Manuel Suárez Mier
Here is a text that helps understand why the US, followed by many other countries, could fall in the quality of their institutions and democracy and move towards authoritarianism.
In the search for how it happened that a reality TV actor, ruffian, inept and without an ethical compass but with authoritarian desires, came to the US presidency, there are all kinds of conjectures, including the one that proclaims the failure of liberalism and the market economy for not distributing wealth better.
Not believing those explanations, I kept looking and found a text that analyzes the history of how the presidential office was moving away from its original design conceived by the great US institutional architect, Alexander Hamilton, and its subsequent deterioration and current ruin.
Stephen Knott’s book, The Lost Soul of the American Presidency: The Decline into Demagoguery and the Prospects for Renewal [1], argue that the president, as head of state, should serve as its symbolic leader and in no way as the champion of his followers or party.
The presidency devised by Hamilton for his boss, George Washington, was a source of national unity and not a means of encouraging division and discord. Over time, he gained more and more power for its occupant, taking it away from Congress and thus violating the constitution.
Knott’s central argument is “that undermining political power at its legal foundations, trading it for a president in search of popular approval, led to the decline of the political system.” The text emphasizes the danger of exchanging a representative democracy for one of the masses.
The original concept is based on the principle that “the president must not shape or inflame public opinion but must serve as a brake on these inertias. In contrast, the presidency is now dedicated to inflaming supporters and the people to reinvent the nation. “
Thomas Jefferson initiated this corruption of the original design; 3rd President of the United States (1801-1809), who recast the position to fulfill the wishes and defend the advantages of the majority, with the predictable aftermath of leaving the minorities of the United States, Indians, and blacks, helpless.
Jefferson’s populism reached its climax with Andrew Jackson (1829-37) who dedicated himself to doing everything that the masses demanded, which, together with his supine ignorance, led him to close the central bank and pay off the public debt, culminating in the worst known economic debacle.
That populism carried over into the “progressivism” of Teddy Roosevelt (1901-1909), which was characterized by activism and growing intervention in the economy, reaching a new peak with Woodrow Wilson (1913-21), whom Roosevelt helped to choose, and who decided to change the roots of society.
The populist presidency transformed its occupant into the “tribune of the people,” defender of the “common man,” and “in the vanguard of change, which would lead the nation to the promised land.” That perverted vision of the presidential mission took hold in the 20th century and culminated in Trump’s nightmare in the White House.
I highly recommended reading to understand how both the US and the countries that followed his example fell in the indices measuring freedom.
* This column was originally published in Spanish on July 17, 2020, in Excelsior.
[1] University Press of Kansas, 2019.