Presidential “greatness” is a difficult thing to define, although many people have tried. One prevailing theory is that it requires a president to face great challenges, meet them by changing how the US functions, institutionalize those changes in a way that creates lasting impact, and convince the American people to support these changes by unifying (or at least coalescing) behind the president’s leadership.
Research on the role of US presidents has attempted to define how previous presidents rank compared to their peers. There is general agreement that the United States has had three truly great presidents – George Washington (1789-1797), Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865), and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945) – and several truly terrible presidents – including Warren G. Harding (1921-1923), James Buchanan (1857-1861) and Franklin Pierce (1853-1857).
But what makes these presidents great or terrible? One common thread that unites these evaluations is the severity of the challenges that these presidents faced during their terms in office and how successfully they solved them.
George Washington faced the challenge of holding 13 newly united states together as a sovereign nation, and delivered a country that still stands. Lincoln confronted the secession of the southern states, the civil war, and the challenge posed by ending slavery. He reunited the nation, winning the war and ultimately leading to the end of the most divisive issue the United States has ever faced (or at least its transition from slavery to racism and segregation). And FDR fought both the Great Depression and the second world war. In the process, he transformed the US government and created the modern liberal state.
All three faced existential challenges to the country’s very existence and transformed the United States in overcoming them. And all three were eventually recognised as having brought the nation around to their viewpoints by the end of their presidency.
As for the “terrible” presidents, they often preceded the great ones, facing similar challenges and failing to meet them. Many of the “middling” presidents never faced major challenges or were able to meet the challenges they did battle by using existing powers and institutions without the need for transforming the country.
So where does Trump fall in this pantheon? His previous term, historically speaking, is difficult to define as “great”. In fact, some presidential rankings place him as the worst president in history. He did enact some policy changes that his supporters enjoyed, but was unable to create lasting change or rally the country behind his leadership. Evidence of this is reelection defeat and his successor Joe Biden’s immediate repeal of many of his policies, showing that Trump hadn’t managed to embed permanent change.
Mount Rushmore in South Dakota features the heads of presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt.
Guido Vermeulen-Perdaen/Shutterstock
There were two major challenges Trump faced that provided the opportunity – the COVID-19 pandemic and massive polarization dividing the country – but neither resulted in unifying victories for his legacy. Trump responded to the pandemic primarily with “Operation Warp Speed” a public-private partnership that led to the rapid development of vaccines for the pandemic. But in his subsequent speeches and tweets he downplayed vaccines as a panacea for the disease, and stoked division over how to respond to the problem, increasing polarisation, and stoking vaccine scepticism.
The largest existing conflict within the US over that past 20 years has arguably been its increasing level of polarization, which has been growing steadily since the mid-1990s. Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Biden (not to mention Trump) have all failed to combat its growth and have watched it emerge as perhaps the single largest domestic threat to civil democracy. Trump, while largely viewed as a divisive and polarizing figure, may actually be capable of combating this.
One of Trump’s great strengths is that he has forged a coalition of extremely loyal and committed supporters who trust his decisions. His partisans seem animated by Trump and his personal style, and have given him great latitude to do what he wants with policy in many domains. His supporters do care a great deal about topics such as immigration and the economy and he has already made moves to appease them in these areas.
His day one actions to seal the border and increase deportations will satisfy many Republicans and research shows that perceptions of the economy are heavily biased by partisanship. Trump just being in office is likely to boost Republican belief that the economy doing well.
The difficulty for Trump is in bringing onboard the nearly two-thirds of Americans who don’t regularly vote Republican. Because of his supporters’ loyalty, he is likely to maintain their backing regardless of what he advocates for across most policy areas. He often shifts what he stands for and advocates for policies that he formerly disagreed with without suffering a backlash from his supporters. One example of this is how he has shifted from wanting to ban social media network TikTok in the US to delaying the federal ban on its use in the US. This latitude may enable him to manoeuvre in the political space to attract more Americans to support him.
Can Trump grow his support?
If Trump were to target issues where there is wide public support – such as abortion, gun control, and the federal role in healthcare – he is likely to be able to retain his loyal following, while expanding into previously hostile groups. According to public opinion polls, it is Democratic policies on these issues that the mass public tends to prefer, so Trump could offer to work with Democrats to achieve bipartisan legislation that prior presidents could only dream of.
Republican office holders – who often might baulk at working with Democrats to give them a win – would be unable to vote against their own president. And Democrats – who normally would seek to deny a sitting Republican president any legislative success – are so beaten down that they might seize any opportunity they are offered to advance their goals. In this way, Trump could accomplish something no prior president in the past 30 years has achieved: bipartisan support for major congressional legislation that would address areas that US citizens see as vital. This could break the spiral of polarisation and find the first common ground in US politics in decades.
Outside this scenario and barring the rise of another global crisis, it is difficult to see how Trump achieves his goal of being widely seen as “great”. The next four years will tell.
David Andersen, Associate Professor in US Politics, Durham University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
