CHAPTER 1: THE PRESIDENT AS IDEOLOGICAL LEADER
Contents jump to start of text
THE PRESIDENT AS MEDIA POLITICIAN AND POLICYMAKER
The President as Media Politician
The President as PolicymakerWHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IDEOLOGY MAKE?
FDR vs. Reagan on the Nature of Government
The President as Ideologue
Ideological Symbolism as a Substitute for Policy Performance
Ideology as the Basis for Policy ChoiceIDEOLOGY IN RECENT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
The Republican Strategy of Ideological Polarization
The Democratic Flight from IdeologyPRESIDENTS AND IDEOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTION
THE CYCLE OF IDEOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTION
Decline of the Prior Public Philosophy
The Rise of Contending Doctrines
The Critical Role of the Presidency in Ideological Change
Success and Failure of Presidential Doctrines
Ideological RestorationIDEOLOGICAL CRISIS AND PRESIDENTIAL POWER
Links for Studying the Media Presidency and Presidential Ideologies
THE PRESIDENT AS MEDIA POLITICIAN AND POLICYMAKER return to top
Every four years the American people participate in the strange and wonderful rite of selecting the leader of the nation. If one judged from the sound and fury of the candidates' campaigns, there would be no doubt that the future well-being and even the existence of the nation are riding on the selection the people make. But many citizens are not so sure. Nearly half of them do not vote, and many of those who do vote see their choice as between the lesser of two evils. Voters see the gap between promise and performance, between rhetoric and reality, and wonder if in the long run their choice has any meaningful impact on their lives.
That is what this book is about—what kind of substantive difference it makes who is president. It will begin by examining the roles of the president as media politician, as policymaker, and as shaper of the public philosophy.
The President as Media Politician return to top
In the late twentieth century we live in the media age, and our politics are increasingly media politics. Most citizens get most of their political information from watching television. Politicians, aware of this fact of political life, shape their campaigns for office and their actions in office to make the TV cameras work for them rather than against them. More and more our political system seems to operate on the adage that if it wasn't seen on TV, it didn't happen. In the age of media politics, the president is the premier media politician. He is simultaneously the symbolic embodiment of the nation and the most powerful figure in the political system. He is "what's happening," he "is" news.
President Kennedy used televised press conferences to reach the American people directlyThe president personalizes the political process for people. No other political leader so often comes directly into people's living rooms to make public statements and appeals. No one else becomes so widely recognized as a personality. At least some of Ronald Reagan's success as "the great communicator" was based on his unique ability to influence people through television, since he was an actor and a television pitchman for major corporations before he was a politician.
Ronald Reagan cigarette adThe presidency provides the incumbent with a set of impressive stages from which to deliver his messages. The president speaks before the assembled Congress when he delivers the annual State of the Union address and special crisis messages. He travels around the world to scenic vistas for summits with foreign leaders. He entertains politicians, personalities, and foreign visitors at picturesque locales. The president can appear at colorful mass rallies of cheering supporters, or before carefully chosen audiences of concerned citizens, settings that amplify the impact of his remarks. He can commandeer the airwaves for televised messages that literally reach citizens where they live.
President Bush with the PopeThe President as Policymaker return to top
The media, obsessed with the aura of power and mindful that the symbolic trappings of the chief of state make for good pictures, give disproportionate attention to the presidency. The presidency has very real powers, but it projects an appearance of power that is larger than real life. Decisions made in the bowels of the bureaucracy or in the working out of legislation in Congress often have as much influence on the actions of government and the lives of the people as presidential decisions. But these forms of power do not make good television. They usually do not make good pictures, and they are too complicated to explain in a 30-second spot on the evening news. The president, on the other hand, personalizes politics. Whether they see him as a hero, a villain, or just an ordinary guy, TV viewers can relate to an individual in a way that is more visceral than that of comprehending a complex system.
