DOCSLIB.ORG

George HW Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
George HW Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Communication Dissertations Department of Communication 5-10-2017 Transnational Presidential Rhetoric and the Global Imaginary: George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama Zoe Carney Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/communication_diss Recommended Citation Carney, Zoe, "Transnational Presidential Rhetoric and the Global Imaginary: George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2017. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/communication_diss/80 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Communication at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Communication Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. TRANSNATIONAL PRESIDENTIAL RHETORIC AND THE GLOBAL IMAGINARY: GEORGE H.W. BUSH, BILL CLINTON, GEORGE W. BUSH, AND BARACK OBAMA by ZOË HESS CARNEY Under the Direction of Mary Stuckey, PhD ABSTRACT This dissertation analyzes moments in which presidents interact with transnational audiences, identifying and explaining their rhetorical strategies for developing a global imaginary. Specifically, I first consider how George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev negotiate geo-political and spatial metaphors leading up to their joint press conference, symbolically ending the Cold War. Second, I discuss how Bill Clinton and George W. Bush universalize the trope of “democracy” in their speeches before the United Nations General Assembly. Third, I explain how Barack Obama figures transnational citizens and himself as a global leader in his transnational town hall meetings. Together, these case studies show the ways contemporary presidents call forth particular understandings of “the global” through speech. Politically, this study is significant because it broadens our understanding of the institution of the presidency from the framework of a national institution to that of a global one. Rhetorically, this study illuminates the relationship between presidential speech, transnational audiences, and the rhetorical imaginary of the global sphere. INDEX WORDS: Presidential rhetoric, Globalization, Transnationalism, Democracy, Universals, Imaginary TRANSNATIONAL PRESIDENTIAL RHETORIC AND THE GLOBAL IMAGINARY: GEORGE H.W. BUSH, BILL CLINTON, GEORGE W. BUSH, AND BARACK OBAMA by ZOË HESS CARNEY A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2017 Copyright by Zoë Hess Carney 2017 TRANSNATIONAL PRESIDENTIAL RHETORIC AND THE GLOBAL IMAGINARY: GEORGE H.W. BUSH, BILL CLINTON, GEORGE W. BUSH, AND BARACK OBAMA by ZOË HESS CARNEY Committee Chair: Mary Stuckey Committee: Nathan Atkinson Darrel Wanzer-Serrano Carol Winkler Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University May 2017 iv DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my husband, Kyle, who has supported me, encouraged me, and poured me coffee throughout my seven years of graduate school. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Amy Poehler once said that it is easier to be brave when you are not alone. For me, finishing my dissertation was an act of bravery. I would not have completed it without the embarrassment of riches I have in friends, family, colleagues, and mentors. To my advisor, Mary Stuckey, thank you for your sharp wit, your company, your quick responses, and your endless support. Thank you, along with my committee members, Nathan Atkinson, Darrel Wanzer-Serrano, and Carol Winkler, for making my work stronger and smarter. To my parents, thank you for raising me to think critically and to believe in myself. Without that foundation, it would be difficult to write anything, much less to write it well. To my husband, thank you for years of engaging my ideas until they became arguments. Thank you, mostly, for betting on me when I would not bet on myself. To my colleagues at Georgia State, I am grateful to have walked beside you through this process. Emily Kofoed, thank you for your friendship, wisdom, late-night writing dates, and yoga breaks. Sara Baugh, thank you for being my banana counterpart, always up for an adventure, commiseration, and the lending of a keen editing eye. Stephen Heidt, thank you for being an example to follow throughout graduate school. Evan Johnson, Christian Norman, Milene Ortega, and Phil Kostka, thank you for the rich discussions and debates over the years. Jennifer Mercieca, you have been a source of inspiration and guidance for the past decade. You make me a better scholar and citizen. Lauren Lemley, Katie Langford, and Elizabeth Thorpe, you have each shaped and challenged me in different ways. My life is richer and my mind sharper because of you. The friendship of Megan Irene Fitzmaurice, Elizabeth Gardner, Esther Liu, and Allison Prasch has been a gift, and I will always be thankful for the vi National Communication Association’s Doctoral Honors Seminar for bringing us together. Our online writing dates and your prayers helped carry me through this dissertation. Finally, some of the best advice I received in graduate school was to surround myself with people who do not care about my academic achievements or failures. So, to my community in Fort Worth, and to most of my family, thank you for keeping me grounded, often redirecting my gaze to that which is most important in life. This allowed me to write without a great fear of failure. Thank you all for making me brave. