tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/george-h-w-bush-52994/articlesGeorge H.W. Bush – The Conversation2023-11-06T13:34:51Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2170242023-11-06T13:34:51Z2023-11-06T13:34:51ZWhy are US politicians so old? And why do they want to stay in office?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557470/original/file-20231103-25-kk1rtg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C8%2C2908%2C2397&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Donald Trump, left, and Joe Biden, both photographed on Nov. 2, 2023, are two of the three oldest men ever to serve as president.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trump: Brandon Bell/Getty Images; Biden: AP Photo/Evan Vucci</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When former President Bill Clinton showed up at the White House in early 2023, he was there to join President Joe Biden to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-biden-and-bill-clinton-speak-on-30th-anniversary-of-family-and-medical-leave-act">Family and Medical Leave Act</a>. It was hard to avoid the fact that it had been three decades since Clinton was in office – yet at 77, he’s somehow three years younger than Biden.</p>
<p>Biden, now 81 years old, is the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/20/politics/joe-biden-80th-birthday/index.html">first octogenarian to occupy the Oval Office</a> – and his main rival, former President Donald Trump, is 77. A Monmouth University poll taken in October 2023 showed that roughly three-quarters of voters think Biden is <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4233885-more-in-new-poll-likely-to-see-biden-as-too-old-than-trump/">too old for office</a>, and nearly half of voters think Trump is too old to serve. </p>
<p>My former boss, President George H.W. Bush, happily chose not to challenge Clinton again in the 1996 election. If he had run and won, he would have been 72 at the 1997 inauguration. Instead, he <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/bush/life-after-the-presidency">enjoyed a great second act</a> filled with humanitarian causes, skydiving and grandchildren. Bush’s post-presidential life, and <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/506330/americans-outlook-retirement-worsened.aspx">American ideals of retirement</a> in general, raise the question of why these two men, Biden and Trump – who are more than a decade and a half beyond the <a href="https://www.fool.com/research/average-retirement-age/">average American retirement age</a> – are stepping forward again for <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/05/a-broken-office/556883/">one of the hardest jobs in the world</a>.</p>
<h2>A trend toward older people</h2>
<p>Trump and Biden are two of the three oldest men to ever serve as president. For 140 years, William Henry Harrison held the <a href="https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/3744771-here-are-the-oldest-us-presidents-to-ever-hold-office/">record</a> as the oldest person ever elected president, until Ronald Reagan came along. Harrison was a relatively spry 68 when he took office in 1841, and Reagan was 69 at his first inauguration in 1981. </p>
<p>When Reagan left office at age 77, he was the oldest person ever to have served as president. Trump left office at age 74, making him the third-oldest to hold the office, behind Reagan and Biden.</p>
<p>According to the Census Bureau, the <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2023/population-estimates-characteristics.html">median age in America</a> is 38.9 years old. But with the <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47470">average ages in the House and Senate</a> at 58 and 64, respectively, a word often used to describe the nation’s governing class is “gerontocracy.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-is-a-gerontocracy">Teen Vogue</a>, which recently published a story explaining the word to younger voters, defines the term as “government by the elderly.” Gerontocracies are more common among religious leadership such as <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/francis-chronicles/no-church-old-men-cardinals-called-be-grandfathers-pope-says">the Vatican</a> or <a href="https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1313938/irans-fossilized-gerontocracy-faces-the-youth-in-the-street.html">the ayatollahs</a> in Iran. They were also common in communist ruling committees such as the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/soviet-gerontocracy-collapse-cautionary-tale-united-states-2022-9">Soviet Politburo</a> during the Cold War. In democracies, elderly leaders are less common.</p>
<h2>Beyond the White House</h2>
<p>Biden and Trump aren’t the only aging leaders in the U.S. It’s a bipartisan trend: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, is 72, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, is 81. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley was just reelected and has turned 90, with no plans to retire. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders is 81 and hasn’t mentioned retirement at all.</p>
<p>In the House, California Democrat and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at age 83, just announced she’s running for reelection for her <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-house-speaker-pelosi-seek-re-election-reversing-earlier-plan-2022-01-25/">19th full term in office</a>. Bill Pascrell Jr., a New Jersey Democrat, and Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat who serves as the nonvoting delegate from Washington, D.C., are both 86. Kentucky Republican Harold Rogers and California Democrat Maxine Waters are both 85. Maryland Democrat Steny Hoyer is 84. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/us/politics/oldest-members-of-congress.html">list goes on</a>, and none of these politicians has indicated they’re retiring. </p>
<p>A local pharmacist on Capitol Hill made headlines a few years ago when he revealed that he was <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/11/16458142/congress-alzheimers-pharmacist">filling Alzheimer’s medication prescriptions</a> for members of Congress. Every one of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/us/politics/oldest-members-of-congress.html">20 oldest members of Congress</a> is at least 80, and this is the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/118th-congress-age-third-oldest-1789-rcna64117">third-oldest House and Senate since 1789</a>.</p>
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<span class="caption">In July 2023, Sen. Mitch McConnell appeared to freeze while speaking with the media, raising questions about his age and health.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sen-john-barrasso-reaches-out-to-help-senate-minority-news-photo/1556768368">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Delayed retirement</h2>
<p>What’s going on here? </p>
<p>Most baby boomers who delay retirement do so because they <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/032216/are-we-baby-boomer-retirement-crisis.asp">can’t afford</a> to stop working, due to inflation or lack of savings. But all of these political leaders have plenty of money in the bank – <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/04/majority-of-lawmakers-millionaires/">many are millionaires</a>. If they retired, they would enjoy <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL30631">government pensions</a> and <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL30064">health care benefits</a> in addition to Medicare. So for them, it’s not likely financial.</p>
<p>One theory is that it’s denial. No one likes to be reminded of their own mortality. I know people who equate retirement with death, often because of others they know who have passed away just after stepping down — which may explain why both <a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/senator-dianne-feinstein-death/h_ad846d97416acf1e8bbaf2373d6205ab">Sen. Dianne Feinstein</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/ruth-bader-ginsburg-dies/2020/09/18/3cedc314-fa08-11ea-a275-1a2c2d36e1f1_story.html">Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg</a> stayed so long on the job, dying while still in office at age 90 and 87, respectively.</p>
<p>For others, it’s identity-driven. Many of the senior leaders I’ve seen have worked so hard for so long that their entire identity is tied to their jobs. Plus, years of hard work means they don’t have hobbies to enjoy in their remaining years. </p>
<p>Another theory is ego. Some lawmakers think they’re indispensable – that they’re the only ones who can possibly do the job. They’re not exactly humble.</p>
<p>In the political world, their interest is often about power as well. These are the types who think: Why wouldn’t I want to keep casting deciding votes in a closely divided House or Senate, or keep giving speeches and flying around on Air Force One as president, or telling myself I’m saving democracy? </p>
<p>It’s easy to see why so few of them want to walk away.</p>
<h2>Age limits?</h2>
<p>There have been calls to impose age limits for federal elected office. After all, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/jmd/page/file/1446196/download">federal law enforcement officers</a> have mandatory retirement at 57. So do <a href="https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/become-a-law-enforcement-ranger.htm">national park rangers</a>. Yet the most stressful job in the world has no upper age limit.</p>
<p>For those who think mandatory retirement is ageist and arbitrary, there are other options: Republican candidate Nikki Haley has called for <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3859468-haley-calls-for-mental-competency-tests-for-politicians-over-75/">compulsory mental competency tests</a> for elected leaders who are 75 and older, though she has said <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/time-competency-test-politicians-heres-why">passing wouldn’t be a required qualification for office</a>, and failing wouldn’t be cause for removal. A September 2023 poll shows <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4192393-mental-competency-tests-for-politicians-over-75-see-overwhelming-support-in-new-poll/">huge majorities of Americans support competency testing</a>. That way, the public would know who was sharp and who was not. Sounds like a fine idea to me.</p>
<p>So does having the generosity to step aside and think of others. And having the wisdom to realize that life is short and about more than just going to work. And having the grace to do what John F. Kennedy, the nation’s second-youngest president, once said: to <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-john-f-kennedys-inaugural-address">pass the torch to a new generation of Americans</a>.</p>
<p>My colleague professor Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/19/us-congress-presidency-gerontocracy">puts it well</a>: “I’m 70, so I have great sympathy for these people: 80 is looking a lot younger than it used to, as far as I’m concerned. But no, it’s ridiculous. We’ve got to get back to electing people in their 50s and early 60s.” And the <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4233885-more-in-new-poll-likely-to-see-biden-as-too-old-than-trump/">polling shows</a> that most Americans would say, “Amen, brother.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217024/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary Kate Cary does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many years beyond the average American retirement age, politicians vie for power and influence. Their constituents tend to prefer they step back and pass the torch to younger people.Mary Kate Cary, Adjunct Professor of Politics and Director of Think Again, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1958612022-12-22T13:13:05Z2022-12-22T13:13:05ZHow Democrats won the West<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502278/original/file-20221221-25-1fj47s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C2977%2C1998&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, celebrates her re-election to a U.S. Senate seat representing Nevada in November 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2022NevadaSenate/4f7fbd0b5e5843ee9f91b4c0d271ca03/photo">AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/12/politics/catherine-cortez-masto-nevada-senate/index.html">U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s win</a> in Nevada guaranteed that Democrats would retain control of the Senate after the 2022 midterm elections. It also confirmed the strength of the Democratic Party in the West. </p>
<p>Since 1992, Democrats have flipped the region away from Republican control, a shift that began with the end of the Cold War and carried through a Pacific Coast economic recession, anti-racism demonstrations and violence in Los Angeles and the area’s increasing diversity.</p>
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<p>I am a professor of political science who has published on the subject of critical elections and how regional realignments in voting patterns have had an impact on presidential elections at the national level.</p>
<p>This shift has been particularly obvious during presidential elections. From 1952 to 1988, Republican politicians dominated the West – the <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/stories/state-by-state/west-region.html">13 states</a> of Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico – in presidential contests, as well as a number of statewide contests. In the presidential elections during those years, Democratic candidates took an average of just 13.9% of the Electoral College votes from those Western states. And in those elections, Democrats received an average of 46.4% of the Western popular vote.</p>
<p>But since 1992, Democrats have won an average of 76% of the Electoral College vote in the West through the 2020 election, with an average of 55% of the two-party vote in those 13 states from the Pacific through the Rockies. Democrats garnered 58% of the Western state vote in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.</p>
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<h2>Government changes alter the economy</h2>
<p>The shift began in the late 1980s, with a series of post-Cold War military base closures across the nation. A presidentially appointed Base Realignment and Closure Commission determined which military bases should remain open and which should close, as the nation’s military needs changed. The West bore a disproportionate share, losing 48 bases, while the rest of the nation as a whole lost 120.</p>
<p>That was true especially in the first two rounds of closures, in 1988 and 1991, under President George H.W. Bush, a Republican. The second set of closures, in 1993 and 1995, under Democratic President Bill Clinton, still leaned heavily on the West, but not as much as the earlier rounds had.</p>
<p>Closing a military base has socioeconomic costs: It means an area <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/details?prodcode=RS22147">loses jobs and revenue for local businesses</a>, especially those that supplied the base or served its personnel or their families. There are also costs of military spouses losing their jobs, and of changes to a community’s sense of itself, often built up over decades, especially in rural areas. And this compounded the region’s economic woes, making Westerners more open to switching their votes from an “R” to a “D.”</p>
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<h2>A recession hits</h2>
<p>Additional economic pressure came during the 1990-91 recession, which disproportionately hit the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1993/02/art3full.pdf">according to Mary C. Dzialo et al.</a> The West suffered the highest levels of unemployment among all four geographic regions, and those who lost jobs or business were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230100428_8">quick to blame Republicans</a>, especially President George H.W. Bush, for the tough economic times.</p>
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<h2>Racial violence</h2>
<p>When four Los Angeles Police Department officers were not found guilty in 1992 of charges in the beating of Rodney King the previous year, the city of Los Angeles was engulfed in the flames of a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/18/us/los-angeles-riots-fast-facts/index.html">violent demonstration against racism</a>. Our analysis shows that it was the most severe of the 1980s and 1990s, in terms of deaths, injuries and arrests.</p>
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<p>Instead of acknowledging the police brutality in this case that triggered the societal anger, President Bush focused on “<a href="https://doi.org/10.17953/amer.38.1.41017563463290q7">the brutality of a mob, plain and simple</a>,” according to UCLA sociologist Darnell Hunt. Bush also failed to understand the social and economic factors that had cost Los Angeles jobs and “federal support for housing, education and inner-city community building,” Hunt wrote. </p>
<p>Republicans’ lack of understanding and effort opened up an opportunity for Democrats among minorities and sympathetic whites in the region.</p>
<h2>Increasing diversity</h2>
<p>The West was also getting more diverse, in comparison to other regions. The National Equity Atlas calculates a diversity index for each region, on a <a href="https://nationalequityatlas.org/about-the-atlas/methodology/demographics_indicators">range from zero to 1.79</a>, in which zero indicates that everyone in the area is of the same racial or ethnic group, and 1.79 indicates that equal numbers of people are in each racial or ethnic group. </p>
<p>A look at the index from 1980 to 2019 shows that the West has long been more diverse than the rest of the country, and significantly more so in the 1990s. The rest of the country began to catch up, but the West is still more diverse than the rest of the nation. </p>
<p><a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/160373/democrats-racially-diverse-republicans-mostly-white.aspx">Nonwhites have leaned Democratic in greater numbers</a> thanks to the party’s increased focus on better treatment for minorities, as well as <a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/11/29/dont-care-that-a--just-that-hes-indiscreet-about-it/">the open embrace of white supremacy by some members of the Republican Party</a>.</p>
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<h2>Political independence</h2>
<p>The region’s people also showed they were willing to shift their political allegiances when independent candidate Ross Perot ran for president in 1992. The West averaged more support for the Texas businessman than the average for all other regions, 23.6% to 18.1%.</p>
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<p>Nationally, voters also rewarded the charismatic Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton in 1992, who actually took more votes away from incumbent Republican George H.W. Bush than Perot did.</p>
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<h2>Winning the West means winning the White House</h2>
<p>These economic, social, demographic and political factors of the early 1990s helped contribute to the Democrats flipping the region to their column. This translated into national success for Democrats, who in the eight elections from 1992 to 2020 nearly doubled their average Electoral College votes from the 1952 to 1988 period. Meanwhile, the GOP national average of Electoral College votes declined. </p>
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<p>Democrats have won nearly two-thirds of the national Electoral College races in the past 30 years. And the Republicans have won the popular vote just once since 1992, that being in 2004. It’s a trend likely to give Democrats an electoral advantage nationally unless the GOP does a better job of appealing to Western voters.</p>
<p><em>Nicole Morales, a LaGrange College undergraduate student, contributed to this work.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195861/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John A. Tures does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Democrats have ridden the West to presidential electoral success since 1992, reversing their poor performances from the 1950s through the 1980s.John A. Tures, Professor of Political Science, LaGrange CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1668072021-09-15T12:17:14Z2021-09-15T12:17:14ZTexas voting law builds on long legacy of racism from GOP leaders<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420913/original/file-20210913-27-1nyacfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C1832&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In the early 1960s, Barry Goldwater, a Republican U.S. senator from Arizona, called for the GOP to adopt racist principles.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/GOLDWATERCAMPAIGN1962/019c4c3a37e9da11af9f0014c2589dfb/photo">AP Photo/Henry Burroughs</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Texas Gov. Greg Abbott <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/07/abbott-texas-voting-restrictions-signs-bill/">signed into law</a> a bill on Sept. 7, 2021, that reduces opportunities for people to vote, allows partisan poll watchers more access and creates steeper penalties for violating voting laws. </p>
<p>The Republican governor argued that the legislation would “solidify trust and confidence in the outcome of our elections by making it <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/07/abbott-texas-voting-restrictions-signs-bill/">easier to vote and harder to cheat</a>.” Democratic opponents of the measure, however, said Republican legislators <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-politics-texas/texas-governor-signs-republican-backed-voting-restrictions-idUSKBN2G31A1">presented no evidence</a> of widespread voter fraud during debate on the bill.</p>
<p>Civil rights organizations <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-politics-texas/texas-governor-signs-republican-backed-voting-restrictions-idUSKBN2G31A1">immediately filed suit</a>, calling the law unconstitutional because it is intended to restrict voting among minorities, <a href="https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/09/29/stacking-the-deck-how-the-gop-works-to-suppress-minority-voting/">who overwhelmingly</a> support Democratic political candidates. </p>
<p>Across the country, Republicans have turned to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/09/how-a-widespread-practice-to-politically-empower-african-americans-might-actually-harm-them/">gerrymandering</a> and <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/new-voter-suppression">voter suppression legislation</a> such as closing polling stations in minority and low-income precincts, mandating discriminatory voter ID laws and purging millions from voter rolls. In addition, GOP politicians and right-wing commentators have demanded that educators quit teaching the facts of <a href="https://theconversation.com/critical-race-theory-what-it-is-and-what-it-isnt-162752">America’s racist history</a>. </p>
<p>For several decades, the GOP has depended on racism to keep white people in power and nonwhites on the outside.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420336/original/file-20210909-8898-cd25e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5451%2C3528&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A seated man holds a document for public view, with other men sitting and standing next to him" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420336/original/file-20210909-8898-cd25e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5451%2C3528&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420336/original/file-20210909-8898-cd25e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420336/original/file-20210909-8898-cd25e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420336/original/file-20210909-8898-cd25e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420336/original/file-20210909-8898-cd25e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420336/original/file-20210909-8898-cd25e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420336/original/file-20210909-8898-cd25e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott shows off a signed voting restrictions law criticized for disproportionately limiting the rights of nonwhite people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXVotingBillsTexas/d3fc8c95ce9e4cac864a62944a137a4a/photo">AP Photo/LM Otero</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lee Atwater and the strategy of racism</h2>
<p>In 1981, longtime GOP strategist Lee Atwater plainly declared that the Republican Party’s key strategy was racism. Atwater described how the GOP began to <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/">define itself as a white supremacist party</a> in response to the civil rights movement. The Nation magazine later published the full audio recording of the interview.</p>
<p>“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘N—–, n—–, n—–.’”, Atwater said, using the actual racial slur.</p>
<p>“By 1968, you can’t say ‘n—–’ – that hurts, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, ‘forced busing,’ ‘states’ rights,’ and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract,” he continued. </p>
<p>“Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is, Blacks get hurt worse than whites,” Atwater explained. “‘We want to cut this’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/">N—–, n—–</a>.’”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/X_8E3ENrKrQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An excerpt from Lee Atwater’s 1981 interview explaining racist Republican tactics.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The GOP moves from overt racist words to coded words</h2>
<p>For much of the country’s history, the Republican Party was the party of Abraham Lincoln and racial equality, and the Democratic Party was the party of Jim Crow laws and white supremacy. <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/18/fact-check-democrats-republicans-and-complicated-history-race/3208378001/">The two parties switched</a> positions during the civil rights movement when the Democrats abandoned their support for segregation and Republicans sought to appeal to segregationists. </p>
<p>In the early 1960s, U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, a Republican, challenged the GOP’s more liberal politicians to redefine the Republican Party as what newspaper editor William Loeb called “<a href="https://theconversation.com/before-breitbart-there-was-the-charleston-news-and-courier-86277">the white man’s party</a>.” Republican New York Gov. Nelson B. Rockefeller responded that if the GOP embraced Goldwater, an opponent of civil rights legislation, as its presidential candidate in 1964, then it would advance a “program <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/15/what-is-happening-to-the-republicans">based on racism and sectionalism</a>.” </p>
<p>Goldwater won the GOP’s nomination but lost the presidential election <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/johnson-defeats-goldwater-for-presidency">in a landslide</a> to the Democratic incumbent, Lyndon Johnson. But even without winning the Oval Office, Goldwater and other like-minded conservative Republicans won the hearts and minds of pro-segregation Democrats, who were angry with Johnson for signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.</p>
<p>The GOP, as Atwater pointed out, learned to use coded words to court these disillusioned Democrats who became Republicans in what would become known as the “<a href="https://www.heritage.org/commentary/the-last-dixiecrat">great white switch</a>” or <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/race-reckoning/">Southern strategy</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420335/original/file-20210909-23-1lk86vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man reaches out to a crowd of smiling people" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420335/original/file-20210909-23-1lk86vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420335/original/file-20210909-23-1lk86vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420335/original/file-20210909-23-1lk86vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420335/original/file-20210909-23-1lk86vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420335/original/file-20210909-23-1lk86vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420335/original/file-20210909-23-1lk86vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420335/original/file-20210909-23-1lk86vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign included a speech supporting states’ rights near a place where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1963.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RonaldReaganPresidentialCampaign1980/64de548a686945a2b95a69c23f8997e6/photo">AP Photo/Jack Thornell</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>States’ rights, welfare queens and Willie Horton</h2>
<p>Republican Richard Nixon won the 1968 presidential election in part by using references to states’ rights and “law and order,” rather than by making blatant appeals to white supremacy or racism. Nixon’s chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, noted that Nixon “emphasized that you have to face the fact that the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/18/us/haldeman-diary-shows-nixon-was-wary-of-blacks-and-jews.html">whole problem is really the Blacks</a>. The key is to devise a system that recognized this while not appearing to.”</p>
<p>In 1980, former California Gov. Ronald Reagan, also a Republican, gave a presidential campaign speech at the Neshoba County Fair near Philadelphia, Mississippi, <a href="https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/reagan-speech-at-neshoba/">where three civil rights workers had been murdered</a> in 1963.
