Much Presidential
What Does It Mean to be the President?
Last Time on the Donald Trump Show…
In many ways, just seven months in office, Donald Trump has perhaps redefined the presidency as much as Washington or the Roosevelts did in their whole careers. Trump has, since entering office, treated the presidency much like his business or the set of his reality television show. Under the Trump presidency, everything feels up-close and personal, as though cameras are following his every move and breath. Everything is a cliffhanger and a punch to the gut for the audience, who happens to be the entire world. Even as television converts into a relic of a bygone era, the tactics which it used to consume the world in its sight have not changed — and Trump is a master practitioner.
The latest punch he’s delivered came in the form of a series of tweets over the course of about five days attacking CNN and those within his sphere of influence, and outside of it, who would desperately like for Trump to shut up and keep his thumbs his pockets as opposed to bashing the screen of his phone. This culminated in him tweeting that, his tweeting was not presidential, but rather MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL. A day later, he tweeted out a hilariously juvenile gif of him clotheslining and pummeling “CNN,” in a mockup of an old clip of him in the WWE.
But one other president has made extensive use of twitter during their time, and that was Obama. Theoretically, Obama set the precedent as to how the President ought to act on Twitter, yet Trump seems to have disregarded whatever precedent that was, instead exchanging it for a vital piece of his presidency as a direct link to the people — arguably a link which got him elected in the first place.
For all those who desire a direct democracy, it’s arguable this is the closest we’ll get for many years as, unlike in the past, anyone can respond to the President — and sometimes, he’ll respond back. It’s an instantaneous and short lived phenomenon, but it doesn’t detract from the fact that this is a significant development in the way that the citizenry interacts with the Big Man in Washington.
This is not the first time the President has ever taken advantage of new technologies or manipulated the media.
In the days of Theodore Roosevelt — more like Trump than would first appear — it was the sensation of “yellow journalism” which he used to bully his way around Washington to get what he wanted. It was that journalistic device which allowed Roosevelt to persuade the United States to go to war with Spain for the sake of Cuba and in defense of the Monroe Doctrine; Roosevelt himself would expand on that doctrine with his Corollary and transform America into a modern nation, just in time to go to war in 1917. The latter Roosevelt became the first president to appear on television in 1939, and even before then, Roosevelt had developed the Fireside Chats to speak directly to the people from the beginning of the Great Depression to the end of the second World War. Kennedy made television even more important for the President when he won the election in 1960 over Nixon partially for the sake of merely looking more presidential than the weary Nixon. Every great president has found a way to expand their influence, to gain more contact with the people. It is debatable whether this makes them genius or lucky, but the point is that Trump is the latest in a long line of media advances that has created a rupture in the traditional mold of the presidency.
Normalcy
Many of the norms we associate with the presidency have developed over time, but the majority of them emerge from Washington’s time in office from 1789 to 1797. Washington believed that the office of the presidency was a weighty and magisterial position, choosing to bow over shaking hands, choosing to go to Congress before signing an early executive order, deciding that the United States ought to be neutral in world affairs, and determining that, even as citizens cheered for King Washington, two terms was enough. He too set that precedent to speak to the nation at the beginning of each term, and to address them as he left, though he did not give this address orally as later presidents did. Washington carried the burden of the presidency with dignity and wield his power with fear, believing that he could not press too hard on the populace that had elected him. He was a servant of the people first, the law second, and himself last. He bore his power with humility and only used force when necessary, as in Shay’s Rebellion. Most importantly though, he projected an image of respect, bravery, and justice. Though the idea would not come until Jackson’s presidency, as the father of the nation, it was important that Washington set not only an example for himself, but for every man in the nation, a standard to live up to as an American.
He was a servant of the people first, the law second, and himself last.
Each president following Washington set their own precedents as what was presidential in the context of their times, in the face of different crises, and new powers they acquired thanks to their predecessors, or by their own merit.
