Balkinization: Some Thoughts on the Transition

Some Thoughts on the Transition

Mark's comparison of Obama to Andrew Jackson made me think about analogies between the leaders who succeed unsuccessful Presidents, as Jackson did. Are poor presidents generally followed by good ones? Many great Presidents have followed poor ones, but we have also had a series of bad presidents in a row, and when that happens, the country can suffer.

John Quincy Adams was followed by Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan was followed by Abraham Lincoln, Herbert Hoover was followed by Frankin Roosevelt, and Jimmy Carter was followed by Ronald Reagan. Does this mean that President Bush's successor, Barack Obama, is likely to be a very successful president? He has the opportunity to be a transformative president, and possibly a very great one, but there are no guarantees.

What Adams, Buchanan, Hoover, and Carter shared in common was that they presided over the end of their electoral coalitions. As I've argued previously it is likely that George W. Bush has also presided over the end of the Reagan coalition (I would say destroyed). But for Obama to create a new coalition, he must give the electorate a reason to keep electing Democrats. That means he must succeed in a way that changes the basic assumptions of politics. Certainly that is what he hopes to do, but it is a tall order. If Obama proves to be a failure as a president, the next president may be a Republican who creates a new conservative coalition out of the shards of the old one.

It's worth noting that poor presidents are not always succeeded by successful ones. the hapless Millard Fillmore, the last Whig to serve as President (the party imploded soon after), was succeeded by the Democrat Franklin Pierce, another poor president, who in turn was succeeded by an even worse president, James Buchanan. Three bad presidents were followed by the worst crisis in our nation's history, the Civil War.

This particular example is sobering because it suggests that the country may easily survive one term of a bad president, but it may be greatly harmed by a series of poor leaders. After two terms of the disastrous George W. Bush, who seems to have been at least as incompetent as Filmore and Pierce, there may not be much room for error. If Obama is a poor president, the problems he inherits may be amplified, and however bad things seem now, they may get far worse.

True, Nixon, a failed president, was followed by two below average presidents, Ford and Carter, and the country survived quite nicely, despite very significant economic and foreign policy problems. But the difficulties these days seem more severe than when Ronald Reagan took office. (Indeed, in hindsight, George W. Bush has made the Ford and Carter presidencies look somewhat better). (Indeed, it's worth noting that from 1932 through 1968 the country was particularly well served by a series of great to good presidents: Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. JFK is probably the least distinguished of this group, although he remains among the most popular. It is not entirely coincidental that during this run of presidents America became the preeminent power in the the world.).

Andrew Johnson, a failed president, was followed by Grant, whose record was mixed (although his reputation has improved in recent years), and the Presidents following Grant are mostly forgettable until you get to Cleveland. But these Presidents-- Grant, Hayes, Garfield and Arthur-- are better described as mediocre or run of the mill than as true failures. They did not provoke a set of truly serious crises for the Republic. The situation that President Bush has bequeathed to us is markedly different and far more urgent.

All of which is to say that a lot is at stake in this presidency. One term of George W. Bush was bad enough, the second term has put the country in serious difficulties. We cannot risk a third unsuccessful presidential term. Let us wish the new President and his administration the best of luck and hope for a series of good presidents for the next thirty years.

Posted 11:30 PM by JB [link]

Comments:

Grant and Arthur both suffered from economic crises exacerbated by Jackson's destruction of the Bank of the United States. When we finally got around to having a national banking system again, we got the Federal Reserve, a private club. Even with the increased powers brought about by deposit insurance in the New Deal, we came into this crisis with a basically self-regulating banking system that (1) gouges consumers through fees and usury; (2) has totally failed to impose limits on lending by sector, leading to bubbles; (3) has allowed funny financial assets into the banks' capital structures, leading to the need to recapitalize; (4) failed to control holding company structures and intercompany transactions (a problem identified in the New Deal but which is coming back in spades as brokers look to associated banks as a source of cheap capital); and (5) a monetary policy that identifies inflation as the enemy to the exclusion of unemployment.

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:28 AM

Andrew Jackson was an awful President and precipitated an economic crisis that was second only to the Great Depression.

Roosevelt was arguably the greatest agent for change in the 20th Century, but his economic policy failures extended Hoover's panic into a Depression that lasted a decade.

Both of these men illustrate Jack's point about the suffering that can be caused by multiple bad presidents in a row.

BTW, the Carter recession that Reagan inherited was far worse in every measure than what Obama has inherited. Unemployment, inflation and interest rates were all sky high. That was the only time in my life I was unable to find a job. You would have to go to Granholm's Michigan to find something comparable today.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 8:43 AM

I'm not sure whether I would describe Fillmore as hapless. Seems to have helped put together the Compromise of 1850, which held the Union together for a few years. Average seems better. JQ Aamas was hardly a disaster in office. Rather, as Jack more fairly notes, he could not get his aggressive program though an increasingly hostile Congress.

# posted by

Mark Graber : 9:02 AM

Little Lisa's bro (aka ANOAGN) once again dumps his backpack of lies with his revisionism and distorts JB's comment about multiple bad presidents in a row. When was Hoover's mere panic? Was it is 1929, some four (4) years before FDR took office? That's a long time for mere panic, permitting it to morph into a Great Depression.

And just what kind of a job was little Lisa's bro (aka ANOAGN) qualified for back in 1980 reflecting his:

"That was the only time in my life I was unable to find a job." Are his blogging hours billable now or merely bilious? These are sobering times, especially for DUI enablers.

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 9:03 AM

Did Fillmore help put together the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 as well? Did this also help to hold the Union together for a few years? Or did it help precipitate Taney's Dred Scott decision? This all led to Whig-flipping times.

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 9:10 AM

Whether presidents were "good" or "bad" tends to be a judgment biased by one's political leanings. I think it's safer to refer to their electoral success (or lack thereof). Thus, JQA, who IMO supported much better policies than did Jackson, was unsuccessful as a president.

Putting it this way tends to reflect the judgment of people at the time (thus, Fillmore was unsuccessful) even if later historians may see things differently.

The successful presidents tend to be able to hold together a coalition which contains within it contradictory elements or to support policies which, in the long term, prove disastrous. For example, Jackson held together a coalition which was both unionist and pro-slavery; by the time Buchanan came along, the pro-slavery voters were disunionist.

# posted by

Mark Field : 11:02 AM

"BTW, the Carter recession that Reagan inherited ..."

Ummm, how about the recessions that Dubya inherited from Clinton along with the 9/11 attacks? No point in not bringing these up. We need to put things in perspective. "Two legs good, four legs bad".

Cheers,

# posted by

Arne Langsetmo : 11:23 AM

Whether presidents were "good" or "bad" tends to be a judgment biased by one's political leanings.

Mark, you're surely right about that, but there's certainly room for actions like the Indian Removal Act to influence/determine our overall judgment regardless of political leanings.

# posted by

PMS_CC : 2:14 PM

Mark, you're surely right about that, but there's certainly room for actions like the Indian Removal Act to influence/determine our overall judgment regardless of political leanings.

Agreed.

I'll add that I find Jackson pretty detestable as a president and as a person, but he was on the right side of two of the 4 important issues of the day, namely, union and expanded democracy.

# posted by

Mark Field : 3:02 PM

# posted by

Unknown : 1:13 PM