Reagan declared his own support for states’ rights. Gabrielle Bruney wrote in Esquire that “by touting himself as a states’ rights candidate near the site of one of the nation’s most famous hate crimes, <a href="https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a34733508/reagans-showtime-racism-matt-tyrnauer-ian-haney-lopez-donald-trump/">Reagan offered voters a racism</a> that was both obvious and unspoken.” </p>
<p>As president, Reagan used coded rhetoric to connect race to crime, welfare and government spending. For instance, Bryce Covert wrote in The New Republic, Reagan frequently used distortion in his references to a single con artist named Linda Taylor, the so-called “<a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/154404/myth-welfare-queen">welfare queen</a>,” to argue that welfare was corrupt and <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/154404/myth-welfare-queen">Black people were too lazy to work</a>.</p>
<p>Atwater worked as a consultant for Reagan and then as campaign manager for Vice President George H.W. Bush’s presidential campaign in 1988. Atwater approved a television ad blaming Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, the former governor of Massachusetts, for a furlough program in the state that released a Black first-degree murderer, Willie Horton, who then raped a white woman. Atwater famously claimed, “By the time we’re finished, they’re going to wonder whether <a href="https://www.history.com/news/george-bush-willie-horton-racist-ad">Willie Horton is Dukakis’ running mate</a>.” Bush won the election.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420912/original/file-20210913-27-gzm7o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a suit and overcoat stands in front of a sign saying " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420912/original/file-20210913-27-gzm7o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420912/original/file-20210913-27-gzm7o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420912/original/file-20210913-27-gzm7o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420912/original/file-20210913-27-gzm7o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420912/original/file-20210913-27-gzm7o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420912/original/file-20210913-27-gzm7o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420912/original/file-20210913-27-gzm7o1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In his election and reelection campaigns, Donald Trump used racist messages to attract support.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-donald-trump-arrives-to-speak-at-a-make-america-news-photo/1229379005">Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Onward to Donald Trump</h2>
<p>The GOP’s hold on the South became complete in 2016 when Donald Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/07/republican-party-is-white-southern-how-did-that-happen/">won all the former Confederate states</a> except Virginia. </p>
<p>Trump became one of the GOP’s top contenders for the 2012 presidential nomination after questioning without evidence whether Black president <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/race-reckoning/">Barack Obama was born in Hawaii</a>. When Obama released his birth certificate, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/race-reckoning/">Trump’s candidacy fell apart</a>.</p>
<p>When Trump ran for president in 2016, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12270880/donald-trump-racist-racism-history">he used racially divisive rhetoric</a>, calling Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists, proposing a ban on all Muslims entering the U.S. and suggesting <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12270880/donald-trump-racist-racism-history">a judge should recuse himself</a> from a case solely because of the judge’s Mexican heritage.</p>
<p>His campaign used the slogan “Make America Great Again,” which had been widely criticized for being a <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-appeals-to-white-anxiety-are-not-dog-whistles-theyre-racism-146070">dog whistle to white people</a> who felt that minorities were encroaching on their country. Then, as president, he <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/13/16140504/trump-charlottesville-white-supremacists">pandered to white supremacists</a> by refusing to criticize them <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trumps-history-of-support-from-white-supremacist-far-right-groups-2020-9">and by using coded words</a>. He told Americans that there are “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/08/very-fine-people-charlottesville-who-were-they-2/">fine people on both sides</a>” after a confrontation between white supremacists and counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Aug. 12, 2017.</p>
<p>When Trump ran for reelection in 2020, he renewed his birther claim by insinuating that Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, who is <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-kamala-harris-americans-yet-again-have-trouble-understanding-what-multiracial-means-145233">Black and Asian</a>, “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12270880/donald-trump-racist-racism-history">doesn’t meet the requirements</a>” to run for vice president. When Trump lost the election, he challenged the accuracy of voting in <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-21/trump-challenge-to-election-results-hits-hardest-at-black-voters">precincts that were heavily minority</a>.</p>
<p>Now Republicans in Texas and around the nation are back to openly expressing their racism with no need for dog whistling or other forms of abstraction.</p>
<p>[<em>Understand key political developments, each week.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s politics newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166807/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Lamb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For much of the country’s history, the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln and racial equality, and the Democratic Party backed Jim Crow laws and white supremacy. The two parties switched.Chris Lamb, Professor of Journalism, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1596012021-06-15T13:42:25Z2021-06-15T13:42:25ZJoe Biden, a father’s love and the legacy of ‘daddy issues’ among presidents<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402146/original/file-20210521-15-v1tw5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C2025&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Joe Biden, right, and his son Beau had a strong relationship until Beau's death in 2015.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/democratic-vice-presidential-nominee-joe-biden-and-his-son-news-photo/1229510929">Paul J. Richards/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Joe Biden often talks about the close relationship he had with his father and how this influenced him growing up as “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/21/politics/scranton-street-name-biden-trnd/index.html">the scrappy kid from Scranton</a>,” Pennsylvania. </p>
<p>Biden was born into wealth, the son of a polo-playing yachtsman. But his father, Joe Biden Sr., lost his job after World War II and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/world/americas/24iht-24biden.17216474.html">abused alcohol</a>, struggling financially for years before getting back on his feet and finding middle-class work selling cars near Wilmington, Delaware.</p>
<p>Sunday, June 19, is Father’s Day. Biden’s relationship with his father contrasts with perhaps every president in the last four decades, who had either absent or distant fathers or abusive or alcoholic fathers or stepfathers. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/Byxm0d6hTZu","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>“The measure of a man is not how often he is knocked down,” Joe Biden Sr. told his son, “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/world/americas/24iht-24biden.17216474.html">but how quickly he gets up</a>.”</p>
<p>His father’s support boosted young Joe’s political career, and offered comfort when Joe Jr.’s wife and daughter were killed in a car crash. </p>
<p>On the 2020 presidential campaign trail, Biden remembered his late father’s belief that “there’s no higher calling for a woman or a man than to be a good mother or <a href="https://www.marieclaire.com/politics/a33573986/who-was-joseph-r-biden-sr/">a good father</a>.”</p>
<p>My own father died in August 2020 at age 95. He, too, believed in the calling of fatherhood. My father and mother were there for us. They encouraged us to follow our own dreams and not theirs.</p>
<p>This sort of supportive father-child relationship is common – except perhaps in politics.</p>
<p>Former congressional staffer and political journalist Barron YoungSmith once wrote an article for Slate with the headline, “<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/08/absent-fathers-political-leaders-like-bill-clinton-ronald-reagan-gerald-ford-and-paul-ryan-often-develop-coping-mechanisms-in-childhood-that-may-make-them-effective-leaders.html">Why Do So Many Politicians Have Daddy Issues?</a>” “American politics,” he wrote, “is overflowing with stories of absent fathers, alcoholic fathers, neglectful fathers.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401101/original/file-20210517-21-1crp3yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men stand on either side of a woman" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401101/original/file-20210517-21-1crp3yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401101/original/file-20210517-21-1crp3yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401101/original/file-20210517-21-1crp3yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401101/original/file-20210517-21-1crp3yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401101/original/file-20210517-21-1crp3yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401101/original/file-20210517-21-1crp3yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401101/original/file-20210517-21-1crp3yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ronald Reagan stands with his mother, Nelle, and his father, Jack.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/levanrami/41939392555">Levan Ramishvili/Flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ford, Reagan, Clinton</h2>
<p>Gerald Ford’s father, Leslie Lynch King Sr., was an abusive alcoholic. Ford’s <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/08/absent-fathers-political-leaders-like-bill-clinton-ronald-reagan-gerald-ford-and-paul-ryan-often-develop-coping-mechanisms-in-childhood-that-may-make-them-effective-leaders.html">mother left King</a> 16 days after the future president was born, when her husband threatened her and her infant son with a butcher knife. Ford’s mother married Gerald Rudolff Ford. When he was 22, Ford changed his name from Leslie Lynch King Jr. to Gerald Rudolph Ford. </p>
<p>Jimmy Carter’s father, James Earl Carter Sr., was a <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/roswell-georgia-remarks-democratic-national-committee-fundraising-reception">high school dropout</a> who encouraged his son to read, a hard worker who urged his son to work hard, and a devoted husband and father. He served in the Georgia Legislature but died during his first term of pancreatic cancer at age 58.</p>
<p>Unlike other presidents, Jimmy Carter did not have to search for his father, who never left. Carter’s upbringing stood in contrast to both Ford, the man who preceded him in the White House, and Reagan, the one who followed him.</p>
<p>YoungSmith wrote that <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/08/absent-fathers-political-leaders-like-bill-clinton-ronald-reagan-gerald-ford-and-paul-ryan-often-develop-coping-mechanisms-in-childhood-that-may-make-them-effective-leaders.html">Ronald Reagan remained haunted</a> by the moment he found “his alcoholic father on the front porch … his hair filled with snow.” Reagan said his father was “drunk, dead to the world.” Reagan, who was then 11, had to drag his father into the house. He spent the rest of life trying to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20447160">connect with a man who was not there for him</a>. </p>
<p>Psychologist Robert E. Gilbert said Reagan can be properly understood only as the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20447160">child of an alcoholic</a>. “Alcoholic parents leave deep marks on their children’s lives; even after those children become adults,” Gilbert said, adding that Reagan was aloof and distant, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20447160">living in a world of make-believe</a> where he craved approval. </p>
<p>Bill Clinton’s biological father, William Jefferson Blythe Jr., died in a car accident before his son was born. Clinton was raised by a stepfather who <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/08/absent-fathers-political-leaders-like-bill-clinton-ronald-reagan-gerald-ford-and-paul-ryan-often-develop-coping-mechanisms-in-childhood-that-may-make-them-effective-leaders.html">was an abusive alcoholic</a> and regularly beat his wife, Clinton’s mother. The beatings stopped after Clinton stood up to his stepfather. </p>
<h2>The Bushes</h2>
<p>George H.W. Bush experienced the burden of having a great man as a father. His father, <a href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=-CAiAAAAIBAJ&pg=715%2C1269974">Prescott</a>, was a Wall Street investment banker who became a U.S. senator and an influential leader in the Republican Party. </p>
<p>George H.W. moved to Texas to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-bush-family-rose-to-power-2015-3#the-same-year-his-father-retired-from-the-senate-in-1962-george-took-a-serious-interest-in-politics-and-became-chairman-of-a-local-republican-committee-he-won-a-seat-in-the-us-congress-four-years-later-17">escape his father’s shadow</a>. He then relied on his father’s influential friends to make a fortune in oil before entering politics, where he served as a congressman, ambassador to the United Nations, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, vice president of the United States and then president.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401100/original/file-20210517-13-1c665hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men, one sitting on a desk and the other in a chair, smile and gesture at each other" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401100/original/file-20210517-13-1c665hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401100/original/file-20210517-13-1c665hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401100/original/file-20210517-13-1c665hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401100/original/file-20210517-13-1c665hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401100/original/file-20210517-13-1c665hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401100/original/file-20210517-13-1c665hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401100/original/file-20210517-13-1c665hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George W. Bush, left, and George H.W. Bush, were only the second father-son pair to both become president.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7431321">Eric Draper, White House Photo Office</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>G.H.W. Bush’s oldest son, George W., responded to the pressures of having a great man as a father by drinking too much before <a href="https://www.prevention.com/health/a32378580/why-george-w-bush-quit-drinking-alcohol/">quitting drinking</a> and using his father’s influence to help him become governor of Texas and then U.S. president. YoungSmith said that George W. “spent his entire life, including his presidency, careening between attempts to live up to H.W.’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/us/politics/george-w-bush-family.html%20https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/08/absent-fathers-political-leaders-like-bill-clinton-ronald-reagan-gerald-ford-and-paul-ryan-often-develop-coping-mechanisms-in-childhood-that-may-make-them-effective-leaders.html">impossible expectations</a> and efforts to garishly repudiate them.” </p>
<h2>Obama and Trump</h2>
<p>George W. Bush’s failures as president contributed to the election of Barack Obama, the first Black president. Obama’s parents separated when he was two, when his father left Hawaii and returned to his home country of Kenya. The father-son relationship became the basis for his autobiography, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/123909/dreams-from-my-father-by-barack-obama/">Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance</a>,” where he wrote about the difficulty of not having a father around to help him navigate the issues of being a Black man in a white-dominated country.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401103/original/file-20210517-15-yg0k2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a suit and tie poses with his arm around a young boy" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401103/original/file-20210517-15-yg0k2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401103/original/file-20210517-15-yg0k2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401103/original/file-20210517-15-yg0k2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401103/original/file-20210517-15-yg0k2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401103/original/file-20210517-15-yg0k2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401103/original/file-20210517-15-yg0k2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401103/original/file-20210517-15-yg0k2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Barack Obama Sr. with his son, a future U.S. president, in 1971.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usembassyjakarta/6333308901">U.S. Embassy, Jakarta/Flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“It hardly bears recounting that President Obama built his political persona around a <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/08/absent-fathers-political-leaders-like-bill-clinton-ronald-reagan-gerald-ford-and-paul-ryan-often-develop-coping-mechanisms-in-childhood-that-may-make-them-effective-leaders.html">search for his absent dad</a>,” YoungSmith said.</p>
<p>Obama was succeeded as president by Donald Trump, who once said he was “<a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/03/mary-macleod-trump-donald-trump-mother-biography-mom-immigrant-scotland-215779">so screwed up</a>, because I had a father that pushed me pretty hard.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401102/original/file-20210517-19-1jh3xfv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men in formal wear stand next to each other" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401102/original/file-20210517-19-1jh3xfv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401102/original/file-20210517-19-1jh3xfv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401102/original/file-20210517-19-1jh3xfv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401102/original/file-20210517-19-1jh3xfv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401102/original/file-20210517-19-1jh3xfv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401102/original/file-20210517-19-1jh3xfv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401102/original/file-20210517-19-1jh3xfv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fred Trump Sr. and his son Donald in 1985.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/donald-trump-and-fred-trump-attend-38th-annual-horatio-news-photo/621645840">Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Fred Trump Sr., a real estate magnate, bullied and intimidated one son – Fred Jr., who died of alcoholism when he was 42. Fred rejected another son, Donald, sending him off to military school when he was 12. When Donald returned, Fred <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/2016-donald-trump-brutal-worldview-father-coach-213750">taught his son to be a “killer” in business</a>, that the ends justified the means and that empathy was a sign of weakness.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/the-mind-of-donald-trump/480771/">Freddy just wasn’t a killer</a>,” Donald said of his brother.</p>
<p>Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist who was the daughter of Fred Trump Jr., said this lack of empathy prevented her uncle, Donald Trump, from acknowledging human suffering, including the widespread death associated with the coronavirus pandemic. </p>
<p>“Acknowledging the victims of COVID-19 would be to associate himself with their weakness, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/us/politics/donald-fred-trump.html">a trait his father taught him to despise</a>,” Mary Trump wrote.</p>
<p>Biden, by contrast, talked openly on the 2020 campaign trial about his love for his father and about his own <a href="https://www.oprah.com/own-super-soul-sunday/former-vice-president-joe-biden-on-losing-his-son-beau">grieving over the death of his son, Beau</a>, who died from brain cancer in 2015. In doing so, he made a very human and relatable connection between his own father, himself, and his own approach to fatherhood.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159601/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Lamb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Biden’s relationship with his father contrasts with perhaps every president in the last four decades, who either had absent or distant fathers or abusive or alcoholic fathers or stepfathers.Chris Lamb, Professor of Journalism, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1505062020-12-04T13:28:14Z2020-12-04T13:28:14ZHow Hanukkah came to be an annual White House celebration<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372888/original/file-20201203-15-15vjmd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C39%2C3747%2C2459&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Donald Trump speaks during a Hanukkah reception at the White House in 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TrumpHanukkah/a1da70611d804af38115d0f2d980ec12/photo?Query=white%20house%20hanukkah%20trump&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=58&currentItemNo=7">AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-throwing-in-person-white-house-hanukkah-party-despite-covid-concerns/">President Trump’s plan of holding an in-person Hanukkah reception</a> at the White House on Dec. 9, despite concerns over the coronavirus, is getting much attention on social media. </p>
<p>Some asked whether anyone would be reckless enough to attend, observing that an in-person party, amid the COVID-19 surge, could turn out to be another superspreader event. Others wondered who would be invited, recalling that President Trump, in the past, limited his invitation list to supporters, and why the event was being held on that date. The eight-day festival of Hanukkah, regulated by the Jewish lunar calendar, begins this year on the night of Dec. 10. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1330913002317635585"}"></div></p>