The president is more than just a person, however. As a policymaker he must make decisions. He must make a series of choices as he responds to the eco- nomic, social, and international problems of the nation. If the economy falters, or if a foreign hot spot erupts, the president is expected to act to protect and further the interests of the nation. When foreign militants seize American hostages, the president is expected to respond. When inflation mounts or a recession strikes, the president is expected to know what to do. In such circum- stances he must choose between different sets of options for action offered by his advisers. In these policy choices, the president is actually selecting among different expectations about what government is supposed to do. He is acting on some philosophy about the legitimate role of government.
Bush cabinet meetingThe focus of this book is on the president's role as a policymaker and an ideologue. The media are obsessed with the president as a personality, with polls on the current popularity of the man. This is one measure of the president's ability to influence policy and the public philosophy. Unpopular presidents generally have less influence than popular presidents. But to fully understand the president as policymaker, one must move beyond the cult of personality and the media images to examine an administration's real impact on issues that affect the lives of citizens. Presidential personality cults can obscure the negative impacts of presidential policies or the lack of any sustained substantive impact on policy problems. On the other hand, presidents may lose popularity by making contro- versial decisions that are later proven to be effective policies. There is more to the presidency than media politics.
WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IDEOLOGY MAKE? return to top
We recognized a . . . need to find through government the instrument of our united purpose to solve for the individual the ever-rising problems of a complex civilization. Repeated attempts at their solution without the aid of government had left us baffled and bewildered .
Government is the problem, not the solution.
The President as Ideologue return to top
At the intersection of the president's roles as media politician and as policymaker is political philosophy or ideology. The president must offer justifications for the policy actions he takes. He can use media politics to avoid difficult policy decisions and obscure the real impacts of policy choices behind reassuring photo opportunities. But ultimately the president must make policy choices and explain why he pursues the policies he has selected.
All presidents are conscious of their public policy responsibilities. Some presidents are also very self-conscious about defining a consistent public phi- losophy that justifies the choices they make. Other presidents are almost anti-ideological in their attempts to avoid being seen as outside the political center. Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt are examples of presidents with distinct ideologies to legitimate their policies. Roosevelt, in coping with the Great Depression crisis, had to embark on new policy directions, and he developed the philosophy of activist government to justify his new policies. Ronald Reagan, by contrast, was a spokesman for the limited state, a persistent critic of the ability of government to make people better off. Jimmy Carter and Dwight Eisenhower, on the other hand, stand out as presidents who tried to avoid ideological labels and commitments.
Ideological Symbolism as a Substitute for Policy Performance return to top
The relationship between the symbolic politics of media appearances and the difficult substance of government is crucial to understanding the contemporary presidency. Media symbolism and public rhetoric can often substitute for effective policy action. Murray Edelman has pointed out that the dramatic projection of coping actions can create the illusion that problems are being solved, even if they are not. Repeated summit meetings of U.S. and Russian leaders, complete with TV cameras whirring and personal assurances of the leaders that arms control is on the agenda, can reassure the public that relations between the great powers are being managed and arms control is continuing apace, even if no concrete agreements are reached and relations deteriorate once the leaders return home. Presidential trips to urban renewal projects and conferences with leading minority personalities seen on the evening news can project the image that race and poverty problems are being dealt with effectively, even if poverty is increasing and ghetto conditions are worsening.
President Bush deflects criticism of his environmental
policies with a photo opp at a national forestThis tendency of media politics to substitute for policy substance is comically illustrated in Peter Sellers' last movie, Being There. Sellers plays a simple-minded gardener who through a series of coincidences becomes a friend of a corporate magnate and eventually an adviser to the president. Sellers' inane utterances about gardening are taken by these powerful people as a series of metaphors about the political system. Sellers becomes a media celebrity and an administration power even though he doesn't have the least clue about the meaning of politics, much less of the subtleties and complexities of governance. But he looks and sounds good on TV.
Presidential use of words, pictures, and symbols goes deeper, however, than simply substituting the image of coping for effective policy action. Presidential ideologies are used to obscure the real motivations behind policy actions, to disguise them behind rhetoric that is out of touch with the realities of a policy. For example, the doctrine of the national security state, which has strongly influenced U.S. foreign policy since the World War II, explicitly recommends that presidents at times conceal their intentions from adversaries. Of course, adversaries can come in domestic as well as foreign forms. Richard Nixon, for example, justified the burglary of the offices of the Democratic National Committee on the phony grounds that national security was at stake.