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................ V LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ......................................................................................... X 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 1.1 The Rhetorical Presidency ............................................................................... 6 1.2 Globalization and Democratization ............................................................... 14 1.3 Global Imaginary as Rhetorical Lens ........................................................... 21 1.4 Project Details ................................................................................................. 27 2 PRESIDENTS AND FOREIGN LEADERS: BUSH AND GORBACHEV END THE COLD WAR ....................................................................................................................... 33 2.1 Cold War Global Imaginary .......................................................................... 36 2.1.1 U.S. Liberty and Soviet Justice: Containing/Expanding Communism ..... 38 2.1.2 “New Thinking” Under Gorbachev ............................................................ 42 2.2 Setting: Malta .................................................................................................. 43 2.3 East and West as Controlling Metaphors ..................................................... 47 2.3.1 Leadership and Security .............................................................................. 52 2.3.2 Transnational and Global Identity .............................................................. 64 2.4 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 71 3 PRESIDENTS AND THE UNITED NATIONS: CLINTON AND BUSH UNIVERSALIZE “DEMOCRACY” ........................................................................................ 74 viii 3.1 Role of U.S. Presidents and International Organizations ........................... 80 3.2 United Nation’s Legitimacy and the Universal Audience ........................... 84 3.2.1 The President, The U.N., and the Universal Audience .............................. 89 3.3 Clinton’s (Market) Democratic Enlargement .............................................. 91 3.3.1 Democracy as Global Market ...................................................................... 91 3.3.2 U.S. as Synecdoche of Universal Audience ................................................ 96 3.4 Bush: U.S. “Democracy” and Universal Human Rights ............................. 99 3.4.1 Consubstantiation through Founding Documents ................................... 100 3.4.2 “World Community” and “Strict Father” Metaphors .............................. 106 3.5 Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 110 4 PRESIDENTS AND FOREIGN CITIZENS: OBAMA’S TRANSNATIONAL TOWN HALL MEETINGS ..................................................................................................... 113 4.1 Transnational Foreign Policy....................................................................... 118 4.1.1 American Exceptionalism .......................................................................... 120 4.2 Obama as Global Representative ................................................................ 122 4.2.1 Audience Response to Obama: Four Anecdotes ....................................... 122 4.2.2 Obama’s Rhetorical Strategies .................................................................. 127 4.2.2.1 Physical Presence .................................................................................... 128 4.2.2.2 Definition of a Situation .........................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • If It's Broke, Fix It: Restoring Federal Government Ethics and Rule Of