<p>Overlooked amid these questions is one that to me, as a <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/hornstein/sarna/index.html">historian of American Jewish life and a scholar of American religion</a>, seems far more fascinating and important. How did the office of the president of the United States come to hold an official White House Hanukkah party in the first place? </p>
<h2>White House traditions</h2>
<p>For most of American history, the only December holiday that <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/press-room/press-backgrounders/white-house-christmas-traditions">gained White House recognition</a> was Christmas. President John Adams and first lady Abigail Adams, back in 1800, threw the first White House Christmas party, a modest affair, planned with their four-year-old granddaughter in mind, and with invitations sent to selected government officials and their children. </p>
<p>In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge inaugurated the <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/a-coolidge-christmas">practice of lighting an official White House Christmas tree</a>. He also delivered the first formal presidential Christmas message. His message assumed, as most Americans of that time did, that everybody celebrated Christmas. </p>
<p>It displayed, according to <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/1352/WHITE_HOUSE_CAROLS_AND_BRILLIA.pdf">The Washington Post</a>, “the reverence of a Christian people giving at the seat of their government the expression of their praise for ‘the King of kings’ on the eve of the anniversary of His birth.” Neither Adams nor Coolidge uttered one word about Hanukkah. </p>
<p>Official notice of Hanukkah waited another half-century – until 1979 – by which time Jews had become much more visible as members of American society and government. Ironically, the president who first <a href="http://mallhistory.org/items/show/525">paid attention to Hanukkah was Jimmy Carter</a>, although he wasn’t the Jewish community’s favorite Democratic candidate. When he ran for reelection in 1980, he got <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-voting-record-in-u-s-presidential-elections">less than 50%</a> of the Jewish vote – less than any Democrat since 1928. </p>
<p>In 1979, following weeks of seclusion in the White House after Iranian students took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran seizing 52 diplomats and citizens, President Carter emerged and crossed over to Lafayette Park. He <a href="http://mallhistory.org/items/show/525">lit the large Hanukkah candelabrum</a>, dubbed the “National Menorah,” <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-theres-30-foot-menorah-national-mall-180961553/">erected in the park with private funds</a> and delivered brief remarks. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372631/original/file-20201202-13-8slr2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372631/original/file-20201202-13-8slr2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372631/original/file-20201202-13-8slr2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372631/original/file-20201202-13-8slr2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372631/original/file-20201202-13-8slr2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372631/original/file-20201202-13-8slr2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372631/original/file-20201202-13-8slr2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372631/original/file-20201202-13-8slr2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The lighting ceremony of the National Hanukkah Menorah, at the Ellipse, near the White House, in 2008.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/MenorahLighting/90f1d602ce634eef8ff66f1c25aa48d0/photo?Query=menorah%20white%20house&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=101&currentItemNo=17">AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Seeing that Jews celebrate their own holiday in December – not Christmas but Hanukkah – he directed his <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/There_Really_Is_a_Santa_Claus/6rAc9xM5VqYC?hl=en&gbpv=0">next annual Christmas message</a> only “to those of our fellow citizens who join us in the joyous celebration of Christmas.” </p>
<p>Every president since has recognized Hanukkah with a special menorah-lighting ceremony, and limited his Christmas messages to those who actually observe the holiday.</p>
<h2>Menorah lightings</h2>
<p>Hanukkah came to the White House itself, in 1989, when <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/president/holiday/hanukkah/">President George H.W. Bush displayed a menorah</a> there, a candelabrum given to him by the Synagogue Council of America. </p>
<p>But Bill Clinton was the first president to actually light a menorah in the White House. In 1993, he invited a dozen schoolchildren to the Oval Office for a small ceremony. The event made headlines when <a href="https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1993-12-09-9312090779-story.html">6-year-old Ilana Kattan’s ponytail dipped into the flame</a> and a wisp of smoke was visible around her head. Clinton was reported to have gently rubbed her ponytail with his fingers.</p>
<p>Menorah lightings grew in prominence during the Clinton years. Memorably, in 1998, Clinton <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/president/holiday/hanukkah/">joined Israel’s then-President Ezer Weizman</a> in lighting a candle on the first night of Hanukkah in Jerusalem. </p>
<p>But no White House Hanukkah parties ever took place under Clinton. Instead, he included Jewish leaders in a large annual “holiday party.” </p>
<h2>Annual Hanukkah parties</h2>
<p>The first president to host an official White House Hanukkah party, and the first to actually light a menorah in the White House residence and not just in its public spaces, was <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?167772-1/hanukkah-menorah-lighting">George W. Bush, beginning in both cases in 2001</a>.</p>
<p>Since Bush made a point of inserting religion, complete with baby Jesus, into his many annual Christmas parties, he sought to underscore through the Hanukkah party that, <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/12/20011210-7.html">as he explained</a>, the White House “belongs to people of all faiths.” Since then Hanukkah has become an official White House tradition. </p>
<p>Hasidic leaders in the distinctive black suits worn by members of their community regularly appeared at these parties. Beginning in 2005 the <a href="https://www.insider.com/white-house-hanukkah-party-history-how-it-began#the-white-house-kitchen-was-made-kosher-for-the-occasion-starting-in-2005-7">parties became completely kosher</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C64%2C2502%2C1600&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C64%2C2502%2C1600&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372632/original/file-20201202-15-106hf2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Barack Obama at the annual Hanukkah reception in the White House in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ObamaHanukkah/88ffacdd25304636bef6e2162e018d7a/photo?Query=hanukkah%20white%20house&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=216&currentItemNo=13">AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Barack Obama maintained the tradition of the White House Hanukkah party, holding two of them in 2013, and Donald Trump maintained the tradition as well. Both in 2018 and 2019, he also held <a href="https://www.jta.org/2018/12/07/united-states/trumps-hanukkah-parties-celebrate-his-decision-to-move-the-israel-embassy">two Hanukkah parties</a> for his friends and Jewish family members – including his daughter, Ivanka – and invited selected non-Jewish guests to attend them. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>The fact that this year, amid COVID-19 concerns and a presidential transition, the White House is planning just one Hanukkah party, has pruned the guest list and will <a href="https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/trumps-white-house-is-throwing-an-in-person-hanukkah-party">hold the event on Dec. 9, before Hanukkah starts</a>, remains noteworthy. </p>
<p>What is truly significant, however, is how much America has changed since Presidents John Adams and Calvin Coolidge invented America’s White House Christmas traditions and paid no attention to Hanukkah at all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150506/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan D. Sarna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For much of American history, the only December holiday to be recognized in the White House was Christmas, but menorah lightings are now an annual tradition.Jonathan D. Sarna, University Professor and Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1510872020-11-30T20:01:32Z2020-11-30T20:01:32ZJames Baker’s masterful legal strategies won George W. Bush a contested election – unlike Rudy Giuliani’s string of losses<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371853/original/file-20201129-16-cdl9s2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C14%2C3174%2C2109&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former President George W. Bush, left, with James A. Baker III at the 2018 funeral of George H.W. Bush.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/GeorgeHWBush/df5fffb5c65144529fee1e8d8fffff3f/photo?Query=James%20A.%20Baker&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1197&currentItemNo=42">AP Pool</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With Rudy Giuliani <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-election-overturn/2020/11/28/34f45226-2f47-11eb-96c2-aac3f162215d_story.html">flailing through a series of failed election challenges for the Trump campaign</a>, a superb new political biography provides fresh evidence of just how stark the contrast is between the head of Trump’s legal team and George W. Bush’s hyperprepared, efficient and savvy commander-in-chief for the 2000 election political and legal fight, James A. Baker III. </p>
<p>The biography “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/253135/the-man-who-ran-washington-by-peter-baker-and-susan-glasser/">The Man Who Ran Washington</a>,” by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, provides at least three new major revelations, even for those of <a href="https://its.law.nyu.edu/facultyprofiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=profile.biography&personid=20200">us election law experts</a> steeped in that 2000 saga, which culminated in the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2000/00-949">Supreme Court’s Bush v. Gore decision</a> and Bush’s consequent victory.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bakerinstitute.org/experts/james-baker-iii/">James Baker</a> had headed two Cabinet departments – Treasury and State – had been White House chief of staff to two presidents and had run four successful presidential campaigns. </p>
<p>But after being strong-armed to relinquish being secretary of state and take over <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/essays/baker-1989-secretary-of-state">George H.W. Bush’s floundering 1992 reelection campaign</a>, Baker failed. That failure, some claim, created a rift in one of the most important political friendships of the late 20th century. </p>
<p>So when Baker got the call the morning after the 2000 election to take command of George W. Bush’s effort to gain the White House, Baker saw it as an opportunity to redeem himself with the Bush family.</p>
<h2>Seeing around corners</h2>
<p>The book’s first revelation comes immediately: 45 minutes after being briefed on the situation that morning of Nov. 8, when Bush’s lead in Florida stood at 1,784 votes out of nearly 3 million cast – and before even a machine recount had taken place that would cut that lead by two-thirds – Baker told others: “We’re heading to the Supreme Court.” </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371851/original/file-20201129-19-hcxi30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A series of Florida newspapers with headlines saying it wasn't clear who won the 2000 election." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371851/original/file-20201129-19-hcxi30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371851/original/file-20201129-19-hcxi30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371851/original/file-20201129-19-hcxi30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371851/original/file-20201129-19-hcxi30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371851/original/file-20201129-19-hcxi30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1826&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371851/original/file-20201129-19-hcxi30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1826&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371851/original/file-20201129-19-hcxi30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1826&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">James Baker had a sophisticated understanding of what would happen in the contested 2000 presidential election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NightmareCampaignScenarios/ad3af412a178440c83007bc8fe459e44/photo?Query=Bush%20Gore%20Supreme%20Court&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=8&currentItemNo=0">Peter Cosgrove/AP Photos</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When they expressed surprise, Baker followed up by saying: “It’s the only way this can end.”</p>
<p>Baker’s acumen here was stunning. At this stage, and even later in the saga, a large majority even of election law and Supreme Court experts were highly skeptical that the court would get involved at all. </p>
<p>The widely shared view was that the process of recounts would be resolved completely under Florida law and through Florida’s administrative processes and courts. That’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-case-of-biden-versus-trump-or-how-a-judge-could-decide-the-presidential-election-146367">how election challenges, even in federal elections, had always been handled</a>. Baker’s first choice to lead the litigation effort, former Senator John Danforth of Missouri, reflected this common view. </p>
<p>Danforth told Baker, “I just can’t conceive that a federal court’s going to take jurisdiction over a matter relating to state election law … I just can’t believe that.” </p>
<p>Danforth nevertheless agreed to take on the role. But Baker decided Danforth didn’t believe enough in the cause, cut him loose and turned instead to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/05/17/the-two-theodore-olsons/f774f20e-be19-496e-9ff6-310e0c88dc9c/">a former Reagan administration high-level attorney, Ted Olson</a>, who ultimately won in Bush v. Gore. Baker’s immediate judgment that the Supreme Court would become the ultimate decision-maker structured everything he did.</p>
<h2>Breach of judicial confidentiality</h2>
<p>The second revelation in the book is highly disturbing, if accurate. </p>
<p>Litigating the outcome of the 2000 election began with the Gore campaign filing requests under Florida law for manual recounts in four counties. Two weeks after Election Day, the litigation made <a href="https://www.floridasupremecourt.org/News-Media/Presidential-Election-2000">its first appearance before the Florida Supreme Court</a>. Just before the argument was about to begin, Baker was reportedly handed a note from an intermediary who somehow knew that the Florida justices had already decided among themselves that they were going to rule against Bush and had written a draft opinion to that effect. </p>
<p>Given the time urgency to resolve the election, it is neither surprising nor troubling that the court would have moved this quickly and already drafted a decision. But for a party to a case to be told that, and how the court was going to rule, is a remarkable breach in the confidentiality of a court’s internal deliberations. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371973/original/file-20201130-13-1fp1d7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Florida Supreme Court spokesman announces the ruling in the contested presidential election." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371973/original/file-20201130-13-1fp1d7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371973/original/file-20201130-13-1fp1d7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371973/original/file-20201130-13-1fp1d7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371973/original/file-20201130-13-1fp1d7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371973/original/file-20201130-13-1fp1d7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371973/original/file-20201130-13-1fp1d7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371973/original/file-20201130-13-1fp1d7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">On Nov. 21, 2000, Florida Supreme Court spokesman Craig Waters announces the court’s 7-0 ruling, on the Capitol steps in Tallahassee, Fla., that amended votes tallies must be accepted in the state contested presidential election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NightmareCampaignScenarios/757ea0304efb4098b6d2df54946d9ad5/photo?Query=Supreme%20Court%20%22George%20W.%20Bush%22&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=49&currentItemNo=5">Pete Cosgrove/AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Once they got this note, Bush’s lawyer for the argument, Michael Carvin, asserts they decided “to lose and lose big,” in order to bait the Florida Supreme Court into a broad decision that would make U.S. Supreme Court intervention more likely. </p>
<p>Whether Carvin’s self-serving strategic claim is accurate or not, that’s exactly what happened. The Florida Supreme Court approved a manual recount and <a href="https://www.floridasupremecourt.org/News-Media/Presidential-Election-2000">ordered the deadline for certifying the outcome extended by 12 days</a>. The U.S. Supreme Court – to the surprise of many – <a href="https://guides.law.stanford.edu/c.php?g=991108&p=7170216">agreed to hear the case</a>. When it did so, the Supreme Court then unanimously vacated the Florida court’s decision, in the first of the United States Supreme Court’s two decisions concerning the 2000 election. </p>
<h2>Threat of legislative action</h2>
<p>The third revelation involves an issue that has swirled around the current election: <a href="https://theconversation.com/could-a-few-state-legislatures-choose-the-next-president-146950">the possible role of state legislatures in directly appointing presidential electors</a>, rather than permitting the will of the voters to determine who has won the presidential election – and hence the electors – in that state. </p>
<p>Federal law permits a state legislature to appoint electors if the election has “failed” in that state – <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-theres-so-much-legal-uncertainty-about-resolving-a-disputed-presidential-election-146960">a term whose meaning the law does not clarify</a>. </p>
<p>No legislature has invoked this “failed” election provision since at least the Civil War, but there was a great deal of <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/state-legislatures-cant-ignore-popular-vote-appointing-electors">concern in 2020 that the Trump campaign’s strategy</a> was to get Republican legislatures in battleground states to do so. </p>
<p>The closest the U.S. has ever come to that happening is Florida in 2000. After the Florida Supreme Court decision that the Bush campaign lost, Baker asserted to the press that the Florida court had changed the rules after the election, by approving a manual recount and extending the deadline for certifying the election by 12 days.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/us/counting-the-vote-baker-s-response-to-ruling.html">Then Baker threatened</a>: “So one should not now be surprised if the Florida legislature seeks to affirm the original rules.” </p>
<p>And indeed, in early December, the Florida legislature <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/12/06/fla.legislature/index.html">announced</a> it would convene a special session to discuss appointing Florida’s electors itself. </p>
<p>That much is a matter of public record. But what the new biography reveals is that, while Baker wanted this to be seen as a threat, he did not want Florida’s legislature to go through with it. </p>
<p>Baker presumably wanted the shadow of imminent legislative action to spur the courts to bring closure to the recount process, given that Bush was ahead in the count. </p>
<p>Throughout the process, Baker was just as focused on public perceptions as on the courtroom battles. He believed that, if Florida’s legislature appointed the electors in favor of Bush, it would cripple Bush’s presidency from the start by undermining the legitimacy of his election. </p>
<p>Those most involved in the 2000 election contest believe that the looming <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-nov-29-mn-58820-story.html">specter of Florida legislative involvement</a> effectively shaped the overall environment in the way Baker aimed to do. Six days after the Florida legislature’s action, the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2000/00-949">5-4 Supreme Court final decision in Bush v. Gore</a> ended the recount, without any further action from the Florida legislature – the path to Bush’s victory that Baker had envisioned from the start.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371974/original/file-20201130-19-hru436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People in Times Square watch Vice President Al Gore concede the race for president to George W. Bush December 13, 2000 on a giant video screen in New York City." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371974/original/file-20201130-19-hru436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371974/original/file-20201130-19-hru436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371974/original/file-20201130-19-hru436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371974/original/file-20201130-19-hru436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371974/original/file-20201130-19-hru436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371974/original/file-20201130-19-hru436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371974/original/file-20201130-19-hru436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People in Times Square watch Vice President Al Gore concede the race for president to George W. Bush on Dec. 13, 2000, on a giant video screen in New York City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-in-times-square-watch-vice-president-al-gore-concede-news-photo/1318806?adppopup=true">Chris Hondros/Newsmakers</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Giuliani versus Baker</h2>