But conscious lying is actually less important in understanding the president as ideologue than is recognition that every presidential philosophy contains some truth and some false ideas. Ronald Reagan spoke continually of the success of his administration in cutting government spending. Certainly some programs were cut. But because of the military buildup and the rising interest on debt, government spending when Reagan left office took the same percentage of resources from the economy as it did when he became president. In the same vein, Lyndon Johnson talked about a war that would eradicate poverty. The war on poverty helped many people, but it was more a skirmish than all-out war. Johnson thought it was necessary to oversell the merits of his Great Society programs to get them through Congress and get funds appropriated.
Ideology as the Basis for Policy Choice return to top
So skepticism about the connection between media rhetoric and policies is certainly justified. But as Lincoln said, "You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all the time." The relationship between media symbolism and the substance of governance is more complex than simply the substitution of appearance for reality. Media symbolism and public rhetoric also spur the public's appetite for real action on policy problems. While a single summit without action may in the short term reassure the public that problems are being dealt with, repeated summits reflect the continuing public expectation that real action will be taken on arms control and other East-West issues. Repeated summits reinforce the expectation that real results will follow.
Presidents George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev sign the START arms reduction treaty At an even deeper level, presidential symbolism and rhetoric shape public and official perceptions of what are the legitimate roles of government. The public pronouncements of presidents play a major role in the justification of governmental action, particularly those made at highly charged symbolic events. Policy decisions do not occur in a vacuum; they occur in some ideological context. They must be justified by an explicit or implicit philosophy about what government should be doing.
Presidents play a crucial role in the articulation of these public philosophies. In the 1960s President Kennedy and President Johnson used their media visibility to advance the philosophy that it was the responsibility of the national government to pursue civil rights, to combat poverty, and to take an activist role in solving social problems. Their administrations not only expanded the range of concrete government programs but also expanded the perception of what roles it was legitimate for government to be playing in society—they advanced the ideology of the activist state. In the 1980s Ronald Reagan used the presidency to advance the philosophy that government itself is the problem and that it cannot offer successful solutions to social problems. While Reagan had little success in cutting overall government spending, he did create an ideological climate in which it is much more difficult for those who wish to use government to attack social problems to operate. His skillful use of the media and ideological resources of the presidency advanced the cause of the limited state.
So presidential ideologies are, in the words of the songwriter, "walking contradictions, partly truth, partly fiction." On the one hand, they can substitute convenient, simplistic media fictions for real political change. But on the other hand, the president, either consciously or by his policy actions, reveals a philosophy about what are the legitimate expectations of government in our democratic society.
IDEOLOGY IN RECENT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS return to top
Candidates Bush and Gore debating on televisionThe Republican Strategy of Ideological Polarization return to top
In the 2000 election George W. Bush repeatedly portrayed himself as a "compassionate conservative." Every Republican presidential nominee since Ronald Reagan in 1980 has repeatedly referred to himself as a conservative. Each Republican candidate has in one way or another tried to attack his Democratic opponent as a "liberal." Republican nominees have tried to emphasize the philosophical and policy differences between conservatives and liberals. On the other hand, the only two Democrats to win the White House in the last quarter century, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, have deliberately avoided the label liberal. Why?
Some political scientists might explain it by pointing out that there are somewhat more voters who identify themselves as conservatives than those who identify themselves as liberals. And certainly that is part of the explanation. But the reason for the consistent ideological strategies of the Republicans and Democrats goes deeper than that.
