The Glory and the Burden

Robert Schmuhl

Description

Robert Schmuhl chronicles the American presidency for nearly a century, providing a compelling picture of how the functions of the office and who occupies it have changed over the decades.

The Glory and the Burden: The American Presidency from the New Deal to the Present is a timely examination of the state of the American presidency and the forces that have shaped it since 1933, with an emphasis on the dramatic changes that have taken place within the institution and to the individuals occupying the Oval Office. A new chapter and other elements have been added to the book, which originally appeared in the fall of 2019. This expanded, updated edition probes the election of Joe Biden in 2020, the transition of the White House from Donald Trump to Biden, and Biden’s first several months in office.

Robert Schmuhl traces the evolution of the modern presidency back to the terms of Franklin Roosevelt, maintaining that FDR’s White House years had a profound impact on the office, resulting in significant changes to the job and to those who’ve served since then. Specifically, the Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution, limiting a president to two terms, has largely redefined each administration’s agenda. News sources and social media have also grown exponentially, exercising influence over the conduct of presidents and affecting the consequences of their behavior.

Schmuhl examines the presidency as an institution and the presidents as individuals from several different perspectives. The Glory and the Burden is an engrossing read for a general audience, particularly those with an interest in politics, American history, and communications.

Preface to This Edition

Prologue

1. Consequences of Change

2. Perils of Power

3. Paralysis of Polarization

4. Conundrums of Communications

5. Reveries of Reform

6. Presidency in Progress

7. The Paradoxical Present

Epilogue

A Chronology of the Modern American Presidency

For Further Reading

Acknowledgments

Sujets

• Political Process
• Executive Branch
• American Government
• Political Science
• Historical
• HISTORY
• Casa Blanca
• Politics Magazine
• American politics
• Commander-in-chief
• Oval Office
• Federal government of the United States
• General officer
• Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Executive (government)
• White House
• General
• United States
• FDR
• Commander in Chief
• Joe Biden
• Donald Trump
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt
• New Deal