    If it’s Broke, Fix it Restoring Federal Government Ethics and Rule of Law Edited by Norman Eisen The editor and authors of this report are deeply grateful to several indi- viduals who were indispensable in its research and production. Colby Galliher is a Project and Research Assistant in the Governance Studies program of the Brookings Institution. Maya Gros and Kate Tandberg both worked as Interns in the Governance Studies program at Brookings. All three of them conducted essential fact-checking and proofreading of the text, standardized the citations, and managed the report’s production by coordinating with the authors and editor. IF IT’S BROKE, FIX IT 1 Table of Contents Editor’s Note: A New Day Dawns ................................................................................. 3 By Norman Eisen Introduction ........................................................................................................ 7 President Trump’s Profiteering .................................................................................. 10 By Virginia Canter Conflicts of Interest ............................................................................................... 12 By Walter Shaub Mandatory Divestitures ...................................................................................... 12 Blind-Managed Accounts .................................................................................... 12 Notification of Divestitures .................................................................................. 13 Discretionary Trusts
    [Show full text]
  • Pitchfork Politics Elections
    failed to gain traction in national THE AME Pitchfork Politics elections. On the left, the countercultural protest movements of the 1960s and The Populist Threat to 1970s challenged the status quo but didn’t secure institutional representa- R I Liberal Democracy tion until their radicalism had subsided. C As the political scientists Seymour AN DISTEMPER Yascha Mounk Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan famously observed, during the postwar years, the party structures of North America and ince Roman times, virtually every western Europe were “frozen” to an type of government that holds unprecedented degree. Between 1960 Scompetitive elections has experi- and 1990, the parties represented in the enced some form of populism—some parliaments of Amsterdam, Copenhagen, attempt by ambitious politicians to Ottawa, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna, mobilize the masses in opposition to an and Washington barely changed. For a establishment they depict as corrupt or few decades, Western political establish- self-serving. From Tiberius Gracchus and ments held such a firm grip on power the populares of the Roman Senate, to the that most observers stopped noticing champions of the popolo in Machiavelli’s just how remarkable that stability was sixteenth-century Florence, to the Jacobins compared to the historical norm. in Paris in the late eighteenth century, Yet beginning in the 1990s, a new to the Jacksonian Democrats who stormed crop of populists began a steady rise. nineteenth-century Washington—all Over the past two decades, populist based their attempts at mass mobilization movements in Europe and the United on appeals to the simplicity and goodness States have uprooted traditional party of ordinary people.
    [Show full text]
  • A Critical Review of Recent Literature on Populism
    Politics and Governance (ISSN: 2183–2463) 2017, Volume 5, Issue 4, Pages 177–186 DOI: 10.17645/pag.v5i4.1146 Review A Critical Review of Recent Literature on Populism John Abromeit Department of History, State University of New York, Buffalo State, Buffalo, NY 14216, USA; E-Mail: [email protected] Submitted: 19 August 2017 | Accepted: 18 September 2017 | Published: 29 December 2017 Abstract This is a review article of the following five recent studies on populism: 1) Ruth Wodak’s The Politics of Fear: What Right- Wing Populist Discourses Mean (Sage, 2015); 2) Benjamin Moffitt’s The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style and Representation (Stanford University Press, 2016); 3) Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser’s Populism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2017); 4) Jan-Werner Müller’s What is Populism? (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016); and 5) John B. Judis’ The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics (Columbia Global Reports, 2016). The review argues for a return to early Frankfurt School Critical Theory to address some of the shortcomings of these studies. Keywords authoritarianism; Frankfurt School; left-wing populism; populism; right-wing populism Issue This review is part of the issue “Populism and the Remaking of (Il)Liberal Democracy in Europe”, edited by Lars Rensmann (University of Groningen, The Netherlands), Sarah de Lange (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) and Stefan Coupe- rus (University of Groningen, The Netherlands). © 2017 by the author; licensee Cogitatio (Lisbon, Portugal). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribu- tion 4.0 International License (CC BY).