The strategy of polarizing the country and the electorate along conservative-liberal lines is part of a larger Republican electoral strategy, the "Sunbelt" or "southern" strategy. Historically the 11 southern states that had formed the Confederacy during the Civil War were solidly Democratic because the Republican Party was associated in the southern mind with the hated postwar Reconstruction. But in the 1960s a liberal Democratic administration oversaw the "second Reconstruction," the dismantling of official structures of racial segregation. Now the Republicans were no longer the greatest threat to white southern political power; rather, it was the Democrats, the party of civil rights. The Republican Party consciously tried to make electoral inroads in the South by emphasizing its opposition to big government in Washington in general and to the liberal agenda in particular. This ideological appeal to racially conscious white Southerners as well as genuine philosophical conservatives in the region has worked to deny the Democrats their historic southern base in presidential elections since 1968. The southern strategy had propelled the Republicans to the White House in four of the last five elections and Texan Bush hoped it could do it again in 1988.
The Democratic Flight from Ideology return to top
Democrats, on the other hand, consciously tried to avoid ideological classification. They have generally reacted to Republicans' charges that they are liberals outside the political mainstream not by defending liberalism but by treating these attacks as a form of political name-calling. They have responded to charges of liberalism as meaningless "labeling." From his campaign in 1992 throughout his presidency Bill Clinton insisted he was a "New Democrat" as a way of disassociating himself with the perceived failures of liberalism. Clinton consciously co-opted such historically conservative issues as welfare reform, the death penalty, and fiscal responsibility as a means of locating himself in the political center.
Bill Clinton signing the welfare reform bill, co-opting an historically Republican issueThis is no accident. Liberalism had been as popular and as much the dominant public philosophy in the 1960s as conservatism was in the 1980s. But since the late 1960s it had become associated in the popular mind with serious crises of government. In race relations liberalism was associated with minority rights, and by implication with the violence and crime of the ghettos of the inner cities. In foreign policy liberalism came to be blamed both for the Vietnam War and for the disturbing protests against it. In the 1970s liberals also took the blame for rising budget deficits and declining economic performance.
Just as important in the decline of liberalism, proclaiming liberalism no longer fits the Democratic Party's electoral strategy. The Democratic Party has a broader and more diverse social base than the Republican Party. It is the party of both George McGovern and George Wallace. Ideological polarization tends to divide it along ethnic cleavages. Blacks are both the most consistently liberal and the most consistently Democratic voters. But northern white ethnic and southern white Protestant Democrats tend to be more politically moderate and sometimes openly antiblack and antiliberal. In order to win a national election a Democratic candidate must hold together this heterogeneous set of supporters. It is why Democratic presidential candidates from Carter to Dukakis to Clinton to Gore have tried to avoid being labeled liberals.
PRESIDENTS AND IDEOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTION return to top
Presidential elections play an important role in shaping the ideas that will guide public policy in the years ahead. But while a candidate campaigns for roughly a year, an administration holds power for at least four years. Presidents in office have a broader and deeper impact on the public philosophy than do candidates. Because of its media visibility the presidency is the single most important institution in the American political system for the development of ideology and particularly for ideological change. The president is literally the main communication link between the government and the people. Far more people see or hear his words directly than those of any other political figure. The ideas of presidents are carried along the airwaves into the homes of millions of citizens, countless opinion leaders, and even lesser members of the administration.
Franklin Roosevelt reached into millions of Americans homes with his "fireside chats" broadcast on national radioCertainly the minimum conditions for any philosophy or ideology to develop broad political support are that it be known to a large number of citizens, and that it influence the beliefs of political elites. The president is usually the only politician to command the sustained attention of both ordinary citizens and elite opinion leaders, the only one who can successfully disseminate new ideas rapidly and widely throughout the political system. Years ago Teddy Roosevelt called the presidency a "bully pulpit," and this is even more true in the media age.
The president is particularly important in the process of ideological change. Once a doctrine has become embedded in political thought, many institutions may play a role in reinforcing it. But the presidency is the only part of the political system biased toward broad-based policies and toward change. It is well known that most institutions of U.S. government are biased toward maintenance of the status quo, or only incremental change. The courts and the bureaucracy are shielded from direct popular control, and senior members are recruited from elite social strata, a combination that insulates them from many currents of change. Members of Congress are enmeshed in a web of parochial electoral demands that ties them closely to dominant economic interests. This predisposes Congress to narrow and specialized policy interests rather than large-scale political change.