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268203795
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Glory and the Burden
This book was selected as the 2019 Giles Family Fund Recipient. The University of Notre Dame Press and the author thank the Giles family for their generous support.
Giles Family Fund Recipients
2019 The Glory and the Burden , Robert Schmuhl (expanded edition, 2022)
2020 Ars Vitae: The Fate of Inwardness and the Return of the Ancient Arts of Living , Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn
2021 William Still: The Underground Railroad and the Angel at Philadelphia , William C. Kashatus
2022 An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Environmental Collapse, Climate Crisis, and the Fate of Humanity , Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen
The Giles Family Fund supports the work and mission of the University of Notre Dame Press to publish books that engage the most enduring questions of our time. Each year the endowment helps underwrite the publication and promotion of a book that sparks intellectual exploration and expands the reach and impact of the university.
THE GLORY
— and —
THE BURDEN
The American Presidency from the New Deal to the Present
ROBERT SCHMUHL
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2022 by University of Notre Dame
Published in the United States of America
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022943000
ISBN: 978-0-268-20509-6 (hardback)
ISBN: 978-0-268-20377-1 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-0-268-20378-8 (WebPDF)
ISBN: 978-0-268-20379-5 (Epub)
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail]
For
W ILLIAM H UDSON G ILES
Who, in the twilight of his great collegiate career, kindly guided a wayward student with wisdom, humor, and friendship that endure
― CONTENTS ― Preface to the Expanded Edition Prologue ONE Consequences of Change TWO Perils of Power THREE Paralysis of Polarization FOUR Conundrums of Communications FIVE Reveries of Reform SIX Presidency without Precedent SEVEN The Paradoxical Present Epilogue A Chronology of the Modern American Presidency For Further Reading Acknowledgments Index
― P REFACE TO ― THE E XPANDED E DITION
When the calendar changed from 2019 to 2020, it quickly seemed as though new, unpredictable forces were unleashed across America. The first COVID-19 cases in the United States were diagnosed in January, with the initial deaths from the infectious disease following the next month. While the White House and other governmental agencies scrambled to deal with what the World Health Organization would declare (on March 11) to be a global pandemic, the 2020 presidential campaign started to shift from preliminary skirmishing to the high gear of responding to consequential events. In February, the Democratic Party’s nominating contests (in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina) competed for public attention with the cascading medical emergency.
Throughout the next several months, as COVID cases and deaths escalated and the American economy turned sharply downward, the two principal White House contenders—incumbent Donald J. Trump, a Republican, and challenger Joe Biden, a Democrat—sought support for their candidacies in entirely new ways. “Virtual” campaigning, via video communication productions, replaced press-the-flesh interaction for several months. Trump even accepted his party’s nomination from a stage erected on the White House lawn. Eyebrows of president watchers arched upward at the orchestration of a major political activity right on the site of the foremost symbol of executive power. The underlying message that the current occupant wanted to continue his tenure in the Oval Office was not exactly subtle.
What happened in 2020 and early 2021 followed no previous pattern from earlier campaigns for the nation’s highest office. Then, the extraordinary and momentous nature of the genuine democratic crisis that ensued after Election Day on November 3, 2020—with baseless charges of a “stolen election” and vigorous efforts to overturn the results—called for further consideration of the presidency.
A new chapter, “The Paradoxical Present,” has been added to this edition of The Glory and the Burden , which originally appeared in the fall of 2019. The book’s subtitle now reads The American Presidency from the New Deal to the Present (rather than The American Presidency from FDR to Trump ) to acknowledge that the office has changed occupants, switching from Trump to Biden. The stormy transition in late 2020 and early 2021 is a chief concern of the additional chapter. Moreover, the title of chapter six and its headnote have been revised, and the “Epilogue” has received amplification. Updated entries for the “Chronology” and “For Further Reading” contribute to making these sections more relevant for understanding the current paradoxical moment.
In the book FDR: A Centenary Remembrance (1982), Joseph Alsop notes that “the United States has been a remarkably fortunate country, and the lucky Americans . . . have been much envied. Yet the most unlikely aspect of American luck has hardly been noticed abroad or at home. On the rare occasions when the nation has encountered real danger, a great leader has always come forward in the time of need to see the United States through its peril” (7). In considering both the presidency today and its future in the years ahead, one question stands out from others: Can America count on history to repeat itself?
―P ROLOGUE ―
My fascination with presidents and the American presidency began innocently enough when I was a small child, through the kindness of a hotel bellhop. On a family vacation to Kansas City, we were staying at the Hotel Muehlebach, and my grandmother happened to be a Muehlebach and one of the hotel’s founders. Ralph, the bellhop, indulged a befreckled squirt’s obsession with collecting autographs of big-league baseball players—most teams stayed at the Muehlebach when they played in Kansas City from the mid-1950s into the 1960s. But one time, no doubt in an attempt to broaden a youth’s limited horizons, he proposed a new adventure. Instead of pointing out players in the lobby, whom I could corner into signing the baseball I unfailingly carried around, Ralph recommended a tour of one of the hotel’s restricted areas: the presidential suite. As we went up on the elevator, he patiently listed the numerous presidents who had stayed there, devoting most of his monologue to Harry Truman.
Beginning with his boyhood in Independence, and during his later years in Kansas City, Truman maintained strong connections to his stomping ground of western Missouri. Indeed, as I subsequently learned, the Muehlebach became known as “White House West” during his nearly eight years in office. What does an eager, young visitor do amid such historic surroundings? While Ralph was turning on lights around the penthouse, I decided to sit at the piano Truman used to play and plunked on the keys with wild abandon. Ralph kept this inharmonious interlude to himself, and, for once, I didn’t get into trouble.
Learning about Truman—we also visited the Truman Library and Museum in Independence—served as just the beginning. By the earliest years of high school, I knew I wanted to work in journalism, so keeping up with the news (including coverage of Washington) became a daily and rewarding commitment. Being called “prematurely old” by classmates and others should have hurt my adolescent feelings, but it really didn’t.
During senior year of high school, besides spending many more hours at the local newspaper as a part-time reporter than I did bookworming to prepare for college, I wrote a major research paper, the subject of which turned out to be “Barry Goldwater and Conservatism.” Why a seventeen-year-old decided to devote forty pages of juvenile scholarship to a losing presidential candidate and his cause two years after his landslide loss in 1964, I can’t remember. Yet heeding the teacher’s advice, I sent a copy of what I had written to the man who had run and led the movement. In his response, Goldwater said he “enjoyed reading” my immature effort at erudition, adding a concluding sentence: “I appreciate this more than words can ever express and I wish you success and happiness as you enter college.” (There was a nice compliment for my treatment of conservatism, but he didn’t address one of the paper’s conclusions: “It is unlikely that a conservative will run again for the presidency in the next few elections.” Ronald Reagan wouldn’t win his first term as California’s governor until November 1966, and he was, as it turned out, four campaign cycles away from winning the White House in 1980.)
During my undergraduate years—the late 1960s and into the spring of 1970—it was impossible to avoid keeping a close eye on the serving presidents. Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon—with their controversial decision making about the Vietnam War—concentrated the mind of every male facing the possibility of being drafted. Though I composed numerous dispatches for newspapers and magazines about this tumultuous era, it wasn’t until graduate school and the Watergate investigation that I definitely decided that contemporary political affairs, particularly the presidency, would be the focus of my teaching and writing. Until then, I’d followed a traditional, rather unexciting path in pursuit of a doctorate specializing in American literature and American studies while writing fugitive pieces of journalism to stay in training. What could be more conventional or predictable for a graduate student interested in both literary and journalistic matters than a dissertation about Mark Twain’s autobiographical narratives?
However, during a writing course I was teaching as a graduate instructor in 1973, a student raised her hand and wanted to know why so many people on television and elsewhere were talking a