<p>In contrast to the Trump campaign’s litigation this year, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/17/trump-keeps-losing-court-he-keeps-losing-his-lawyers-too/">with lawyers filing claims, then withdrawing from cases</a>, and new teams of lawyers swooping in at the last minute, Baker’s firm hand at knowing how to structure effective organizations also played a prominent role in Florida in 2000. </p>
<p>Not only did he quickly assemble <a href="https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2020/10/02/amy-coney-barrett-would-be-third-justice-who-touched-bush-v-gore-litigation/?slreturn=20201030075009">the most talented conservative lawyers in the country</a>, but, as one example, he assigned different teams of attorneys to state and federal court, to enable greater specialization.</p>
<p>[<em>Get our most insightful politics and election stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-most">Sign up for The Conversation’s Politics Weekly</a>.]</p>
<p>Some Democrats will never forgive Baker, nor the Supreme Court, for their roles in ending the recount before all the ballots were counted – though <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/12/us/examining-vote-overview-study-disputed-florida-ballots-finds-justices-did-not.html">a consortium of major newspapers later determined</a> that if the recount had been completed, Bush would have won under 21 of 24 possible standards for what constituted a valid vote. </p>
<p>But Democrats involved in the litigation battles knew the other side had the more effective leader. Indeed, the new Baker biography claims that when Baker was put in charge of the Florida contest, his “reputation was so formidable that Democrats knew they would lose the moment they heard of his selection.”</p>
<p>I can confidently say that thought did not cross the mind of any Democrat when Rudy Giuliani was put in charge this time around.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151087/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Pildes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>James Baker, the high-powered lawyer chosen by George W. Bush to lead his fight over the contested 2000 election, delivered victory. A new book reveals three crucial reasons why.Richard Pildes, Professor of Constitutional Law, New York UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1488582020-10-30T17:15:51Z2020-10-30T17:15:51ZWhat it’s like to lose a presidential election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366880/original/file-20201101-14-1bjlyky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C2%2C1911%2C1074&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One of these men will walk away from the 2020 race a loser. But who?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/democratic-presidential-candidate-joe-biden-boards-a-plane-news-photo/1228645826?adppopup=true">Jim Watson/AFP via Getty, Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The American public may not find out who wins the presidential election on Nov. 3 or Nov. 4 or even Nov. 5. But, at some point, we will learn whether Republican Donald Trump is elected to a second term or if Democrat Joe Biden will be the next president.</p>
<p>For the winner of the election, the moment of victory brings unbridled joy and acclamation, applause, laughter, hugs and champagne to <a href="https://greensboro.com/past-losers-talk-about-life-after-election/article_d50546f1-5bdc-534d-aa71-7f07b50988ef.html">celebrate the biggest prize in politics</a>.</p>
<p>This isn’t so for the loser, who must ultimately accept the responsibility for the defeat.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308218/original/file-20191223-11919-5bmw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The winner is ecstatic – the loser isn’t.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/North-Korea-Kims-Travels-Train-Photo-Gallery/d3691a777ae44eda825ae735e989207d/1/0">AP Photo/Byron Rollins</a></span>
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<p>In my book, “<a href="https://www.chroniclebooks.com/products/the-art-of-the-political-putdown">The Art of the Political Putdown</a>,” I tell the story of Thomas Dewey, the Republican presidential candidate in 1948, who was heavily favored to win the election – only to lose to Harry S. Truman, the incumbent.</p>
<p>On election night, according to one story, Dewey, the governor of New York, asked his wife, “How will it feel to sleep with the president of the United States?”</p>
<p>“A high honor,” his wife replied, “and quite frankly, darling, I’m looking forward to it.”</p>
<p>But Truman won the election. The next day at breakfast, as the story goes, Dewey’s wife said, “Tell me, Tom, am I going to the White House or is <a href="https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Dewey-355">Harry coming here tonight</a>?”</p>
<h2>A disappointing letdown</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365916/original/file-20201027-23-mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365916/original/file-20201027-23-mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365916/original/file-20201027-23-mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365916/original/file-20201027-23-mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365916/original/file-20201027-23-mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365916/original/file-20201027-23-mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365916/original/file-20201027-23-mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365916/original/file-20201027-23-mr62i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George McGovern lost the 1972 presidential election to incumbent President Richard Nixon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GeorgeStanleyMcGovern.jpg">Warren K. Leffler, U.S. News & World Report collection, Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Losing the presidency is a crushing defeat. The incalculable hours of giving speeches, campaigning and fundraising came to naught. The candidate feels like they have disappointed the millions of people who believed in them, who contributed to the campaign, who voted for them and who thought they were going to win.</p>
<p>The pain associated with losing the presidential election remains for a long time. A dozen years after George McGovern lost the 1972 presidential election in a landslide to Richard Nixon, he was asked how long it had taken for him to recover. “<a href="https://greensboro.com/past-losers-talk-about-life-after-election/article_d50546f1-5bdc-534d-aa71-7f07b50988ef.html">I’ll let you know when I get there</a>,” McGovern said.</p>
<p>After losing the 2008 presidential election, John McCain said he slept like a baby: “<a href="https://ew.com/article/2015/10/06/stephen-colbert-john-mccain/">Sleep two hours, wake up and cry</a>,” he said, adding, “sleep two hours, wake up and cry.” </p>
<p>In 2016, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton woke up on Election Day ahead in most of the polls and thought she would become the first woman president. By the time the day was over, those hopes had faded, and by early the next morning, when she called her opponent Donald Trump to concede, those hopes had disappeared entirely.</p>
<p>“This is not the outcome we wanted or we worked so hard for,” Clinton told her supporters. “I know how disappointed you feel because I feel it, too … <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/hillary-clinton-concedes-election-donald-trump-speech">This is painful</a>, and it will be for a long time.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365927/original/file-20201027-20-zcng2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="John Kerry concedes in 2004" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365927/original/file-20201027-20-zcng2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365927/original/file-20201027-20-zcng2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365927/original/file-20201027-20-zcng2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365927/original/file-20201027-20-zcng2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365927/original/file-20201027-20-zcng2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365927/original/file-20201027-20-zcng2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365927/original/file-20201027-20-zcng2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Kerry conceded the election to George W. Bush in 2004.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/john-kerrys-concession-speech-at-faneuil-hall-in-boston-news-photo/589139790">Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Concessions are difficult</h2>
<p>When a person has committed so much to running for the president for so long, it’s not easy to let go. In the early morning hours of election night 2000, then-Vice President Al Gore conceded in a call to his Republican opponent, George W. Bush, then <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/07/election.president/">retracted the concession</a> in another call <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20001108/aponline180633_000.htm">when the results</a> in the decisive state of Florida appeared uncertain. Thirty-six days passed before Bush’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/13/gore-concedes-presidential-election-to-bush-dec-13-2000-287285">victory was confirmed</a> by the U.S. Supreme Court. </p>
<p>In her 2017 book, entitled “What Happened,” the title itself a statement of disbelief, Hillary Clinton remembered calling Donald Trump to concede the election. She said she offered to help him in any way she could. “It was all perfectly nice and weirdly ordinary, like calling a neighbor to say you can’t make it to his barbecue,” she wrote. “It was mercifully brief … <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/06/hillary-clinton-what-happened-book-excerpts-242372">I was numb</a>. It was all so shocking.”</p>
<p>The 1960 presidential election between Democrat John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, the Republican vice president, remains one of the closest in history. Nixon said that he was advised by President Dwight Eisenhower to challenge the results because of <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2000/10/was-nixon-robbed.html">cheating by the Democrats</a> but refused, he said, because it would cause a “constitutional crisis” and “tear the country apart.” This, he added, would result in him being called a “<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2000/10/was-nixon-robbed.html">sore loser</a>” and jeopardize any chance of him running for president again. </p>
<p>When Nixon ran for the presidency in 1968, he was elected and then reelected in 1972, before resigning in disgrace in 1974. Nixon was the last person who won his party’s nomination after previously losing a presidential election.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365921/original/file-20201027-21-bq4vmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Al Gore receives the Nobel Peace Prize" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365921/original/file-20201027-21-bq4vmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365921/original/file-20201027-21-bq4vmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365921/original/file-20201027-21-bq4vmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365921/original/file-20201027-21-bq4vmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365921/original/file-20201027-21-bq4vmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365921/original/file-20201027-21-bq4vmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365921/original/file-20201027-21-bq4vmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Al Gore lost the presidency, but shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his environmental work to combat climate change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NorwayNobelPeacePrize/b25627ffca9f42ec849b69e057eb5a02/photo">AP Photo/John McConnico</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>After the loss</h2>
<p>But if there’s little hope of a fresh attempt at the presidency, losing candidates have found second acts in American politics. </p>
<p>President Jimmy Carter, who was defeated by Ronald Reagan when he sought reelection in 1980, became an <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/carter/life-after-the-presidency">international human rights activist</a> and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Gore became an environmentalist and <a href="https://www.insider.com/what-happened-to-presidential-candidates-who-lost-elections#al-gore-lost-to-george-bush-in-2000-but-won-the-nobel-peace-prize-and-an-academy-award-for-best-documentary-in-2007-6">shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize</a> and a 2007 Academy Award for best documentary for a pioneering examination of climate change.</p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-important">The Conversation’s most important election and politics headlines, in our Politics Weekly newsletter</a>.</em>]</p>
<p>John Kerry, who lost to George W. Bush in 2004, became <a href="https://www.insider.com/what-happened-to-presidential-candidates-who-lost-elections#al-gore-lost-to-george-bush-in-2000-but-won-the-nobel-peace-prize-and-an-academy-award-for-best-documentary-in-2007-6">secretary of state</a> in the Barack Obama administration. John McCain, who lost to Obama in 2008, <a href="https://www.insider.com/what-happened-to-presidential-candidates-who-lost-elections#al-gore-lost-to-george-bush-in-2000-but-won-the-nobel-peace-prize-and-an-academy-award-for-best-documentary-in-2007-6">stayed in the U.S. Senate</a>. Mitt Romney, who lost to Obama in 2012, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/819de4649f23447aa35b1cfb811d26e6">now serves in the U.S. Senate</a>. </p>
<h2>The transfer of power</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365925/original/file-20201027-22-2kuv3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="George H.W. Bush greets Bill Clinton" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365925/original/file-20201027-22-2kuv3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365925/original/file-20201027-22-2kuv3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365925/original/file-20201027-22-2kuv3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365925/original/file-20201027-22-2kuv3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365925/original/file-20201027-22-2kuv3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365925/original/file-20201027-22-2kuv3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365925/original/file-20201027-22-2kuv3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">On Jan. 20, 1993, George H.W. Bush greeted the man he lost to, Bill Clinton, at the White House.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-george-bush-greets-president-elect-bill-clinton-news-photo/158741485">Paul J. Richards/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Losing is hard, but losing as the incumbent, as Carter and George H.W. Bush did, is probably harder. But Carter and Bush understood the importance of the peaceful transition of power.</p>
<p>President Donald Trump repeatedly has cast doubt on whether he will accept the results of the election and peacefully hand over power if he loses to Biden. This could well result in the constitutional crisis to which Nixon referred. </p>
<p>In early 2020, when the Democratic primaries were still going on, Trump again expressed his unwillingness to vacate the White House – which drew a retort from Pete Buttigieg, who ultimately lost the Democratic nomination to Biden. Buttigieg said he had an idea for handling Trump, joking “If he won’t leave, I guess if he’s willing to do chores, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election/buttigieg-trump-white-house-november-election-a9341746.html">we can work something out</a>.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148858/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Lamb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For the winner, it’s the achievement of a lifetime. For the loser, not so much.Chris Lamb, Professor of Journalism, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1453662020-09-08T12:18:04Z2020-09-08T12:18:04ZTrump’s law-and-order campaign relies on a historic American tradition of racist and anti-immigrant politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356550/original/file-20200904-14-7l6nzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=89%2C53%2C5829%2C3781&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Trump stressed law and order on a recent trip to Kenosha, Wisconsin.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-donald-trump-speaks-to-the-press-as-he-tours-an-news-photo/1228311852?adppopup=true">Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Republican Party made it clear in its national convention that it <a href="https://www.voanews.com/episode/rnc-highlights-law-order-downplays-coronavirus-4400521">intends to make</a> restoring “law and order” central to this fall’s presidential campaign. </p>
<p>As he <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/7/21/12253426/donald-trump-acceptance-speech-transcript-republican-nomination-transcript">did</a> when he first ran in 2016, President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/read-full-text-president-donald-trump-s-acceptance-speech-rnc-n1238636">highlighted</a> law and order in his 2020 acceptance speech. </p>
<p>“Your vote,” Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/us/politics/trump-rnc-speech-transcript.html">said</a>, “will decide whether we protect law-abiding Americans and whether … we will defend the American way of life or allow a radical movement to completely dismantle and destroy it.”</p>
<p>For a student of <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-killing-state-9780195146028?cc=us&lang=en&">the politics of law and order</a>, the president’s rhetoric is familiar. It builds on, and borrows from, a strand of thinking running back to the early years of the republic. </p>
<p>Throughout this nation’s history, appeals to law and order have been as much about defending privilege as dealing with crime. They have been used in political campaigns to stigmatize racial, ethnic and religious groups and resist calls for social justice made by, and on behalf of, those groups.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356552/original/file-20200904-14-3xa45z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Portrait of Rhode Island Gov. Samuel Ward King" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356552/original/file-20200904-14-3xa45z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356552/original/file-20200904-14-3xa45z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356552/original/file-20200904-14-3xa45z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356552/original/file-20200904-14-3xa45z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356552/original/file-20200904-14-3xa45z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356552/original/file-20200904-14-3xa45z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356552/original/file-20200904-14-3xa45z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rhode Island Gov. Samuel Ward King formed the Law and Order Party in 1840.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GovSamuelKingRI.jpg#/media/File:GovSamuelKingRI.jpg">Portrait by Marcus A. Waterman/Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>19th-century American law and order</h2>
<p>The first stirrings of law-and-order politics in the U.S. occurred in the 1830s in response to <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/jackson/the-american-franchise">agitation</a> for expansion of the vote. At the time, only whites who owned property could vote. Reformers wanted to <a href="https://digitalworks.union.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3380&context=theses">extend</a> the franchise to all white men.</p>
<p>In 1840 <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/21080518/samuel-ward-king">Samuel Ward King</a>, the governor of Rhode Island, formed the Law and Order Party to oppose such proposals. Troubled by an influx of immigrants, his party wanted to preserve the state charter that disenfranchised the 60% of the state’s white, male residents who did not own property. </p>
<p>But the tide of reform proved to be too strong, and in 1843 the charter was <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dorr-War-Republicanism-1831-1861-1976-12-02/dp/B01K2J00M6">changed</a>, extending suffrage to any native-born adult male, regardless of race, who could pay a poll tax of US$1. This change led to the demise of Rhode Island’s Law and Order Party.</p>
<p>Fifteen years later, another Law and Order Party emerged, this time in Kansas. It promoted the cause of slavery, which it <a href="http://www.wvculture.org/history/jbexhibit/bbspr06-0001.html">claimed</a> was ordained by God. As David Atchison, one of the party’s leaders, <a href="https://www.kshs.org/teachers/read_kansas/pdfs/m11card02.pdf">said</a>, “We believe slavery is a trust and guardianship given us of God for the good of both races. Without sugar, cotton, and cheap clothing, can civilization maintain its progress?” </p>
<p>Toward the end of the 19th century, law-and-order rhetoric <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK216414/">played a key role</a> in the Prohibition movement to ban alcohol. This movement was led by rural Protestants whose political power <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/83sbd7dy9780252013126.html">was being challenged</a> by a growing population of urban, Irish-Catholic immigrants.</p>
<p>As Frances Willard, a prominent leader of that cause, <a href="https://franceswillardhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/HST391-2-wctu1.pdf">said</a>, “There is a war in America … between the rum shops and religion. They stand over against each other, insurmountable and unalterable foes.” </p>
<h2>Resisting social change</h2>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Politics_of_Law_and_Order.html?id=MZjaAAAAMAAJ">The politics of law and order</a> remained animated by resistance of social change during the 20th century. While it did not have much political purchase during the early part of the century, the phrase “law and order” <a href="https://shows.acast.com/ipse-dixit/episodes/from-the-archives-24-calvin-coolidge-law-order-1920">was used</a> by Republican Gov. Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts in a 1920 speech to rally opposition to labor union organizers.</p>
<p>As crime rates <a href="https://www.encounterbooks.com/books/rise-fall-violent-crime-america/">rose</a> and urban disorder intensified in the 1960s, the attraction of law and order as a campaign issue grew as well.</p>