    [Show full text]
  • A Uses and Gratifications Perspective of the Relationships Among Consumption of Government-Conspiracy-Theory-Oriented Media Fare
    A Uses and Gratifications Perspective of the Relationships among Consumption of Government-Conspiracy-Theory-Oriented Media Fare, Trust in Government, and Political Participation A dissertation submitted to the College of Communication and Information of Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communication Studies by Rekha Sharma August, 2017 Dissertation written by Rekha Sharma B.S., Kent State University, 2002 M.A., Kent State University, 2004 M.S., Kent State University, 2004 Ph.D., Kent State University, 2017 Approved by ________________________________ Paul M. Haridakis, Ph.D., Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee ________________________________ Danielle S. Coombs, Ph.D., Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee ________________________________ Janet R. Meyer, Ph.D., Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee ________________________________ James D. Ponder, Ph.D., Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Accepted by _________________________________ Elizabeth Graham, Ph.D., Director, School of Communication Studies _________________________________ Amy Reynolds, Ph.D., Dean, College of Communication and Information ii Table of Contents Page TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................... iii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................................v LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • PERFORMING 'DUBYA': GEORGE W. BUSH NARRATIVES on the POLITICAL and THEATRICAL STAGES by Ryan Patrick Howe BA Theatre Arts A
    PERFORMING ‘DUBYA’: GEORGE W. BUSH NARRATIVES ON THE POLITICAL AND THEATRICAL STAGES by Ryan Patrick Howe BA Theatre Arts and Political Science, Boston College, 1998 MA Drama, Washington University in St. Louis, 2004 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2013 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH THE DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Ryan Patrick Howe It was defended on March 20th, 2013 and approved by Dr. Bruce A. McConachie, Professor, Department of Theatre Arts Dr. Kathleen George, Professor, Department of Theatre Arts Dr. Susan Harris Smith, Professor, Department of English Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Attilio Favorini, Professor, Department of Theatre Arts ii Copyright © by Ryan Patrick Howe 2013 iii PERFORMING ‘DUBYA’: GEORGE W. BUSH NARRATIVES ON THE POLITICAL AND THEATRICAL STAGES Ryan Patrick Howe, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2013 This dissertation examines how theatrical performance might offer the political left a model for responding to the communication strategies of the political right through a case study of responses to the George W. Bush administration. I conduct this exploration through a two-part study. In the first part, I establish a theoretical framework by looking to the work of Francis Fukuyama, Bruce McConachie, Brian Boyd and others to identify the common evolutionary and cognitive roots of storytelling and political order. Based on that understanding, I examine the historical development of presidential storytelling and create a rubric for analyzing contemporary presidential performance. The second part of this dissertation is comprised of three chapters, each of which focuses on a particular narrative strategy used by the George W.
    [Show full text]
  • Yascha Mounk Discusses 'The People Vs
    Yascha Mounk discusses 'The People Vs. Democracy' [00:00:05] Welcome to The Seattle Public Library’s podcasts of author readings and library events. Library podcasts are brought to you by The Seattle Public Library and Foundation. To learn more about our programs and podcasts, visit our web site at w w w dot SPL dot org. To learn how you can help the library foundation support The Seattle Public Library go to foundation dot SPL dot org [00:00:38] Hi everybody. Good evening. Thanks so much for being here tonight. [00:00:42] I'm such a brand and I'm the literature and humanities program manager here at the Seattle Public Library. Welcome to this evening's program with Yasha Monck and Robert Pekkanen and we're presenting this tonight in partnership with our friends at Third Place Books and we are grateful to our authors series sponsor Gary Kunis to The Seattle Times for their generous promotional support for library programs and we're particularly grateful to the Seattle Public Library Foundation. Private gifts to the foundation from thousands of donors helped the library provide free programs and services that touched the lives of everyone in our community. So those of you that are library foundation donors here with us tonight thank you very much for your support. Before we get started I just have a couple announcements. We are recording tonight's program for the library podcast. So if you haven't done so already please take a minute to silence your phones and then if you'd like to listen again you can look for tonight's Tadcaster on our website.
