Hoover Scholars Examine How America’s Political Divide Shapes the Modern Presidency

Hoover Institution (Stanford, CA) - Much of the observations made about the state of the American Republic, the presidency, and America's future in recent months are hyperbole, not tethered to any firm understanding of previous, similar periods in US history.

But Hoover fellows Sir Niall Ferguson and David M. Kennedy politely debated whether hyperbole explains all of the worries felt about US politics today, during the latest Ideas That Made U.S.: Dialogues on Freedom speaker series event, titled "The American Presidency: A 250-Year Perspective," on October 20.

The Hoover Institution launched the yearlong series marking the 250th anniversary of America's founding. Kennedy and Ferguson explored trends that have emerged in US democracy over the past decade, using the context available to us from the past 250 years of American history.

They discussed some contemporary observations about the presidency today, with a particular focus on recent years, and brought to bear their own observations about prior administrations. They demonstrated that much of what is happening today is caused by broader societal changes and could be easily compared to actions by presidents in earlier eras.

Ferguson asked attendees to consider whether the events of the past ten years indicated any danger of the American Republic descending into tyranny.

"The big question, and it's been looming over us for more than ten years, is 'Are we at some existential moment of risk for the American Republic?'" he said.

"Republics have a way of turning into tyrannies. That was the lesson of ancient history. It was a lesson that preoccupied the founders as they tried to devise a constitution for a republic that would last. Two hundred and fifty years is a very good inning for a republic."

Ferguson said contemporary comparisons of President Donald Trump to autocrats of today, or times past were not only overreactions, but they also ignored a period in American history that explains Trump much more accurately.

"Trump is a quintessentially American figure. It's just that he alludes to an earlier period of American history than most of us are really familiar with," Ferguson said, such as the policies and behaviors of presidents like Andrew Jackson, William McKinley, or Theodore Roosevelt - with a big dash of P.T. Barnum thrown in.

"Trump is a very late-nineteenth-century, early-twentieth-century figure [based on] the things that he talks about: tariffs, immigration restriction, easy money, [or] the Trump Corollary to define American policy in the Western Hemisphere."

And if those policies, including global tariffs and immigration restrictions, are being received poorly by the public, according to recent opinion polls, Ferguson said this is quite similar to how second-term presidents' policies land in most administrations in the modern era.

"He's just another second-term president experiencing what the second-term presidents always experience as the midterms approach. Everybody gets bored of series two at around this point, and there are almost no exceptions to this rule."

Building upon Ferguson's argument, Kennedy brought up the oft-argued point that besides the Presidency, Congress is not fulfilling its duty to keep the executive branch in check, pointing out that same argument was made by then-graduate student Woodrow Wilson in his thesis, published in 1885.

Wilson said that even then, in Congress "nobody stands sponsor for the policy of the government. A dozen men originated. A dozen compromises twist and alter it. A dozen offices whose names are scarcely known out of Washington put it into execution. Policy can be neither prompt nor straightforward when it must serve so many masters."

Could a similar observation of Congress not be made today? Kennedy asked.

"You have to pinch yourself to realize those words were written almost 150 years ago," he said.

Kennedy also brought up the intense rural-urban, prosperous vs. desperate divide in US politics, where well-off urban areas vote overwhelmingly for the Democrats, while rural and poorer areas vote Republican.

"We have sorted ourselves as a people into ever more siloed geographical and jurisdictional settings where we exercise our political voice and judgment," he said.

For instance, the jurisdictions that went for the Democrats in the 2024 US presidential election represented nearly two-thirds of US economic output.

"Of the roughly 430 counties that voted for the (Kamala) Harris-(Tim) Walz ticket in 2024, those counties accounted for 62 percent of gross domestic product," Kennedy said.

"Overwhelmingly, economically successful and dynamic areas voted for the Harris/Walz ticket and counties that are less dynamic and less prosperous overwhelmingly voted for the other ticket."

He added that today, 50 percent of America's population resides within just 146 of the nation's more than 3,100 counties.

Discussing each other's presentations, Ferguson reflected on the idea that Kennedy's trends might have occurred regardless of who won the White House every four years.

"These profound trends in American society and in our system of governance are in some sense separate from who actually wins the presidency," he said.

But Kennedy later told Ferguson he suspects the moment America finds itself in may be looked at in the future as more than just another second-term president experiencing the usual slump in popular support.

"My instinct is that we're in a moment of more serious crisis than usual. This is more than just 'snafu' as usual. It's 'snafu' to the second power," he said, using the crude World War Two-era acronym. Low trust in institutions, polarization, and mistrust have come together to form a potent cocktail.

Kennedy and Ferguson both said several times during the discussion that the crucial fact informing any discussion about the modern presidency in comparison with the past is that the founders always envisioned an executive branch so restrained by checks and balances that use of power, making of radical changes, would almost always be difficult.

"It's a pretty well-established system that has always been difficult to work. That was, I think, in the DNA of the founders. They wanted to build a system that was stronger than what they lived with under the Articles of Confederation," Kennedy said.

"Their fear of concentrated power made our federalized checks-and-balances system of government a very difficult instrument to use nimbly and quickly. It remains an open question whether [they invested] it with power commensurate with the scale of issues that eventually over historical time it has had to deal with."

Watch or learn about other Ideas That Made U.S. lectures here.