<p>In 1964, Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1964/10/03/the-campaign-goldwater">took up the law-and-order banner</a> in his campaign against President Lyndon Johnson.</p>
<p>Goldwater linked the problem of crime with the prevalence of public welfare programs and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/may98/goldwaterspeech.htm">decried</a> “the growing menace in our country … to personal safety, to life, to limb and property, in homes, in churches, on the playgrounds, and places of business, particularly in our great cities.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356553/original/file-20200904-18-red7px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The 1964 GOP presidential candidate Barry Goldwater speaking at a rally." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356553/original/file-20200904-18-red7px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356553/original/file-20200904-18-red7px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356553/original/file-20200904-18-red7px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356553/original/file-20200904-18-red7px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356553/original/file-20200904-18-red7px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356553/original/file-20200904-18-red7px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356553/original/file-20200904-18-red7px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 1964, GOP presidential candidate Barry Goldwater spoke of ‘the growing menace in our country … to personal safety, to life, to limb and property.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/color-on-senator-barry-goldwater-train-pix-are-in-news-photo/516564742?adppopup=true">Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>In 1968, both Republican <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/richard-m-nixon/">Richard Nixon</a> and <a href="https://www.biography.com/political-figure/george-wallace">George Wallace</a>, a former governor of Alabama running as an independent, seized on the law-and-order issue in the presidential campaign. Nixon <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4612766/law-order-richard-nixon-1968-presidential-acceptance-speech">promised</a>, “The wave of crime is not going to be the wave of the future in the United States of America. We shall reestablish freedom in America.”</p>
<p>Nixon made law and order, which some scholars <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24450414?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">said</a> was a coded racial appeal, a key part of a “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/17/archives/nixons-southern-strategy-its-all-in-the-charts.html">Southern strategy</a>” that sought to get Southern Democrats to switch their allegiance to the Republican Party.</p>
<p>In the 1988 presidential race, GOP candidate George H.W. Bush stressed law and order in his <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/bush/campaigns-and-elections">campaign</a> against Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis. His criticism of Dukakis was crystallized in the so-called “<a href="https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1727&context=sociologyfacpub">Willie Horton”</a> ad. Horton had been convicted of murder but was released from prison under a prison furlough program during Dukakis’ tenure – only to commit serious crimes again. The ad featured images of prisoners moving through a revolving door and a picture of an African American man that was clearly intended to refer to Horton. </p>
<p>It was a devastating line of attack, and Bush won the election.</p>
<p>Four years later, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, the Democratic candidate for president, tried to make law and order a pro-Democratic issue. He <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/24/us/1992-campaign-democrats-clinton-houston-speech-assails-bush-crime-issue.html">argued</a> that Bush had not kept his promise to control crime and said, “We cannot take our country back until we take our neighborhoods back.” </p>
<p>But Clinton also took the unprecedented step of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/24/us/1992-campaign-democrats-clinton-houston-speech-assails-bush-crime-issue.html">connecting</a> law and order and the promotion of civil rights. </p>
<p>“I want to be tough on crime and good for civil rights,” Clinton said. “You can’t have civil justice without order and safety.” </p>
<p>Clinton won the election.</p>
<h2>Trump takes it further</h2>
<p>Many accounts of President Trump’s law-and-order campaign <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/donald-trump-law-and-order-richard-nixon-crime-race-214066">trace</a> its roots back to Nixon’s 1968 campaign. But I believe it has an older pedigree, running much deeper into America’s past.</p>
<p>In his <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/pops.12420">mobilization of resentments</a> against immigrants and others who threaten “the American way of life,” the president is very much within the centuries-old tradition of law-and-order appeals.</p>
<p>In another sense, he is inverting modern law-and-order politics. To date, it has been used by challengers in campaigns designed to appeal to people who believe that they are losing ground as society changes.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>In 2016, Trump ran just such a campaign. He <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/america-is-broke-says-donald-trump-1469942">cited</a> rampant lawlessness and “race riots in our streets on a monthly basis” as reasons to “change our leadership immediately.” </p>
<p>He is again warning of lawlessness and rioting, but this time as a central reason not to change the nation’s leadership.</p>
<p>Democratic candidate Joe Biden <a href="https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/joe-biden-pittsburgh-speech-transcript-august-31">correctly highlighted</a> the irony and audacity of that effort by reminding Americans that Trump “keeps telling you if only he was president … you’d feel safe. Well, he is president.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145366/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Austin Sarat does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>President Trump’s law-and-order campaign rhetoric has been compared to Richard Nixon’s and George Wallace’s similar themes in 1968. But such appeals go much further back, to the US in the early 1800s.Austin Sarat, Associate Provost and Associate Dean of the Faculty and Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1301642020-02-24T13:44:30Z2020-02-24T13:44:30ZTrump White House goes 300+ days without a press briefing – why that’s unprecedented<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316632/original/file-20200221-92497-1ar3a2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=46%2C39%2C5138%2C3642&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The White House logo is displayed in the press briefing room of the White House in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 31, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-white-house-logo-is-displayed-in-the-press-briefing-news-photo/1197857412?adppopup=true">Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Journalists learn to adapt to current conditions, be they storms or tantrums, vagaries of nature or whims of officials. White House correspondents these days should be well past their withdrawal symptoms from the daily delirium of the once-regular White House press briefing. </p>
<p>Earlier this year, as <a href="https://www.poynter.org/newsletters/2020/300-days-without-an-official-white-house-press-briefing-audiences-forgive-advertisers-americas-best-sports-writing/">300 days passed without a formal briefing</a>, a bipartisan group of past administration press secretaries called for restoration of the daily briefings. </p>
<p>“Bringing the American people in on the process, early and often, makes for better democracy,” they said in <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/10/opinions/ex-press-secretaries-open-letter-on-press-briefings/index.html">an open letter on CNN.com</a>. </p>
<p>“The process of preparing for regular briefings makes the government run better. The sharing of information, known as official guidance, among government officials and agencies helps ensure that an administration speaks with one voice,” the former spokespersons said, adding that this is particularly important in foreign and military policy.</p>
<p>Beyond the daily digest of the president’s activities, not all of which is public, reporters look to the briefings for depth and context for their reporting. They expect the White House press secretary and other officials to speak knowledgeably and authoritatively for the president and his administration. </p>
<p>For example, when the coronavirus outbreak was detected in China, reporters wanted to hear government officials explain what the U.S. government was doing to get Americans out of China and to keep the virus out of the U.S. </p>
<p>On another day, the press secretary could provide a corrective along the lines of “What the president meant to say….”</p>
<p>There is no requirement to hold White House press briefings, nor to have them televised. Now, what once was part of the routine of government in Washington is, in the Trump administration, barely seen at the State Department and Pentagon and a fading memory at the White House. The country is left with a singular voice – the president’s – but no idea whether he represents government consensus.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316643/original/file-20200221-92493-1pi3mbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316643/original/file-20200221-92493-1pi3mbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316643/original/file-20200221-92493-1pi3mbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316643/original/file-20200221-92493-1pi3mbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316643/original/file-20200221-92493-1pi3mbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316643/original/file-20200221-92493-1pi3mbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316643/original/file-20200221-92493-1pi3mbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316643/original/file-20200221-92493-1pi3mbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham (L) and Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley. Grisham has never given a press briefing as press secretary.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/white-house-press-secretary-stephanie-grisham-and-deputy-news-photo/1198272429?adppopup=true">Getty/Chip Somodevilla</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Protecting the president</h2>
<p>The relationship between the president and the press is now <a href="https://apnews.com/fa141b3b08f14921875f7719cd2ec942">more confrontational and more contemptuous</a> than it has been in decades. </p>
<p>But while the press and the presidency have a long relationship, it has <a href="https://www.cjr.org/analysis/the_president_and_the_press.php">not necessarily been a cozy one</a>. When Richard Nixon was president, for example, he had his <a href="https://thehill.com/capital-living/20243-journalist-recalls-the-honor-of-being-on-nixons-enemies-list">“enemies list” that included journalists</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/analysis/pundits.prose/bierbauer/index.shtml">I covered the White House for CNN</a> during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Reagan was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/14/magazine/the-president-and-the-press.html">well protected from the media by his staff</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/08/opinions/nancy-reagan-gergen/index.html">first lady Nancy Reagan</a>. We shouted questions at him over the whir of helicopters. Bush was affable and considerably more accessible.</p>
<p>Donald Trump dominates when he engages with the White House press corps. He chooses when and how, of course, but that’s always the case with presidents.</p>
<p>Regular press conferences had a protocol and, at least, a measure of decorum. The president still decides whose questions he’ll answer. Trump’s preference for impromptu exchanges, commonly on the White House driveway, makes the press look like a shouting mob, which sometimes they are. </p>
<p>Trump, by most assessments, functions as his own press secretary. Those who hold the actual title – <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/tracking-turnover-in-the-trump-administration/">three, so far</a> – learned it’s a foxhole from which one raises his or her head into the president’s verbal line of fire. </p>
<p>The first, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/us/politics/sean-spicer-resigns-as-white-house-press-secretary.html">Sean Spicer</a>, was out of sync on day one with <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/24/fact-check-inauguration-crowd-size/96984496/">disputable claims over the size of Trump’s inauguration crowd</a>. The second, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/24/us/politics/sarah-sanders-arkansas-governor.html">Sarah Huckabee Sanders, regularly battled with the press corps</a> – and the truth – from the podium in the briefing room. Sanders held her last briefing on March 15, 2019. </p>
<p>“I told her not to bother, the word gets out anyway,” <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1087733867614781446?lang=en">Trump said</a>. </p>
<p>Sanders’ successor, <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/477815-ex-white-house-press-military-officials-call-on-grisham-to-restart">Stephanie Grisham, has held none</a> as of this writing and shows no inclination to.</p>
<p>“The press has unprecedented access to President Trump, yet they continue to complain because they can’t grandstand on TV,” <a href="https://www.axios.com/press-secretaries-white-house-briefings-8776f868-e14b-462e-bf86-bea299d9c170.html">Grisham told Axios</a>. The most prominent reporters, especially from television, have the most visible front row seats in the compact briefing room and tend to ask the most questions.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316637/original/file-20200221-92558-gg75c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316637/original/file-20200221-92558-gg75c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316637/original/file-20200221-92558-gg75c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316637/original/file-20200221-92558-gg75c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316637/original/file-20200221-92558-gg75c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316637/original/file-20200221-92558-gg75c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316637/original/file-20200221-92558-gg75c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316637/original/file-20200221-92558-gg75c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry, surrounded by the media, answers questions Jan. 22, 1998 during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/white-house-press-secretary-mike-mccurry-surrounded-by-the-news-photo/51642325?adppopup=true">Getty/Joyce Naltchayan/AFP</a></span>
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<h2>‘Line of the day’</h2>
<p>When I arrived on the White House beat in 1984, the reporters’ pattern was to gather in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/reagan-spokesman-larry-speakes-dies-at-74/2014/01/10/2e113276-7a4f-11e3-8963-b4b654bcc9b2_story.html">Press Secretary Larry Speakes’</a> office around 8:15 a.m. for an informal background briefing. It was a useful way to figure out where the day was headed. </p>
<p>By that time, the primary administration offices had decided what “the line of the day” would be. On a good day for the administration, they held the line. When other news broke, the discipline of the line tended to fall apart.</p>
<p>The formal briefing was around midday, on the record, but rarely on camera. TV was allowed to shoot only the start of the briefing just to get brief video for the day’s newscasts. President Clinton’s press secretary, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/july98/mccurry24.htm">Mike McCurry</a>, acceded to media demands for regular live televised briefings. <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/former-white-house-press-secretaries-advocate-no-live-coverage-of-briefings/">McCurry later thought</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/the-white-house-briefing-has-been-dead-for-six-months">better of it</a> and joined former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer in 2017 in saying the briefings should be taped and shown later, not live. </p>
<p>“Better for the public, the WH & the press,” Fleischer tweeted in what he called a “joint tweet” with McCurry. </p>
<p>Briefings could be chummy or churlish. <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/crossing-larry-speakes">Speakes had a habit of declaring reporters “out of business”</a> if he disagreed with their premise or line of questioning. “Don’t call; don’t hang around my office,” he’d say. It was a badge of honor for reporters. We’d call the chief of staff instead. </p>
<p><a href="https://journalism.ku.edu/marlin-fitzwater">Marlin Fitzwater</a>, who served both Reagan and Bush as press secretary, described us as just scratching at the surface of the iceberg. But he could be helpful by indicating what part of the iceberg to scratch at. </p>
<h2>White House retreat</h2>
<p>Press secretaries wear three hats, serving the public, the press and the president. It’s the president, of course, who has first claim on their attention.</p>
<p>In Trump’s case, it’s the press secretary who has been put out of business, or at least business as usual. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/stephanie-grisham-is-not-the-worst-ever-white-house-press-secretary-heres-why/2020/01/10/405340bc-33be-11ea-a053-dc6d944ba776_story.html">Grisham unapologetically serves him</a>. She’s not known for being particularly helpful off camera. Sanders had a better relationship with the press outside the combative briefing room.</p>
<p>This is not an issue rising from the First Amendment, which proscribes Congress from making any law “abridging the freedom of the press.” </p>
<p>The White House has, instead, retreated from the practice of preceding administrations. It’s a presidential prerogative to decide when and how to communicate to public constituencies. Other administrations have sought ways to circumvent the media filter. </p>
<p><a href="http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/firesi90.html">Franklin Roosevelt broadcast his fireside chats</a>. <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/presidential-documents-archive-guidebook/the-presidents-weekly-address-saturday-radio-from">Ronald Reagan began the tradition of delivering a weekly radio address</a>. Donald Trump tweets.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316636/original/file-20200221-92497-1lu7br6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316636/original/file-20200221-92497-1lu7br6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316636/original/file-20200221-92497-1lu7br6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316636/original/file-20200221-92497-1lu7br6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316636/original/file-20200221-92497-1lu7br6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316636/original/file-20200221-92497-1lu7br6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316636/original/file-20200221-92497-1lu7br6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316636/original/file-20200221-92497-1lu7br6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In October, 1982, President Ronald Reagan made a radio address from his ranch in California’s Santa Ynez mountains.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/santa-barbara-calif-president-ronald-reagan-makes-radio-news-photo/515129218?adppopup=true">Getty/Bettman</a></span>
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<p>When the president himself talks to the media extemporaneously, it’s more difficult to complain that the press secretary won’t. What falls by the wayside, though, is the policy and detail that can be conveyed by officials responsible for either creating or communicating government’s business. </p>
<p>Context and accountability are lost. It’s a temptation for future presidents.</p>
<p>Fitzwater titled his post-White House memoir “<a href="https://www.scribd.com/book/387797866/Call-the-Briefing-A-Memoir-Ten-Years-in-the-White-House-with-Presidents-Reagan-and-Bush">Call the Briefing</a>.” No one on the president’s staff is calling regular briefings these days. There are other briefings that take place at the White House, but not the daily regimen of the press secretary’s briefing.</p>
<p>But there hasn’t been a lack of stories from and about the Trump White House.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Bierbauer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A longtime White House reporter describes what’s lost when the relationship between the press and the president is bad and once-routine press briefings aren’t held.Charles Bierbauer, Distinguished Professor and Dean Emeritus, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1248632019-10-24T16:11:56Z2019-10-24T16:11:56ZTrump has upended the long history of US investment in Ukraine’s democracy<p>On a cold December night in 2016, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/10/11/769193149/who-is-former-u-s-ambassador-to-ukraine-marie-yovanovitch">Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine</a>, spoke to an anxious audience at a library in the southern Ukrainian port of Odessa. The audience was eager to hear what the recent election of Donald Trump might mean for their own security.</p>
<p>Yovanovitch had been my boss at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine 15 years before, when she was deputy chief of mission. I had recently <a href="https://www.cies.org/grantee/matthew-pauly">returned to Ukraine as a Fulbright scholar</a> and wanted to learn what this seasoned diplomat had to say to a city that now housed the main base of the Ukrainian Navy. </p>
<p>Yovanovitch’s talk took place against a backdrop of military conflict that threatened Ukraine’s independence. That conflict began with <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/russias-seizure-of-crimea-is-making-former-soviet-states-nervous/284156/">Russia’s 2014 capture of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea</a>, only 125 miles away. </p>
<p>Yovanovitch assured the audience that the U.S. would remain committed to protecting the sovereignty and democracy of this eastern European nation.</p>
<p>This was the same nonpartisan message that Republican and Democratic administrations had been providing since the <a href="https://history.state.gov/countries/ukraine">American recognition of Ukraine</a>.</p>