    [Show full text]
  • Democracy Disfigured : Opinion, Truth, and the People
    Democracy Disfigured Democracy Disfigured OPINION, TRUTH, AND THE PEOPLE Nadia Urbinati Cambridge, Massachusetts London, En gland 2014 Copyright © 2014 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Urbinati, Nadia, 1955– Democracy disfi gured : opinion, truth, and the people / Nadia Urbinati. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978- 0- 674- 72513- 3 (alk. paper) 1. Democracy. 2. Democracy— Public opinion. 3. Pop u lism. I. Title. JC423.U774 2014 321.8—dc23 2013014795 To my students CONTENTS Introduction 1 1 Democracy’s Diarchy 16 2 Unpo liti cal Democracy 81 3 The Populist Power 128 4 The Plebiscite of the Audience and the Politics of Passivity 171 Conclusion 228 Notes 243 Ac know ledg ments 299 Index 301 Democracy Disfigured Introduction he fi gure is a shape that is externally identifi able, a composite of ob- Tservable characteristics and the confi guration of a person’s distinctive features that enable recognition. Each of us has his or her phenotype thanks to which others recognize us. Our fi gure is thus precious to us be- cause the traits composing it are meant to make our appearance unique, different from others. In this book I use the analogy with body fi gure to explore some disfi gurements of democracy. The analogy of the “body” in po liti cal thought is as old as refl ection on politics. Theories of po liti cal legitimacy have been developed as theories on the substance of the body politic, what makes it po liti cal.
    [Show full text]
  • Democracy in America? Partisanship, Polarization, and the Robustness Of
    Democracy in America? Partisanship, Polarization, and the Robustness of Support for Democracy in the United States Matthew Graham and Milan W. Svolik∗ First draft: March 2018, current version: March 2019 Abstract Is support for democracy in the United States robust enough to deter un- democratic behavior by elected politicians? We develop a model of the pub- lic as a democratic check and evaluate it using two empirical strategies: an original, nationally representative candidate choice experiment in which some politicians take positions that violate key democratic principles, and a natu- ral experiment that occurred during Montana's 2017 special election for the U.S. House. Our research design allows us to infer Americans' willingness to trade-off democratic principles for other valid but potentially conflicting con- siderations such as political ideology, partisan loyalty, and policy preferences. We find the U.S. public's viability as a democratic check to be strikingly lim- ited: only a small fraction of Americans prioritize democratic principles in their electoral choices and their tendency to do so is decreasing in several measures of polarization, including the strength of partisanship, policy extremism, and candidate platform divergence. Our findings echo classic arguments about the importance of political moderation and cross-cutting cleavages for democratic stability and highlight the dangers that polarization represents for democracy. ∗Department of Political Science, Yale University. Corresponding email: [email protected]. \It is the function of public opinion to check the use of force in a crisis, so that men, driven to make terms, may live and let live." Walter Lippmann, The Phantom Public (1925, 64) \I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters." Donald Trump at a presidential campaign rally in Iowa (January 23, 2016) 1 Introduction \It is nearly impossible to find an American who says that he is opposed to democracy or favors some alternative.
    [Show full text]
  • What Is Compulsory Voting?
    SEPTEM B ER/ O CTO B ER: RESO LV ED : I N A D EM O CRA CY, V O T I N G O U GH T T O BE CO M PU LSO RY. 0 TRIUMPH DEBATE LD BRIEF – SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020 1 TRIUMPH DEBATE LD BRIEF – SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020 Table of Contents TOPIC ANALYSIS – BY BRETT BOELKENS, MATT SLENCSAK, AND KATIE HUMPHRIES ..................................................................... 5 AFFIRMATIVE TURNOUT ................................................................................................................................................................................ 12 COMPULSORY VOTING IS THE BEST WAY TO BOOST VOTER TURNOUT .................................................................................................... 12 LOW VOTER TURNOUT WRECKS ELECTORAL DEMOCRACY ...................................................................................................................... 13 NON-VOTERS DON’T VOTE SINCE THEY DON’T BELIEVE THEIR VOTE MATTERS– THE AFF SOLVES BY BOOSTING MOBILIZATION CAMPAIGNS AND REDUCING OPPORTUNITY COSTS ............................................................................................................................... 14 MANDATORY VOTING IS THE ONLY WAY TO ENSURE TURNOUT REDUCING BARRIERS FAILS SINCE THEY DON’T SERVE AS PRE- COMMITMENT DEVICES ......................................................................................................................................................................... 15 AT TURNOUT ..........................................................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Age of Mcmedia* the Challenge to Information and Democracy
    1 The Age of McMedia* The challenge to information and democracy. Helen Shaw. Fellow, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. July 2003. [email protected]. *Copyright: Helen Shaw 1 2 Abstract: When a handful of conglomerates control the US, and much of the global media landscape, what happens to the public’s right to information as defined by Article 19 of the UN Human Rights Charter? What impact does media consolidation have on the Jeffersonian ideal of an “informed democracy”, particularly in a time of conflict? And finally, what role should public broadcasting play in supporting a citizen’s access to information and participation in democracy? The US is now the most deregulated media market in the world and provides an international case history of the impact of the commoditisation of news. Without the counterbalance of a secure public broadcasting system, or ‘public interest’ regulation, the US media market is dominated by a few media giants with the real loser being the American public and its access to diverse information. The US now serves as a media laboratory to observe the challenge to democracy and information from ownership concentration. 2 3 “A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy: or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” James Madison, letter to W.T. Barry, (August 1822). “Enlighten the people generally and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of the day”, Thomas Jefferson, 1854.