The presidency, however, is different. The president must stand for election nationally, and thus must develop a broad program with truly mass appeal in order to advance his candidacy. Once in office, he is, rightly or wrongly, held responsible for major changes in national conditions—the ups and downs of the economy, the outbreak of new foreign crises, and so on. These pressures bias presidential administrations toward developing truly national programs and bold, sweeping doctrines to justify them to the people.
Contemporary presidents can use televised or untelevised press conferences to capture public attentionThere is a direct link between perceptions of particular presidencies as "strong" or "weak" and their role in ideological construction. Strong presidents are remembered as much as anything for their role in developing new political ideas. Presidents must make difficult policy choices, and therefore they must develop ideologies that justify these choices. FDR is remembered as a strong president exactly because his administration decisively defeated the doctrine of strictly limited government and replaced it with the idea of activist, positive, helping government. Similarly, FDR led the United States to complete commit- ment to the doctrine of internationalism, and his successor, Harry Truman, developed the idea of containment to explain the new U.S. role in the world to the people.
These doctrines were not simply the empty words of self-serving politicians. Instead, they represented fundamental change in policies and practices throughout government. These doctrines did not shape policymaking just in the administrations that first enunciated them; instead they endured to shape policy-making in future generations.
Lesser, but historically significant, shifts in ideas and practice can be seen in the Johnson administration's imagery of new activism for political and economic equality, in Nixon's ideas about detente, in the movement back toward both the limited state and the cold war under Ronald Reagan, and in the concept of a new world order emerging since the first Bush administration. Strong presidents are more likely to leave doctrines that survive them. Weak presidents cannot control policy discourse in their own time, much less the ideas of succeeding administrations.
Richard Nixon used the spectacular media backdrops of the Great Wall of China
and the Kremlin to signal a new flexibility in U.S. relations with communist nationsOf course, new ideological doctrines are always the target of severe criticism. Strong presidents have the ability to navigate turbulent ideological waters, but weaker presidents can run aground or sink on the shoals of policy failure. When policies fail, political conflict over ideology intensifies and incumbent admin- istrations and their doctrines are blamed. Johnson's tragic application of the cold war doctrines to Vietnam undermined not only his own administration but also political support for cold war ideology. In the same way, Herbert Hoover's clinging to the doctrine of limited government in the midst of the Depression crisis undermined not only his administration but also political support for the idea of limited government.
THE CYCLE OF IDEOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTION return to top
Decline of the Prior Public Philosophy return to top
The ideological role of the president can be placed in the broader context of a cycle of policy legitimation and ideological development. The process of ideological construction begins with the decay of the power of old ideas to justify government policies and practices, what can be called a decline in the prior public philosophy. The public philosophies that predominate in one historical era often prove inadequate for a changing political world. The balance of political power between different groups within the nation or between nations can shift, and with such shifts come changes in the power of the dominant ideas to influence events. As the political world evolves, the interests of political groups can alter. New groups may become politically mobilized and press for change in prevailing doctrines, or formerly well-organized and influential power blocs may lose their sway in the political process.
One case where an ideological doctrine lost some of its persuasive power because of shifting political interests is the support of business interests of the idea of limited government. The interest of nineteenth century merchants and industrialists in the doctrines and practices of limited government differed substantially from the need of late twentieth century corporations for government assistance in providing the physical, technical, and human infrastructure of a developed capitalist economy.
Massive unemployment and huge bread lines during the Great Depression spurred the activist government of the New Deal
The decay of public philosophies can also be associated with shifting political forces and mobilizations. The Great Depression of the 1930s changed more than calculations about material interest. More important, it spurred the political mobilization of the working class as membership in trade unions swelled and citizen activism on many other fronts erupted. The philosophy and practices of limited government could not cope with this changing balance of political power between labor and capital. Another case where new political mobilizations affected the prevailing public philosophy was race relations in the 1960s. As the civil rights movement emerged and black people became politically active in ever-increasing numbers, the doctrines of segregation and national government nonintervention in local race issues were unable to withstand the new pressures.