<p>And it’s <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-ukraine/">that commitment</a> that was in question recently, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/24/full-trump-ukraine-timeline-now/">Ukraine and its president</a> found themselves entangled in a scheme that could lead to the impeachment of President Trump. </p>
<h2>Supporting independence</h2>
<p>On Dec. 25, 1991, faced with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the administration of George H. W. Bush reversed its earlier insistence that Ukraine remain in union with Moscow and <a href="https://history.state.gov/countries/ukraine">formally recognized its independence</a>. </p>
<p>Multiple American presidents have since viewed <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-ukraine/">support of this state</a> – the second largest in Europe after Russia – as critical to the U.S. national interest. </p>
<p>A major premise for early American support was <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/the-destruction-of-ukraines-nuclear-arsenal/29699706.html">Ukraine’s 1994 agreement</a> to give up its large nuclear weapons arsenal in return for American, Russian and British guarantees of Ukraine’s borders. </p>
<p>As Russia grew more politically volatile under President Boris Yeltsin, the United States begin to invest even more in a partnership with Ukraine. </p>
<p>By the mid-1990s, Ukraine became the third-largest <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/serhii-plokhy/the-gates-of-europe/9780465050918/">recipient of U.S. aid, after Israel and Egypt</a>. </p>
<h2>Corruption complications</h2>
<p>The extensive U.S. aid to Ukraine was contingent on the country’s embrace of <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-ukraine/">democratic reform and the free market</a>. A major challenge to achieving this goal was endemic corruption. </p>
<p>In 2001, as a fellow in the political section of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, I drafted the Country Report for Human Rights <a href="https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/261588.htm">under the direction of Yovanovitch</a>.</p>
<p>These State Department reports record a country’s compliance with international human rights norms, mainly as a condition for getting American foreign aid. The <a href="https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/eur/8361.htm">2001 report stated</a> that “the pervasiveness of corruption, connections between government officials and organized crime, and the political activities of organized crime figures often blurred the distinction between political and criminal acts.” </p>
<p>The public perception that the Ukrainian president at the time, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leonid-Kuchma">Leonid Kuchma</a>, and his political allies were corrupt inspired a majority of Ukrainians to oppose Kuchma’s chosen successor in the 2004 presidential election, Prime Minister <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Viktor-Yanukovych">Viktor Yanukovych</a>. </p>
<p>Yanukovych’s reformist opponent, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Viktor-Yushchenko">Viktor Yushchenko</a>, won in a repeat election on December 26, 2004. This <a href="https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/ukraine/14674">repeat election was held</a> in response to unrest over accusations that Yanukovych’s camp had tampered with the initial vote. </p>
<p>In his campaign, Yushchenko had sworn to uphold the rule of law. President George W. Bush, visiting Kyiv in 2008, <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PPP-2008-book1/pdf/PPP-2008-book1-doc-pg443.pdf">pledged to help</a>: “We work together to fight corruption and support civil society groups and strengthen institutions of a free and prosperous economy.” </p>
<p>However, Yushchenko’s efforts were frustrated by political infighting among his former backers and a constitutional reduction in presidential power that he had conceded in negotiations with Yanukovych’s supporters. </p>
<p>Six years later, the disgraced Yanukovych staged a political comeback. He won the presidency of Ukraine in 2010 with the help of foreign political consultants, including <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/03/us/politics/paul-manafort-trump-campaign.html">future Trump campaign adviser Paul Manafort</a>. </p>
<p>Upon assuming office, Yanukovych aimed for greater power. He annulled the 2004 constitutional amendments limiting presidential power, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/world/europe/yulia-tymoshenko-sentenced-to-seven-years-in-prison.html">jailed a key political rival</a> and brought the country to near bankruptcy through the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/after-5-years-of-ukraine-sanctions-where-are-viktor-yanukovychs-millions/a-47784672">alleged pocketing of public funds</a>. </p>
<p>In late 2013, Ukrainians demonstrated in Kyiv in protest of Yanukovcyh’s last-minute refusal to support <a href="http://eeas.europa.eu/archives/delegations/ukraine/documents/virtual_library/vademecum_en.pdf">ethics reforms required as a condition of enhanced cooperation by the EU</a>. Public outrage at his use of armed police to suppress the protesters forced <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/02/ukraines-president-voted-out-flees-kiev/100686/">Yanukovych to flee the country</a> in February 2014 and vacate the presidency. </p>
<p>Russian president Vladimir Putin took advantage of the instability in Ukraine to <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2016-04-18/why-russian-president-putin-took-crimea-from-ukraine">invade and annex the Crimean Peninsula</a> in March 2014. He also sponsored a separatist movement in the Donbas, the southeastern part of Ukraine. Those separatists remain at <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-plan-to-end-conflict-with-russia-meets-resistance-11571081695">war with the Ukrainian central government to this day</a>. </p>
<p>In response, the Obama administration imposed a series of travel bans and sanctions against <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/world/europe/us-and-europe-agree-to-escalate-sanctions-on-russia.html">Russian politicians and businesses</a>. </p>
<h2>Public commitment to reform</h2>
<p>Amid the chaos, in June 2014, a veteran politician named Petro Poroshenko was elected president of Ukraine, promising to restore the country’s territorial integrity, sign the EU association agreement <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26822741">and eliminate corruption</a>. As one of Ukraine’s wealthiest citizens, he seemed an unlikely advocate for reform. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Petro-Poroshenko">Poroshenko</a> was the first politician I met when I was in Ukraine in 2001 as an embassy officer. Like many Ukrainian oligarchs, he had gained his wealth in the 1990s by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/world/europe/ukraine-candidates.html">buying former</a> <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10731848/Petro-Poroshenko-the-billionaire-chocolate-baron-hoping-to-become-Ukraines-next-president.html">state property on the cheap</a>. </p>
<p>At an opulent lunch at the Kyiv’s Hotel Dnipro back in 2001, he regaled me with stories of his son at the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2014/04/03/for-rich-russians-uk-schools-in-class-of-their-own.html">elite British boarding school, Eton College</a>. </p>
<p>As president, Poroshenko’s effort to defeat the Russian-backed Donbas separatists met with some success – until Russia reinforced their position with supplies of new weapons, equipment and personnel <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/23/world/europe/russia-moves-artillery-units-into-ukraine-nato-says.html">in August 2014</a>. U.S. military assistance that began under the Obama administration has proven critical to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2019/09/30/ukraine-united-states-military-aid-013792">modernizing the Ukrainian army</a> for combat with the insurgents. </p>
<p>Poroshenko also implemented a number of anti-corruption initiatives, including the establishment of a <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/combating-corruption-ukraine-the-candidates-remedies">National Anti-Corruption Bureau</a>. However, public opposition mounted against the inactivity and selectivity of those he tasked with fighting corruption. Oligarchs can turn reformers, but they still require the public’s trust to retain legitimacy.</p>
<p>Perception of inaction helped contribute to Poroshenko’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/world/europe/Volodymyr-Zelensky-ukraine-elections.html">March 2019 electoral defeat</a> by the former <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-comedian-who-played-a-president-on-tv-just-became-ukraines-president-115100">actor-turned-populist politician</a> and anti-corruption crusader, Volodymyr Zelensky. This is <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraines-president-zelenskiy-may-come-to-regret-his-discussion-with-president-trump-124333">the leader whom Trump and his associates pressured</a> to open an investigation into Hunter Biden and Burisma Holdings <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/23/20879611/joe-biden-hunter-biden-ukraine-corruption-prosecutor-burisma-donald-trump-whistleblower-complaint">on already discredited charges</a>. </p>
<p>Ukraine has a justified reputation of being perennially corrupt, but this claim masks the repeatedly exhibited public demand for government accountability and the enduring, nonpartisan U.S. commitment to assist in the achievement of this ambition. </p>
<h2>Failing to support</h2>
<p>Yovanovitch, the former Ukraine ambassador, was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/ousted-ukraine-envoy-marie-yovanovitch-expected-to-testify-in-impeachment-inquiry-today/2019/10/11/d571830e-eba0-11e9-85c0-85a098e47b37_story.html">summoned as part of the impeachment investigation</a> to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on October 11.</p>
<p>She told lawmakers, “Since 2014, Ukraine has been at war, not just with Russia, but within itself, as political and economic forces compete to determine what kind of country <a href="https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/1888-yovanovitch-opening-statement/48cf6b834149b4867fb5/optimized/full.pdf">Ukraine will become</a>.” </p>
<p>Her <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/24/full-trump-ukraine-timeline-now/">ousting by Trump in March</a>, she claimed, disrupted an opportunity to help consolidate a reform mandate given by the Ukrainian voters. </p>
<p>And President Trump’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/22/us/trump-impeachment-ukraine.html">witholding of military and humanitarian aid</a> to Ukraine in exchange for an investigation of a political rival undermined the many years of U.S. advocacy for systemic reform in Ukraine. It also threatened the post-2014 anti-corruption push by Ukrainians themselves.</p>
<p>An October 10, 2019 <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-ukraine/">State Department fact sheet</a>, “U.S. Relations With Ukraine,” maintains that “U.S. policy is centered on supporting Ukraine in the face of continued Russian aggression as it advances reforms to strengthen democratic institutions, fight corruption, and promote conditions for economic growth and competition.”</p>
<p>Yet Trump’s actions have dangerously undermined Ukrainian national security. A Ukraine imperiled by war with Russia would appear to require the material and moral support of its American ally more than ever. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Pauly received funding from the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, CIES-IIE. </span></em></p>Multiple American presidents have viewed US support of Ukraine’s security and democracy as critical to the national interest. President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine are a major divergence.Matthew Pauly, Associate Professor of History, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1085602018-12-11T11:41:38Z2018-12-11T11:41:38ZTrump presidency’s personnel turmoil stands in stark contrast to the ‘nice guy’ administration of George H. W. Bush<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249817/original/file-20181210-76977-1q60qmr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bush with his team in 1991.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Obit-George-HW-Bush/86c44ce8800c40f4999f05313d04416a/27/0">AP Photo/Ron Edmonds</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>John Kelly’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/08/us/politics/john-kelly-chief-staff-trump.html">resignation as White House chief of staff</a> makes him the latest in a long line of senior officials to leave the Trump administration.</p>
<p>That brings <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/tracking-turnover-in-the-trump-administration/">turnover of senior staff</a> at the White House – excluding cabinet-level positions – to 62 percent, which is higher than the past six presidents at the same point in their administrations, according to the Brookings Institution. In addition, no fewer than nine secretaries out of 24 have vacated their cabinet positions. </p>
<p>If Trump has the highest churn of recent presidents, who had the lowest? George H. W. Bush, who died on Nov. 30. His administration had just 25 percent turnover of senior White House staff in the first two years of his presidency. In addition, <a href="https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2018/10/09/good-question-president-donald-trump-cabinet-turnover/">not a single cabinet member</a> left during that period. </p>
<p>The late Stanford political scientist Alexander George and I wrote about <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/388/George_and_George_Presidency.pdf?1544474630">Bush’s management style</a> as part of the 1998 book “<a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/24612862?selectedversion=NBD13554241">Presidential Personality and Performance</a>.”</p>
<p>Our analysis of presidents from FDR to Bill Clinton showed that Bush was notable not only for his own foreign policy expertise but for his kinder, gentler approach to managing his team, which led to exceptional collegiality among his staff. And I believe many of his foreign policy achievements came as a result.</p>
<h2>Impulse control</h2>
<p>Given the high turnover among team Trump, you don’t have to look hard to see the impact on America’s foreign policy over the past two years. </p>
<p>Impulsive shifts have been common, such as on policy towards North Korea, when Trump flipped from <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-meeting-with-north-korea-aff14fb0-a5cb-403d-8e2d-35ef8a5500fd.html">threatening</a> “fire and fury like the world has never seen” to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/us/politics/north-korea-denuclearize-peace-treaty.html">saying</a> the regime is “no longer a threat” after a summit with the country’s leader – even though little changed. </p>
<p>Other policies were poorly prepared, inadequately coordinated or bungled when they were rolled out. For example, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/trump-travel-ban-35583">travel ban</a>, which initially attempted to block visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries, caused chaos when it was announced <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-travel-ban-process/?noredirect=on">with little discussion</a> among government agencies. And the administration’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-zero-tolerance-immigration-policy-still-violating-fundamental-human-rights-laws-98615">zero tolerance immigration policy</a> led to a massive outcry after thousands of children were separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/leaks-infighting-plaguing-trumps-presidency">In-fighting</a> among advisers and senior staff has been particularly intense, <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Fear/Bob-Woodward/9781501175510">vicious</a> and regularly leaked to the media. In fact, according to conservative Trump critic David Frum, no administration has ever been so <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062796738/trumpocracy/">prone to leaks</a>. </p>
<p>In terms of turnover, the raw stat alone doesn’t fully convey the extent of the problem. In just two years, Trump has had three national security advisers, two White House chiefs of staff, two secretaries of State, two secretaries of Homeland Security and two CIA directors. He’s also had two FBI directors, two National Economic Council directors and soon will have two attorneys general. </p>
<p>It is important to note that while this pattern is certainly striking and concerning – an excessive churn of key officials can be disruptive – it is not unique. Similarly, most modern administrations suffer from internal conflict. </p>
<p>An exception was the first Bush administration. </p>
<h2>A kinder, gentler approach</h2>
<p>Bush’s national security and foreign policy team was notable not only for its substantial successes and effective policymaking but also for its loyalty, collegiality and relatively limited leaking. </p>
<p>As Bush biographer Jon Meacham <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/112696/destiny-and-power-by-jon-meacham/9780812979473/">put it</a>, “The Bush foreign policy team operated with an extraordinary degree of harmony.” </p>
<p>In his entire term, Bush had only one national security adviser and one secretary of defense. His first secretary of state, James Baker, served three years before becoming White House chief of staff. </p>
<p>This harmonious team produced a <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/bush/foreign-affairs">string of major foreign policy achievements</a>. For example, he presided with prudence and a steady hand over a profoundly turbulent and potentially dangerous time in international affairs, namely the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. </p>
<p>His team <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/print/2556">negotiated major reductions</a> in nuclear arms, brought a <a href="https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/books/germany-unified-europe-transformed-study-statecraft">reunified Germany</a> into NATO over the objections of Russia and European allies and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2001/10/why-bush-senior-didnt-blow-it-in-the-gulf-war/377568/">built a broad international coalition</a> to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.</p>
<p>What were the secrets of Bush’s success in leading his national security team? Based on <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cLgReHcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">my own research</a> on presidential management styles, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-5705.2002.tb00003.x">managing conflict</a> in foreign policymaking and <a href="https://www.macmillanihe.com/page/detail/Understanding-Public-Leadership/?K=9780230205529">other research on leadership</a>, a number of factors stand out. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249819/original/file-20181210-76956-95oq6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249819/original/file-20181210-76956-95oq6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249819/original/file-20181210-76956-95oq6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249819/original/file-20181210-76956-95oq6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249819/original/file-20181210-76956-95oq6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249819/original/file-20181210-76956-95oq6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249819/original/file-20181210-76956-95oq6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bush shakes hands with soldiers gathered at a Saudi air base on Nov. 22, 1990.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-SAU-APHS173334-Bush-Saudi-Arabia/bc80c9701dae49cbaea3523f417304a3/53/0">AP Photo/Bob Daugherty</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Experience and expertise</h2>
<p>George H. W. Bush’s career progression – which presidential scholar Tom Preston views as a key variable affecting Bush’s foreign policy <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-president-and-his-inner-circle/9780231116213">performance</a> – prepared him unusually well for the presidency, and especially for leading national security and foreign policymaking.</p>
<p>He <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/112696/destiny-and-power-by-jon-meacham/9780812979473/">served as a naval aviator</a> during World War II, ran an oil company in Texas, served a term in Congress, was an envoy to China, spent a year as CIA director in the Ford administration and worked as Ronald Reagan’s vice president for eight years, all before being elected president in 1988.</p>
<p>Bush was knowledgeable about the issues and comfortable engaging in rough-and-tumble policy debates with his advisers inside and outside of government, as well as with foreign leaders. <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/388/George_and_George_Presidency.pdf?1544474630">He respected</a> and was respected by his advisers.</p>
<h2>Network and chemistry</h2>
<p>Bush developed and maintained a vast social network accumulated throughout his career, built the old-fashioned way through personal relationships. And he drew heavily on this network when <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/112696/destiny-and-power-by-jon-meacham/9780812979473/">he recruited his foreign policy team</a>. </p>
<p>In other words, not only was he able to tap people who were highly experienced, well-regarded and competent for key positions, he also had prior personal relationships with many of them. <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/388/George_and_George_Presidency.pdf?1544474630">They were both</a> experts and “buddies.” Bush and James Baker shared a relationship that lasted the rest of their lives, with the latter <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46454064">visiting his friend</a> on his deathbed. </p>
<p>These personal ties facilitated candid and critical exchange of information and views, which in turn contributed to effective exploration and solving of national security and foreign policy problems. </p>
<h2>Collegiality among the principals</h2>
<p>Bush expected his advisers to work together as a team. Competition and policy advocacy would be moderated by norms of collegial behavior and deference to his <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/24612862?selectedversion=NBD13554241">presidential prerogative to make the final calls</a>.</p>
<p>Advisers were encouraged to develop and maintain good working relationships not only with the president but with each other and to refrain from toxic forms of bureaucratic political maneuvering and manipulation <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/2209879/beyond_groupthink">not uncommon in Washington</a>.