    [Show full text]
  • Putting Democracy Back Into Public Education
    REPORT K - 12 Putting Democracy Back into Public Education NOVEMBER 10, 2016 — RICHARD D. KAHLENBERG AND CLIFFORD JANEY PAGE 1 Throughout U.S. history, Americans have pivoted between whether the central priority of public education should be to create skilled workers for the economy, or to educate young people for responsible citizenship. Both goals are important, of course, but with the recent rise of a global economy, the emphasis has shifted away from preparing citizens and toward serving the needs of the marketplace. On one level, this change of priorities is understandable. As we celebrated two hundred years of a continuous, improving democracy, the need for schools to emphasize the civic portion of public education began to feel less urgent to many leaders and educators. In a globalized economy, competition from foreign nations such as China appeared a more imminent threat than domestic challenges undermining our democratic values. But new evidence suggests that American democracy is under severe strain. In a recent survey, two-thirds of Americans could not name all three branches of the federal government.1 Only a third could identify Joe Biden as the vice president or name a single Supreme Court justice.2 Declining proportions say that free elections are important in a democratic society.3 The crisis came to a head in the 2016 presidential election, in which a candidate with authoritarian leanings captured the presidency of the United States. Moving forward, the question has become: How can our public schools do a better job of educating children for our pluralistic democracy? This report proceeds in four parts.
    [Show full text]
  • Originalism and James Bradley Thayer
    Copyright 2019 by Steven G. Calabresi Printed in U.S.A. Vol. 113, No. 6 ORIGINALISM AND JAMES BRADLEY THAYER Steven G. Calabresi ABSTRACT—This Essay provides an originalist appraisal of Professor James Bradley Thayer’s famous book on The Origin and Scope of the American Doctrine of Constitutional Law. I critique Professor Thayer’s thesis on multiple levels, pointing out important aspects of the original understanding that the Framers would have had of the meaning and origins of the U.S. Constitution, as well as disputing Professor Thayer’s discussion of the history of American judicial review from 1790 to the publication of his book in 1893. I conclude that no person can be both an originalist and a Thayerian. The two theories contradict one another and cannot be jointly adhered to. I then explain why I prefer originalism to Thayerianism as a normative matter. AUTHOR—Clayton J. & Henry R. Barber Professor, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law; Visiting Professor of Law, Fall semesters at Yale Law School 2013–2018. I am grateful to Akhil Reed Amar and Gary Lawson for their helpful comments. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1420 I. THAYERIAN RESTRAINT ..................................................................................... 1422 A. Thayer’s Rule of Clear Mistake ................................................................ 1422 B. Early Adoption of Thayerian Restraint and Tragic Consequences ........... 1423 II. ORIGINALISM’S JUDICIAL REVIEW
    [Show full text]