Changes in the world balance of power affect the prevailing doctrines about foreign policy. Isolationism was an appropriate philosophy for a small, weak nation in a far corner of the world, as the United States was in its first 100 years. But as U.S. interests and influence spread beyond the North American continent in the second half of the nineteenth century, the doctrine of isolationism was no longer adequate. While isolationism survived to influence policy into the first third of the twentieth century, it was less and less relevant to the American experience. In the aftermath of World War II the United States developed the doctrines of containment of communism and the national security state to reflect its deepening involvement in global politics.
President Kennedy addressing a huge crowd near the Berlin Wall in 1963But in the later twentieth century these doctrines came increasingly under challenge. The national security state was unable to stop the growth of the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal, which presented a real threat to the very survival of the American people. While containment produced some successes against radical forces in the Third World, it also had some spectacular failures such as Vietnam, Iran, and the Bay of Pigs. Certainly the cold war ideology could not help the United States cope with the rising competition of the Japanese and western European economies. And the national security ideology was totally unprepared for the collapse of communism in the Soviet bloc in recent years.
German crowds tearing down the Berlin Wall after the fall of East Germany The Rise of Contending Doctrines return to top
The decline of a dominant public philosophy is ultimately accompanied by the rise of contending doctrines and rising public attention to competing ideological formulations. New political ideas are always being developed by minority parties, ideological blocs in Congress, and newly emerging contenders for the presidency. But when a predominant ideology begins to falter, this process intensifies.
Minor parties are often ignored in American political analysis, but they are frequently the source of new political ideas that are later taken up by the major parties during political crises. Ideas of the Progressive and Socialist parties became part of the New Deal. Themes from the 1968 splinter candidate George Wallace have played a role in a generation of Republican presidential politics.
The major parties themselves may be taken over by presidential candidates who articulate new policy approaches, as Barry Goldwater did in 1964 and George McGovern did in 1972. In the 1988 election the primary candidacies of Jesse Jackson and Pat Robertson offered new and different ideas about how to approach problems of public policy. Failing presidential campaigns of major party candidates are particularly important sources of ideological innovation because, as both a cause and an effect of their weakness, they tend to devote more energy to long-term moral teaching than to the immediate quest for office. Even in defeat, Goldwater prefigured the ideas of the successful Nixon and Reagan candidacies. Primary campaigns can also influence future presidential philosophy, as demonstrated by the impact of the ideas of the 1968 Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy campaigns on the foreign policy of presidents Nixon and Carter in the 1970s.
Congressional blocs are another source of new ideologies. James Sundquist has demonstrated how many of the ideas that ultimately became the Great Society program were incubating in liberal Democratic minorities in the Congresses of the 1950s. The Kemp-Roth tax cut and supply-side economics were debated in Congress in the 1970s, before they became the centerpieces of Reaganomics in the 1980s
The Critical Role of the Presidency in Ideological Change return to top
But new ideas rarely become dominant public philosophies unless they engage the attention and action of a sitting president. Historically, movement of the preponderance of elite and mass opinion to a new set of doctrines requires engagement of the unique ideological power of the president. The president is the symbolic embodiment of the nation. He is the central figure for both elite and mass political communication.
Only the president has the capacity to sustain the attention of the political system long enough to bring about enduring change in basic political ideas. The triumph of the activist state is hard to imagine without the fireside chats of FDR that repeatedly brought these ideas into the homes of millions of citizens. It is hard to imagine the American people being willing to bear the massive human and material costs of the cold war without the repeated personal assurances of several successive presidents that these sacrifices were necessary. In the 21st century President Bush and his successors will have the greatest impact on defining the concepts of U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War world.