As described in the <a href="https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/short-history/baker">official State Department history</a>, “Although intense policy differences occurred, a collegial approach to foreign policymaking was the norm, especially in the ‘breakfast group’ [that] met weekly to iron out problems that could not be resolved through the bureaucratic channels.” </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/207088?seq=3#metadata_info_tab_contents">professionalism</a> and generally collaborative approach of this team has been <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-president-and-his-inner-circle/9780231116213">noted by many scholars</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, open debate was encouraged before a decision was made – but after that, support was expected and <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/388/George_and_George_Presidency.pdf?1544474630">generally received</a>. Those who came out on the losing side of a debate received reassurance that they still had the president’s confidence. </p>
<h2>Gentle leadership and loyalty</h2>
<p>In his <a href="https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/january-20-1989-inaugural-address">inaugural address in 1989</a>, George Herbert Walker Bush famously defined the goal “to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world.”</p>
<p>There are those who believe that nice guys finish last. However, the legacy, leadership style and foreign policy achievements of Bush strongly suggest otherwise.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108560/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eric Stern has previously worked as a subcontractor for and received honoraria from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.</span></em></p>The significant churn in the Trump administration has caused confusion in foreign policymaking. In contrast, Bush’s presidency was marked by collegiality, which contributed to many successes.Eric Stern, Professor of Political Science, College Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity, University at Albany, State University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1081482018-12-05T11:40:39Z2018-12-05T11:40:39ZGeorge H.W. Bush’s overlooked legacy in space exploration<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248835/original/file-20181204-34125-bvpzoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President George H. Bush promotes space exploration during a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the flight of Apollo 11 on July 20, 1989. Behind the president are, from left: former astronaut Mike Collins, NASA Administrator Richard Truly, former astronaut Neil Armstrong, Vice President Dan Quayle and former astronaut Buzz Aldrin. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Dist-of-/ed609e1c60b348e7a9fe5f199218c2e2/2/0">AP Photo/Barry Thumma</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On July 20, 1989, the 20th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, President George H. W. Bush stood on the steps of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. and, backed by the Apollo 11 crew, <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-20th-anniversary-the-apollo-11-moon-landing">announced</a> his new Space Exploration Initiative (SEI). He believed that this new program would put America on a track to return to the moon and make an eventual push to Mars. </p>
<p>“The time has come to look beyond brief encounters. We must commit ourselves anew to a sustained program of manned exploration of the solar system and, yes, the permanent settlement of space,” he said. </p>
<p>As a political scientist who seeks to understand space exploration’s place in the political process, I approach space policy with an appreciation of the political hurdles high-cost, long-term and technologically advanced policies face. <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137339188">My research</a> has shown that policy change both in general and in space policy, is often hard to come by, something exemplified by the Bush administration. </p>
<p>Among Bush’s many political accomplishments, few recall SEI, probably because <a href="http://history.nasa.gov/nltr24-4.pdf">it was largely panned</a> immediately following its announcement. However, Bush’s presidency came at a key turning point in NASA’s history and ultimately contributed to the success of the International Space Station, NASA leadership and today’s space policy. As the country mourns his passing and assesses his legacy, space should rightly be included on Bush’s list of accomplishments.</p>
<h2>Vice presidential years</h2>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YWM7yXQnwpw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Vice President George W. Bush, Sr. talks to the STS-1 flight crew.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While presidents are usually the most closely associated with the American space program, vice presidents often play a vital role. As Ronald Reagan’s vice president, Bush was intimately involved with NASA throughout the 1980s. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1981/11/16/us/columbia-astronauts-tell-bush-of-mission-letdown.html">He visited</a> the astronauts who crewed the second shuttle mission in 1981, commiserating with them about their mission which had been shortened. And, he often enjoyed speaking to astronauts mid-flight.</p>
<p>In a 1985 White House speech, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1985/07/20/us/teacher-is-picked-for-shuttle-trip.html">Bush announced</a> that teacher Christa McAuliffe would fly aboard the ill-fated Challenger. In the wake of the disaster, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/29/us/the-shuttle-explosion-bush-flies-to-side-of-crew-s-families.html">Reagan dispatched Bush</a> to meet with the families at Kennedy Space Center given his ties to the mission. After a private meeting with the families, Bush addressed NASA employees at Kennedy and pledged the space program would go forward, a promise he kept as president.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248777/original/file-20181204-34157-ov25j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248777/original/file-20181204-34157-ov25j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248777/original/file-20181204-34157-ov25j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248777/original/file-20181204-34157-ov25j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248777/original/file-20181204-34157-ov25j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248777/original/file-20181204-34157-ov25j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248777/original/file-20181204-34157-ov25j5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vice President George Bush shakes hands with New Hampshire teacher Sharon Christa McAuliffe, following his announcement that she was chosen for the Teacher in Space program, July 19, 1985.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-DC-USA-APHS469714-McAuliffe-Teacher-/52b1c572d5bb47e89cfac4ec1b0da105/14/0">AP Photo/Ira Schwarz</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>SEI and the Space Station</h2>
<p>Shortly after taking office, the Bush administration sought to provide a vision for NASA. Bush reinstated the National Space Council and, allied with Vice President Dan Quayle, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spacepol.2017.10.006">developed the SEI</a> to coincide with the anniversary of Apollo 11. With less than six months between Bush’s inauguration and July 1989, there was little time to flesh out specific deadlines or funding sources. What resulted was a vague promise to build a planned space station in the next decade, return to the moon and venture onto Mars. With this lack of specifics, the SEI aroused immediate suspicion from both NASA and Congress. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spacepol.2018.07.003">The SEI faced a number of political hurdles</a> upon its announcement. But 90 days later, opposition to SEI grew exponentially when a <a href="https://history.nasa.gov/90_day_study.pdf">follow-up analysis</a> of the initiative revealed a 30-year plan with a half-a-trillion-dollar price tag. Then the discovery of a flawed lens on the Hubble Space Telescope after its launch in 1990, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1992/09/10/senate-votes-to-proceed-with-space-station/51472517-3b0c-43b1-b538-61f762c9b034/?utm_term=.a869d61631fe">massive cost overruns</a> on what was then called Space Station Freedom (the program had grown from $8 billion in 1984 to $40 billion in 1992), and an economic downturn all combined to threaten overall funding for NASA. While Bush lobbied aggressively for the SEI, the program failed to receive support and was largely shelved.</p>
<p>But what emerged from the SEI was still significant. When Congress threatened to cut funding to and essentially end the nascent space station, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07343469.2011.640383">Bush administration pushed to save it</a>. Although NASA’s overall funding was cut, Bush’s support and the rationale behind the SEI gave the space station enough continued importance that Congress restored $200 billion to the space station budget.</p>
<p>Finally, the moon to Mars framework has remained relevant in human spaceflight. <a href="https://history.nasa.gov/Bush%20SEP.htm">George W. Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration</a>, proposed in 2004, retained the same goals but grounded it with a clear timetable and budget. Proposing a moon-Mars program is nothing revolutionary, but the SEI kept the idea of an expansive exploration agenda alive.</p>
<h2>Leadership choices</h2>
<p>One of most significant impacts a president can have on a bureaucracy is <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1963851">choice of agency leadership</a>. In that area, Bush succeeded in placing his stamp on NASA for years to come. Bush’s first choice for NASA administrator, former astronaut Richard Truly, was <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0265964616301527">out of his depth politically</a>. Truly did not support SEI and other space initiatives and was fired in 1991, partially <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spacepol.2017.10.006">at Vice President Quayle’s urging.</a></p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248780/original/file-20181204-34145-6u9ey6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248780/original/file-20181204-34145-6u9ey6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248780/original/file-20181204-34145-6u9ey6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248780/original/file-20181204-34145-6u9ey6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248780/original/file-20181204-34145-6u9ey6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248780/original/file-20181204-34145-6u9ey6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248780/original/file-20181204-34145-6u9ey6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248780/original/file-20181204-34145-6u9ey6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">NASA Administrator Dan Goldin and a group of senior international guests view the U.S.-built Node 1 at Kennedy Space Center, Jan. 30, 1998, following the signing of the Intergovernmental Agreement and Memoranda of Understanding for the International Space Station.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Florida-United-S-/31314c8943e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/4/0">AP Photo/Pool</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bush’s choice to replace Truly was Dan Goldin, who became <a href="https://history.nasa.gov/prsnnl.htm">NASA’s longest serving administrator</a>, staying on through the Clinton administration. Characterized as <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0265964606001160">one of the most influential administrators</a> in NASA history, Goldin took on the job of finding more support for the space station. He convinced Clinton that it could be useful in foreign policy. As a result, Clinton used the space station as a tool to ease Russia’s transition to a democratic state. The International Space Station was launched in 1998 due in large part to the support from the Bush administration. Having hosted 232 people from 18 countries, the ISS recently <a href="https://www.space.com/42493-international-space-station-20-anniversary.html">celebrated its 20th anniversary</a>.</p>
<p>More importantly, Goldin initiated a program known as “faster, better, cheaper” (<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0265964606001160">FBC</a>), which required NASA to do more with less by bumping up the number of lower cost missions. Although this mindset led to several high-profile failures, including a crashed Mars probe, Goldin successfully shifted NASA onto a more sustainable political footing. As a result, Bush’s choice of NASA leadership was crucial to the direction and success of American space exploration.</p>
<h2>Bush’s legacy</h2>
<p>Space exploration is a difficult policy field. It requires long-term planning, consistent funding and visionary leadership, any one of which is difficult to achieve. Further, space policy is incredibly <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07343469.2011.640383">sensitive to overall economic dynamics</a>, making it susceptible to continual budget cuts. </p>
<p>One can certainly debate the benefits of the International Space Station or the scientific value of human space exploration but, for better or for worse, NASA is the agency it is today because of the choices George H.W. Bush made as president. Ad astra, President Bush.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108148/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wendy Whitman Cobb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>George H.W. Bush’s achievements in space are often overlooked but have significantly contributed to America’s current space program.Wendy Whitman Cobb, Associate Professor of Political Science, Cameron UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1080112018-12-03T11:33:57Z2018-12-03T11:33:57ZGeorge H.W. Bush understood that markets and the environment weren’t enemies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248306/original/file-20181202-194925-b20gxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President George H.W. Bush (right) fishing on the Kennebunk River in Maine, Aug. 27, 1990. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-MAINE-USA-APHS161255-George-H-W-Bu-/6299fa3b7de24d779e4cac246fd358a6/74/0">AP Photo/Doug Mills</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Former President George H.W. Bush, who died on Nov. 30, was admirable for many reasons, from his skillful <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-well-miss-george-h-w-bush-americas-last-foreign-policy-president-95560">leadership through the end of the Cold War</a> to his personal warmth and courtesy. As an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=lfkXE9kAAAAJ&hl=en">environmental economist</a>, I believe his approach to conservation also deserves attention.</p>
<p>Bush <a href="https://news.yale.edu/2018/12/01/lifetime-public-service-remembrance-george-hw-bush-48-ba">majored in economics at Yale</a> and was a skilled politician. He believed that market-based solutions could protect the environment at lower cost than the command-and-control strategy that was more typical in the 1970s and 1980s. </p>
<p>Under that approach, regulators ordered each polluter to install the same equipment to reduce emissions. This could be cost-effective <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/wolfram/papers/fkw_100326.pdf">if all polluters used the same technology</a>, but in modern economies, firms rarely have similar management or the same operating equipment. Bush was willing to test the idea that setting pollution reduction targets and letting regulated firms decide how best to achieve them could lead to better outcomes.</p>
<h2>Markets for clean air</h2>
<p>In June 1989, Bush proposed what would become his most important environmental achievement: the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/1990-clean-air-act-amendment-summary">Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990</a>. This sweeping legislation used a market-based approach to halve sulfur dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, which reacted in the air to produce harmful <a href="https://www.epa.gov/acidrain/what-acid-rain">acid rain</a>. </p>
<p>This pollution was generated mainly by coal-fired electric utilities in the Midwest, but winds carried it into New England and mid-Atlantic states, where it <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/acid-rain-and-our-ecosystem-20824120/">damaged forests, rivers and lakes</a>. States where the pollution was produced had little incentive to regulate it because the costs were borne by others far away. In a 2011 study, Nobel Laureate William Nordhaus and others estimated that coal-fired power plants generated social costs – including acid rain – that could <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.101.5.1649">equal or exceed the value of the electricity they produced</a>. </p>
<p>President Bush followed the advice of economists who recommended introducing a national market where utilities could <a href="http://www.robertstavinsblog.org/2010/07/27/beware-of-scorched-earth-strategies-in-climate-debates/">buy and sell the right to pollute</a>. This approach made sense for mitigating acid rain because utilities differed with respect to their cost of reducing emissions. Utilities in states such as Ohio had much higher emissions, and a greater scope of emissions reductions possibilities if they were required to cut them.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248303/original/file-20181202-194938-100udjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248303/original/file-20181202-194938-100udjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248303/original/file-20181202-194938-100udjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248303/original/file-20181202-194938-100udjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248303/original/file-20181202-194938-100udjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248303/original/file-20181202-194938-100udjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248303/original/file-20181202-194938-100udjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248303/original/file-20181202-194938-100udjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President George Bush presents a pen he used to sign the Clean Air Act Amendments to EPA Administrator William Reilly, left, Nov. 16, 1990 as Energy Secretary James Watkins looks on.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Dist-of-/4bbbba2cebdb4a41b43526cd427ecb2d/22/0">AP Photo/Charles Tasnadi</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Under the legislation, each utility would receive an allotment of permits, proportional to its past emissions, that allowed it to release a fixed amount of pollution. The total number of permits was set at a level that would <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/467384">reduce national emissions by 10 million tons relative to the 1980 level</a>, phasing down over time. Each company could use its permits to cover its emissions, or sell any permits it did not use <a href="https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.27.1.103">at the market price</a>. If a utility could reduce its emissions for less than the going market price for a permit, it could make those reductions by whatever means it chose, then sell the permit and keep the difference.</p>
<p>This approach encouraged utilities to hire environmental engineers to update their production processes and find cleaner strategies, such as <a href="https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.27.1.103">switching to lower-sulfur coal</a>. It <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/jep.12.3.69">created dynamic innovation investment</a> to discover new strategies for producing power while creating fewer emissions. </p>
<p>The legislation <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1059994544">passed the Senate 89 to 10 and the House 401 to 25.</a> Such bipartisan support for environmental regulation is rarely seen today. “Every city in America should have clean air,” President Bush <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/16/us/bush-signs-major-revision-of-anti-pollution-law.html">said as he signed it</a>. “With this legislation I firmly believe we will.” And studies show that he was right: The program successfully <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/jep.12.3.69">reduced sulfur dioxide emissions at a lower cost</a> than the command-and-control method.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248304/original/file-20181202-194938-uxfrgw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248304/original/file-20181202-194938-uxfrgw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248304/original/file-20181202-194938-uxfrgw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=229&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248304/original/file-20181202-194938-uxfrgw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=229&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248304/original/file-20181202-194938-uxfrgw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=229&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248304/original/file-20181202-194938-uxfrgw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248304/original/file-20181202-194938-uxfrgw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248304/original/file-20181202-194938-uxfrgw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wet sulfate deposition fell by 66 percent across the eastern U.S. from 1989–1991 to 2014–2016, thanks to reduced sulfate emissions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www3.epa.gov/airmarkets/progress/reports/acid_deposition_figures.html#figure1">EPA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Can emissions trading save Earth’s climate?</h2>
<p>Today climate change is the world’s biggest environmental challenge. Bush took this problem seriously enough to issue an order in 1989 that led to creation of the <a href="https://www.globalchange.gov/">U.S. Global Change Research Program</a>, which produces expert reports on <a href="https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/">how climate change is affecting the United States</a>. In 1992 he signed the <a href="https://unfccc.int/">United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change</a>, which created a process for countries to work together to understand and respond to climate change. </p>
<p>It’s hard to know whether Bush would have taken steps to curb climate change if he had been reelected in 1992. Some members of his administration <a href="https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/william-k-reilly-oral-history-interview.html">supported such a course</a>, but others were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html">less convinced of the need to act</a>. And <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/04/us/the-1992-campaign-bush-on-the-environment-a-record-of-contradictions.html">critics found fault</a> with positions Bush took on other environmental issues, especially in the second half of his term.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, Bush succeeded in building a political coalition to reduce pollution, and I believe there are <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/14963.html">valuable political economy lessons</a> to be learned from his record as debate continues over future U.S. climate mitigation policy. </p>