Consider the Cold War’s inaugural president Harry Truman, who inherited an unprecedented amount of power from Roosevelt, following his death, thanks to the development of the atomic bomb — powerful enough that it killed 300,000 people in a matter of seconds between two days in 1945. In the hands of any other leader at any point in history, such power would have led to the destruction of the whole world within minutes for the sake of decimating their enemies and conquering their lands. Yet, Truman — who was in Potsdam attempting to deal in diplomacy with Stalin at the time of the bomb’s dropping — showed incredible restraint. Though he later authorized the development of the thermonuclear bomb, and essentially began the arms race between the Soviet Union and America, he never again used the bombs and, in a sense, prohibited anyone after him to use them either. Such was the essence of nuclear diplomacy.
Such restraint was merely one aspect of Truman which redefined the presidency — others were his decisiveness, his steadfastness to his principles, and the authority which he presumed, even when all others were against him. Truman determined that in the postwar world that was the Cold War, it was important for the president to show strength, but also a willingness to cooperate; it was important for the president to be proud of his nation, but to express humility in his actions; it was important for the president to also take action when it was necessary, as he did in Korea 1950. Truman, more than any president before him, as well established the president as the key diplomat in world affairs when he inaugurated the United Nations and went to them in 1950 as the North Koreans spilled over the 38th Parallel. Sympathetic to the cause of of the Palestinians, Truman also helped to create Palestine in 1948.
In a similar humanitarian effort, 1947 also brought the Truman Doctrine for the aide of Greece and Turkey in the face of the Soviet threat. It was also the Truman Doctrine which established a new executive action that would become key in the Cold War, so subversive it became necessary for the president to find an alternative way to declare war without ever directing a single troop to move into a single territory. It was completely symbolic and ideological, yet so terribly strong it was real. It was necessary for Truman to expand executive power in such a way though, for the sake of freedom and democracy in the world — if the people were willing to keep it for themselves.
Such examples only provide evidence of the fact that Truman was a modern Washington — much like the first, Truman had no desire to be president, but he assumed the position with a determination to live up to the duty that was being the embodiment the government, and a model for the American people. Though he was not popular for the majority of his president, his time in power made it clear that the presidency was not about popularity — it was about doing what was necessary and proper to defend not only the nation, but the ideas that the nation was built on and enshrined in the Constitution.
He who is known as the President acts not only for the betterment and advance of American interests, or for themselves, but for the whole advancement of the world.
Washington and Truman are but two examples of the many who define what exactly is meant by Presidential — dignity, humility, steadfastness, decisiveness, intelligence, and respect. To be presidential meant to not only set the tone of an administration, but give a voice to the nation and to represent America for what she is — a powerful and moral force in a world of ever mounting threats and persistent evil. To be presidential is to know when to speak and when to be quiet, knowing when to act and when to suggest, knowing and understanding what makes the people happy — and what makes them angry. It requires that he who is known as the President acts not only for the betterment and advance of American interests, or for themselves, but for the whole advancement of the world.
Such is the burden of the President of the United States.
Modernity
This is not a normal time, nor a normal president. Though Trump stands as the icon on the Right, he still subscribes to the Left's tactic of postmodernity, that is, the dissolution of values, principles, ideas, and society as a whole. This is not meant to disparage the president, but merely meant to serve as an observation of his actions so far. The concept at the core of postmodernism is that there is always a barrier between you and whatever it is that you’re interacting with — between my words and your eyes, between my words and your mind, between my fingers and my keyboard, between the interior of my bedroom and the bright world outside. For this then, the goal of postmodernism is to dissolve these barriers to create unity — the problem is, there are reasons for these barriers to exist, otherwise they would not have been constructed to begin with. Yet, as Trump desires to put up a wall between the United States and Mexico (a desire that has become merely a metaphor meant to troll anyone who had the unluck to draw his ire), he’s tearing down the walls which his predecessors have built — there is no longer a barrier between the public and the president, the president and other leaders, no longer a barrier between the president and the media. It’s all out offense, and Trump does not mind playing rough, no matter what bones he’ll break or what sort of injuries that he will cause to his opponents. All that matters is that he wins, even at the cost of all things that truly matter.
This is what it means to be Modern Day Presidential.