Success and Failure of Presidential Doctrines return to top
However, simply because a president proclaims a new doctrine, this does not make it a dominant public philosophy. Virtually all significant ideological changes require presidential leadership. But not all attempts of presidents to exercise ideological leadership are successful. The political landscape is littered with the remnants of new ideas proclaimed by presidents that have had little effect on the political world beyond the president's most loyal followers. With ideology, as with legislation, the president proposes but other political institutions dispose. The truly historic presidential doctrines have gained deep and enduring support from other leading politicians, public officials, opinion leaders, and the public.
The presidential doctrines that matter influence Congress to pass legislation, create bureaucracies, and vote funds for programs. Cold war doctrines convinced Congress to support the necessary military, intelligence, and diplomatic pro- grams; to create the new military planning and national security bureaucracies to implement these programs; and to vote the funds to sustain them. The doc- trines of political and economic equality, infused with new power by the civil rights movement, convinced Congress to create a series of new programs aimed at using the power of government to assist people.
A key point in the historical development of a public philosophy is what Lowi calls "validation through succession." When a new administration comes to power and accepts a predecessor's doctrine as a continuing guide to policy, this doctrine has passed a critical test of its power to endure. Validation through succession is particularly significant when the new president is from the opposi- tion party, and thus demonstrates bipartisan commitment to a set of ideas. The power of the national security state was demonstrated by the series of both Republican and Democratic presidents who accepted its basic premises. The process of ideological construction is nearing completion when the prior public philosophy slowly ceases to provide the intellectual basis for opposition forces and parties. It is final when even political opponents of a president come to accept the fundamental tenets of his doctrines, and policy disputes center more and more on the inability of an administration to make policy outcomes conform to the promises of their doctrines. When in 1960 Kennedy and Nixon debated who would be the more effective cold warrior, they were indirectly demon- strating the power of national security ideology to shape public discourse.
The most successful ideologies become so deeply embedded in political thought and speech that they are no longer recognized as problematic assump- tions. The most powerful ideologies are taken on faith and repeated as rote incantations ever more intensely when policy outcomes are not consistent with promises.
Ideological Restoration return to top
Not every round of the ideological cycle is characterized by the emergence of totally new ideas. The 1980s brought a significant ideological offensive by conservative political forces inside and outside the White House. While this new generation of conservatives had some truly new ideas, the Reagan and Bush administrations can better be understood as attempting to restore the ideological power of traditional ideas that had guided government in prior eras. Even the most innovative policies of the Reagan administration derived from older ideas. "Supply-side economics" may have been a new term, but it was largely a restatement of the classic doctrine of the limited state, which argues that more wealth can be created in the private sector than through government taxing and spending.
"Star Wars," the Strategic Defense Initiative, may have been a new concept in hardware, but it stemmed from the basic doctrine of arms competition and cold war confrontation with the Soviet Union.
IDEOLOGICAL CRISIS AND PRESIDENTIAL POWER return to top
By describing the cycle of ideological construction I do not mean to imply that every time there is a decline in the power of the predominant public philo- sophy to cope with new policy challenges, a new public philosophy that can cope with these challenges automatically appears. When events outrun a prevailing public philosophy, contending ideologies will inevitably arise that attempt to replace the existing philosophy. But that does not mean these new ideas will be successful in gaining the political support necessary to replace the current ideology. Nor does it mean that even if such new ideas do gain the necessary political support, they will be any more successful in dealing with the policy problems which generated the crisis. Often crises linger unresolved for decades.
The interrelated crises of the urban underclass and racial tension in American society have simmered for generations without ever being decisively "solved." For most of the twentieth century the ideology of the limited state blocked any activist government attack on such social problems. The ideological shifts of the 1960s brought an activist government response, but clearly whatever the philoso- phies and policies adopted in the 1960s did accomplish, they did not bring an end to either the urban underclass or racial tensions.
However, when the nation faces political crises, there is a tendency to look to the president to lead the country out of the crisis. At the appearance of a new crisis the nation turns to the president to provide new ideas and new policies to cope with the crisis. But when such attention is focused on the presidency and the president is not able to deal effectively with events, then the president may be blamed for the continuing crisis, and suffer politically as a result.
