing on James Wilson’s signal contributions in fash- supporting the president. “Although the at- protecting religious groups from govern- ioning the office. In the Convention’s first days, tempt to use public opinion in this fashion ment regulation. Nothing on reductions in Wilson proposed a single executive elected was bound to happen sooner or later given the the food stamp and welfare rolls. Nothing on directly by the people for a three-year term underlying republican character of the regime,” trade agreements. Nothing on the provision and eligible to succeed himself. Such provi- Schmitt concludes, “the surprise is that this of military aid to Ukraine. Nothing on the sions would make the president “the man of precedent was set so quickly and, interestingly, war against ISIS. the people.” Morris enthusiastically endorsed set first by the Federalists and not [Jefferson Near the end of his chapter on Trump, Wilson’s recommendations. “[T]he Execu- and Madison’s] Republicans.” Knott himself Knott criticizes the president’s “academic tive Magistrate,” he explained, “should be quotes an 1802 letter by Hamilton acknowl- supporters” for “endors[ing] the notion that the guardian of the people, even of the lower edging that the “Federalists…have neglected the ends, e.g., judicial appointments, justi- classes, against Legislative tyranny, against the cultivation of popular favour by fair & jus- fied Trump’s destructive means.” Although the Great and the wealthy who in the course tifiable expedients.” he mentions Michael Anton’s widely read of things will necessarily compose—the Leg- “The Flight 93 Election,” Knott fails to engage islative body…. The Executive therefore ought hat, then, of knott’s harsh conservatives who have a different diagnosis to be so constituted as to be the great protec- assessment of President Trump’s of what ails the American polity and a differ- tor of the Mass of the people.” Wpopulism (in a brief 13-page chap- ent assessment of the administration’s accom- It did not take long for the two principal ter)? Knott concedes that there are risks in plishments. This is an opportunity lost. authors of The Federalist to learn that effective evaluating an incumbent president. Despite Donald Trump is not “precisely the type of governing required a serious engagement with this, he isn’t reluctant to reach definitive demagogue Hamilton and the other founders public opinion. Less than three years after conclusions about Trump’s presidency—as feared.” He is neither a military despot nor a taking his seat in the First Congress Madison is evident from the story his subheadings demagogic tyrant. Despots and tyrants sup- helped launch the National Gazette, for which tell: Trump is “Hamilton’s Nightmare” who press freedom.
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