<p>As our nation’s population and per-capita income continue to grow, making progress toward sustainability will require reducing the emissions our economy generates per dollar of income. The acid rain program showed that markets for pollution lower the cost to society of achieving this goal. By rewarding economic actors who can reduce pollution at the lowest cost, they give businesses an incentive to become even better at this task. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c9QodGK-FJA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">President Bush speaks on U.S. climate change policy at Georgetown University, Feb. 6, 1990.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As concerns grow over <a href="https://theconversation.com/being-born-in-the-wrong-zip-code-can-shorten-your-life-104037">inequality in America</a>, U.S. officials also must pay close attention to who bears the costs of new regulations. If carbon mitigation policies raise electricity and gasoline prices, then middle-class purchasing power could decline. </p>
<p>But this income effect can be offset by simultaneously imposing a carbon fee and then <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/05222014_exec_summary_carbon_tax_broader_us_fiscal_reform.pdf">giving households a lump-sum rebate</a>. This approach would adhere to President Bush’s core goals of harnessing market forces to accelerate environmental progress while protecting the pocketbook of the middle class. Prominent liberal and conservative economic experts who have served under every U.S. president since Nixon <a href="https://www.clcouncil.org/founding-members/">support this approach</a>.</p>
<p>President Trump plans to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-trumps-decision-to-leave-paris-accord-hurts-the-us-and-the-world-78707">withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Accord</a>, the latest stage of international efforts to curb climate change, and has repeatedly <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/26/politics/donald-trump-climate-change/index.html">questioned whether climate change is real</a>. In contrast, President Bush spoke of it as a challenge to be faced. Just after signing the Framework Convention on Climate Change, Bush stated in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/13/world/the-earth-summit-excerpts-from-speech-by-bush-on-action-plan.html">speech to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We must leave this earth in better condition than we found it, and today this old truth must be applied to new threats facing the resources which sustain us all, the atmosphere and the ocean, the stratosphere and the biosphere. Our village is truly global.”</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108011/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew E. Kahn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>George H.W. Bush, who pledged to be ‘the environmental president,’ took a market-based approach to pollution control that helped clear the air. Now some experts think it could work on climate change.Matthew E. Kahn, Professor of Economics, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/977592018-06-04T19:54:37Z2018-06-04T19:54:37ZWhy the Supreme Court’s ‘gay wedding cake’ ruling won’t resolve religious freedom issues<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221636/original/file-20180604-175438-lqa96u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pastors kneel in prayer in front of the Supreme Court, as a counter-protester holds a sign that says "What's Christian About Discrimination." </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. Supreme Court has issued its long-anticipated ruling in <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/09/wedding-cakes-v-religious-beliefs-plain-english/">Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission</a>. In a 7-2 decision, the justices sided with a Denver bakery owner who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/the-spurned-couple-the-baker-and-the-long-wait-for-the-supreme-court/2017/08/13/c95c7c5c-7ea8-11e7-83c7-5bd5460f0d7e_story.html?utm_term=.6646d7702ce0">refused to make a wedding cake</a> for a gay couple. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221637/original/file-20180604-175425-1v5nten.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221637/original/file-20180604-175425-1v5nten.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221637/original/file-20180604-175425-1v5nten.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221637/original/file-20180604-175425-1v5nten.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221637/original/file-20180604-175425-1v5nten.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221637/original/file-20180604-175425-1v5nten.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221637/original/file-20180604-175425-1v5nten.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The couple, Charlie Craig, left, and David Mullins, right, after leaving the Supreme Court.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The couple took the case to court in 2012 after the Christian baker turned down their business. A lower court <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/the-spurned-couple-the-baker-and-the-long-wait-for-the-supreme-court/2017/08/13/c95c7c5c-7ea8-11e7-83c7-5bd5460f0d7e_story.html?utm_term=.6646d7702ce0">ruled</a> the baker violated Colorado’s public accommodations law, which forbids discrimination by businesses serving the public, including on the basis of sexual orientation.</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf">majority opinion</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-rules-in-favor-of-baker-who-would-not-make-wedding-cake-for-gay-couple/2018/06/04/50c68cf8-6802-11e8-bea7-c8eb28bc52b1_story.html?utm_term=.2446724c9807">Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote</a> that Colorado officials “showed evidence of a clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs” of the baker. </p>
<p>The narrow ruling did not, however, meaningfully resolve the larger issue of <a href="http://beta.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-court-religion-gays-20170912-story.html">religious freedom that was central</a> to the case. In focusing on state officials rather than the baker, the justices left unanswered the major question of whether a business owner must provide services that conflict with his or her religious beliefs. <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/06/opinion-analysis-court-rules-narrowly-for-baker-in-same-sex-wedding-cake-case/">Analysts suggested</a> that the court left open the possibility of a different ruling in the future, depending on the specifics of cases. </p>
<p>Masterpiece Cakeshop has, once again, highlighted the vast difference between the reality and the rhetoric of religious freedom, often considered to be an ideal that promotes harmony and equality. My <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100411860">research</a>, as a historian of religion, has examined the challenges of pluralism. In a religiously diverse society, rhetoric of religious freedom has often led to conflict. </p>
<h2>The rhetoric: Equality and goodwill</h2>
<p>Throughout U.S. history, Americans have idealized religious freedom and imagined that it brings harmony.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196801/original/file-20171128-28849-1bhnnxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196801/original/file-20171128-28849-1bhnnxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196801/original/file-20171128-28849-1bhnnxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196801/original/file-20171128-28849-1bhnnxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196801/original/file-20171128-28849-1bhnnxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196801/original/file-20171128-28849-1bhnnxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196801/original/file-20171128-28849-1bhnnxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Text of the First Amendment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_mayer/3023804174/in/photolist-5BcMCJ-4fzgq6-7WVb8t-fbhVEY-aX29kR-npFCnp-6vhvXW-hiWwX6-fUq3FR-dVyQso-64St9u-az6mQ2-4hxwhj-azubXM-qTomUt-bPyj6B-XgN15s-eZbRVa-g1vCAm-cBx37u-adGnmU-RvpagQ-pkfAxk-v3B4t-TN2H63-m5q7Ma-3igNze-eaXHsn-TrVgHj-kmywpW-az91D5-eiwixk-8vSWAA-dYaLsr-bbsYTD-kmwscx-kmvYe8-cJDTdS-qJj11X-54JGiw-jad1Jh-5TTZKs-4hdF3-4Q4M9R-aaSPCX-m3sgBk-nLqGn5-bcgwfx-83EWTp-ezZ4GQ">Jack Mayer</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Founding Fathers believed the First Amendment guarantee of religious free exercise and against the establishment of an official church promised less discord. In an 1802 letter, Thomas Jefferson, for example, <a href="https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html">wrote</a> that “religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God.” As the nation’s third president, he argued that a “wall of separation between Church & State” would give all people equally the right to free conscience. </p>
<p>Later presidents echoed the view that religious freedom brings equality and unity by preventing government from favoring particular faiths.</p>
<p>Before his election in 1960, John F. Kennedy tried to ease fears about his Catholicism by <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16920600">affirming religious liberty</a>. Kennedy believed this freedom kept one group from oppressing another. It formed the basis of a society, he declared, where people would “refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.” </p>
<p>In the early 1990s, George H.W. Bush identified religious liberty <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=47440">as the basis for other rights</a>. He credited it as a major reason for the vibrancy of American society. </p>
<h2>The reality: Conflict and debate</h2>
<p>But, the promised harmony has proved elusive. Scholars such as <a href="http://willamette.edu/law/faculty/profiles/green/index.html">Steven K. Green</a> and <a href="https://divinity.yale.edu/faculty-and-research/yds-faculty/tisa-wenger">Tisa Wenger</a> have documented arguments about religious freedom <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-second-disestablishment-9780195399677?cc=us&lang=en&">throughout</a> <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469634623/religious-freedom/">U.S. history</a>.</p>
<p>Minority communities, ranging from <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-religion-schools/religion-and-controversy-always-part-of-u-s-education-idUSTRE75829R20110609">Catholics</a> to <a href="http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1309&context=popular_media">Mormons</a>, have fought to have their traditions and customs recognized. As I show in <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100411860">my work</a> on pluralism, Americans have long debated what constitutes a religious expression rather than a cultural practice. Legal scholars have also <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-1182-9.html">argued</a> if religious expression can extend into political, social and business interactions. </p>
<p>These debates have required the intervention of the courts and have often ended at the Supreme Court. Thus, a right intended to free Americans from government has instead necessitated frequent involvement of a major government institution.</p>
<p>Further complicating matters, the Supreme Court has changed its position over time. Its evolving interpretations show how religious freedom debates create shifting categories of winners and losers. </p>
<h2>To the courts</h2>
<p>Like Masterpiece Cakeshop, one of the Supreme Court’s first religious liberty cases involved marriage. In 1878, a Mormon resident of the Utah territory sued the federal government after he was charged with bigamy. He argued that the law violated his religious liberty by criminalizing his polygamous marriage. The Supreme Court disagreed. In Reynolds v. United States, the court ruled that the First Amendment guaranteed only <a href="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/98/145.html">freedom of belief, not freedom of practice</a>.</p>
<p>In the 20th century, the Supreme Court showed greater sympathy to religious liberty claims. In several cases – including one brought by Jehovah’s Witnesses <a href="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/310/296.html">challenging a statute</a> requiring a permit for public evangelizing and another by an Amish community that <a href="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/406/205.html">objected to Wisconsin’s compulsory public school law</a> – justices sided with those who claimed their freedom was violated. </p>
<p>That changed in 1990. The court <a href="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/494/872.html">ruled against two men</a> who lost their jobs after using peyote, a cactus with hallucinogenic properties that has long been used in Native American religious practices. Because they were fired for drug use, the men were denied unemployment benefits. They claimed that as members of a Native American church, they used the drug for religious purposes. Moving away from earlier decisions, the justices <a href="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/494/872.html">ruled</a> that religious belief was not a ground for refusing to obey laws “prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196802/original/file-20171128-28852-hxgvwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196802/original/file-20171128-28852-hxgvwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196802/original/file-20171128-28852-hxgvwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196802/original/file-20171128-28852-hxgvwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196802/original/file-20171128-28852-hxgvwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196802/original/file-20171128-28852-hxgvwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196802/original/file-20171128-28852-hxgvwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">United States Supreme Court.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ncindc/2865343328/in/photolist-5ncCKb-2yu1bN-buJ9AA-dTWdP-CHAge-oZ7NxZ-foSsGn-6jKhdX-4bVD4o-uQHRC-4ZHE7z-6NTbKv-7aLyBp-qbF38r-k7SMe-s5dMuE-SXGLft-cfZdF1-6NTctp-92ZN6k-8WPjhw-8RY69x-6uaRzA-uQSMA-6Kfh1o-6ufxxc-4ZJiGX-aS7VWP-47Dahi-6cMQUT-csY28C-pUnxk1-qUAkCS-zvHdq-VShGqo-uabD-pVDtAs-ogRaKg-a7Ttts-8fi5bf-5ubeBk-7vd4HL-csXZ8w-6ujGVS-c9DhE-Dmau1-aS9J42-pcnaXj-btCwKm-9eJMgt">Josh</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>New century, new conflicts</h2>
<p>It was in response to the peyote case that Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993. It required that <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/1308/text">laws restricting religious expression</a> must show that they serve a “compelling government interest.”</p>
<p>RFRA was central in the Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. That contentious split ruling allowed small, closely held companies the <a href="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/13-354.html">right to deny contraceptive benefits</a> mandated by the Affordable Care Act on the grounds of protecting their owners’ religious liberty.</p>
<p>Similarly, in October 2017, the Trump administration <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/us/politics/trump-contraception-birth-control.html">invoked freedom of religion</a> when it allowed all employers a religious exemption to the contraception coverage requirement in the Affordable Care Act. </p>
<p>Critics saw that policy change as an <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/10/06/trump-obamacare-birth-control-mandate/">attack on women’s rights</a>. Reaction to it on both sides again showed that government involvement in debates about religious freedom invariably produces winners and losers. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221626/original/file-20180604-175445-1sk7rel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221626/original/file-20180604-175445-1sk7rel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221626/original/file-20180604-175445-1sk7rel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221626/original/file-20180604-175445-1sk7rel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221626/original/file-20180604-175445-1sk7rel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221626/original/file-20180604-175445-1sk7rel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221626/original/file-20180604-175445-1sk7rel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Baker Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, at his shop in Lakewood, Colorado.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/David Zalubowski</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Supreme Court ruling reached on June 4 likely allows those who advocate a broad right to religious liberty to <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/masterpiece-cakeshop-religious-liberty-wins-landslide/">claim</a> at least a small victory. But the narrow scope of the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision ensures that this divisive debate, which has raged for nearly two centuries, will continue for the foreseeable future. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-messy-reality-of-religious-liberty-in-america-85963">orginally published on Nov. 29</a>, 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97759/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Mislin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Arguments on religious freedom have taken place throughout US history and have landed in the Supreme Court as well. Interpretations have changed over time.David Mislin, Assistant Professor of Intellectual Heritage, Temple UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/956932018-04-27T10:45:08Z2018-04-27T10:45:08ZGeorge H. W. Bush has sepsis - why is it so dangerous?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216578/original/file-20180426-175035-1fidwsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Presidents George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush attend Barbara Bush's funeral service.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/David J. Phillip</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Former president George H.W. Bush <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/04/25/president-george-h-w-bush-icu-houston-sepsis-responding/549154002/">was hospitalized April 21 with sepsis</a>, a life-threatening condition caused by complications of the body fighting back against an infection. The former fighter pilot was <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/04/25/president-george-h-w-bush-icu-houston-sepsis-responding/549154002/">released from an intensive care unit</a> at a Houston hospital on April 25. </p>
<p>Between <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23442987">1 in 8 and 1 in 4 patients</a> with sepsis will die during hospitalization. Sepsis contributes to <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1873131">one-third to one-half</a> of all in-hospital deaths. </p>
<p>Sepsis, sometimes inaccurately referred to as <a href="http://www.sepsisalliance.org/sepsis_and/blood_poisoning/">blood poisoning</a>, is sparked by your body’s reaction to infection. </p>
<p>When you get an infection, your body fights back. When this process works the way it is supposed to, your body quickly takes care of the infection, and you get better. </p>
<p>However, the body’s response to infection sometimes results in collateral damage. This is known as sepsis. The collateral damage can impair kidney, brain, heart or other organ functions. </p>
<p>Sepsis can result from any type of infection. Most commonly, it starts as pneumonia, a urinary tract or intra-abdominal infection such as appendicitis. Most often it starts at home.</p>
<p>Once a person is diagnosed with sepsis, he or she will be treated with antibiotics, IV fluids and support for failing organs, such as dialysis or mechanical ventilation. This usually means a person needs to be hospitalized, often in an intensive care unit, as was the 41st president. Sometimes the source of the infection must be removed, as with appendicitis or an infected medical device. </p>
<p>Many conditions can mimic sepsis, including severe allergic reactions, bleeding, heart attacks, blood clots and medication overdoses. Sepsis requires particular prompt treatments, so getting the diagnosis right matters. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86768/original/image-20150629-9056-37jco7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86768/original/image-20150629-9056-37jco7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86768/original/image-20150629-9056-37jco7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86768/original/image-20150629-9056-37jco7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86768/original/image-20150629-9056-37jco7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86768/original/image-20150629-9056-37jco7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86768/original/image-20150629-9056-37jco7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Back so soon?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-213923368/stock-photo-hospital-corridor-hospital-hallway-hospital-interior.html?src=cpb613T6PpuXulgtMwvv4A-1-47">Hospital corridor via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span>
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<h2>The revolving door of sepsis care</h2>
<p>As recently as a decade ago, doctors believed that sepsis patients were <a href="http://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl2120/stories/20041008001708600.htm">out of the woods</a> if they could just survive to hospital discharge. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case for many patients. Rather, patients commonly experience <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2667724">weakness, fatigue confusion, cloudy thinking, anxiety or depression</a>. Collectively, these common symptoms after sepsis are known as <a href="http://www.myicucare.org/Adult-Support/Pages/Post-intensive-Care-Syndrome.aspx">post-intensive care syndrome (PICS)</a>.</p>
<p>In addition to new disabling symptoms, patients are also vulnerable to further health setbacks after sepsis. As many as <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2190975">40 percent of sepsis patients go back</a> into the hospital within just three months of heading home, creating a “revolving door” that gets costlier and riskier each time, as patients get weaker with each hospital stay. </p>
<p>Post-intensive care syndrome and rehospitalization mean that we have dramatically underestimated how much sepsis care costs. On top of the US$5.5 billion we now spend on initial hospitalization for sepsis, we must add the costs of rehospitalizations, nursing home and professional in-home care, and unpaid care provided by devoted spouses and families at home.</p>
<p>Raising public awareness increases the likelihood that patients will get to the hospital quickly when they are developing sepsis. This in turn allows prompt treatment, which lowers the risk of long-term problems. Doctors and policymakers are also working to improve the care of sepsis once patients get to the hospital. </p>
<p>The high number of repeat hospitalizations after sepsis, however, suggests another <a href="http://www.uofmhealth.org/news/archive/201503/stopping-revolving-door-study-finds-sepsis-survivors-return">opportunity for improving care</a>. Common reasons for rehospitalization are recurrent infection or sepsis; flares of heart, lung or kidney disease; and aspiration (swallowing food into the lungs).</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95693/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hallie Prescott receives funding from NIH and Department of Veterans Affairs. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Theodore Iwashyna receives funding from NIH, VA, and CDC.</span></em></p>Former President George H.W. Bush was hospitalized for sepsis, which can be serious. Just what is this disease that accounts for one-third of all hospital deaths? A speed read explains the dangers.Hallie Prescott, Assistant Professor in Internal Medicine, University of MichiganTheodore Iwashyna, Associate Professor, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.