FDR and his New Deal offer an example of a new president with new ideas who was politically successful in replacing the prevailing public philosophy even though he was not particularly successful in dealing with the substance of the crisis that brought him to power. In the 1930s FDR stepped into the breach when the prior public philosophy was unable to cope with the Great Depression. His philosophy of an activist state that would decisively attack the economic crisis was politically successful. Under FDR the Democratic Party created a political coalition that would hold the presidency for twenty years and control Congress for generations. FDR's administration was politically successful in part because so many people benefited from his public works and relief policies, and because, in contrast with the prior administration, the New Deal did seem to be actively combating the depression. But these activist policies did not really solve the crisis, which was ended only by the military spending that followed from U.S. entry into World War II. Many students of the era argue that the U.S. victory in the war, not his New Deal policies, cemented FDR's reputation in history as a great president.
The responses of other administrations to policy crises will be dealt with in later chapters. The point here is that the inability of the current public philosophy to cope effectively with new policy problems leads to intensified ideological conflict. New crises may lead to the emergence of a newly dominant public policy, but this is not necessarily the case. Instead, prolonged periods of ideo- logical crisis may ensue.
Presidents who successfully cope with policy crises and articulate a new public philosophy to guide public policy are remembered as great presidents. Presidents who are unable to master the currents of ideological conflict and crisis are likely to leave little lasting legacy in policy or philosophy.
Links for Studying the Media Presidency and Presidential Ideologies
return to topWeb sites marked with * provided images for this chapter. Many images also are linked to the web site from which they originated.
The Official White House Home Page see the world according to George W. Bush
Major Media Sites
PBS Online News Hour White House Page interviews of high ranking officials of the Bush administration and analysis of the Bush administration. You can usually choose between watching video, listening to audio or reading text. Also go the Online News Hour Special Reports page and scroll down to U.S. Government/Military for menus on the Bush and Clinton administrations. Also check the Online NewsHour Index for analysis of current public policy issues, often with interviews of Bush officials and analysis about Bush administration programs
C-SPAN Bush TV Files Page watch many of Bush's speeches and and speeches and press conferences of members of the administration
Historic Presidential Documents
C-SPAN Bush Presidential Documents read many of Bush's speeches and official documents of the administration
C-SPAN State of the Union files watch State of the Union messages of presidents back to 1989. Transcripts of State of the Union messages available back to 1945
Public Papers of the Presidents digital files go back as far as 1993
Inaugural Addresses The Inaugural Address is a key speech made when presidents are sworn into office. This site has them all
Speeches of the Presidents Inaugural Addresses, State of the Union Messages, and selected nomination acceptance speeches and war messages
Campaign and Political Sites
The 30 Second Candidate view clips of presidential candidates' commericals
C-SPAN Campaign 2000 Files Watch or read key speeches of the 2000 election campaign and the post-election contest. Includes the debates, the conventions, selected campaign ads, discussion and analysis, etc. Also check the Road to the White House page
The Official Democratic Party Web Site good site for critiques of the Bush administration
The Official Republican Party Web Site get the official party positions on the Bush administration
Presidential Libraries and Other Sites on Past Presidents
The Clinton Presidential Center Not much there yet, but will surely be expanded over time. Interestingly, the Bush White House does not include this in its links to presidential libraries
The Clinton Materials Project Also not very well developed yet, but sure to improve. The National Archives and Records Administration keeps documents on all presidents; this is the beginning of their Clinton site
The Clinton Years Two leading media programs produced this from a series of interviews with major players in the Clinton White House. Includes historical summaries, interview transcripts, anecdotes, photos, bibliography, and links
C-SPAN Clinton Files Watch selected speeches and programs on the Clinton administration. Also many text files
Cartoons of the Clinton Scandals The truth is often said in jest
*The George Bush Presidential Library
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
*The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library
The Gerald Ford Presidential Library
The Richard Nixon Presidential Library
*Richard Nixon Presidential Materials
The Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library
*The John Kennedy Presidential Library
*John Kennedy: A New Generation
The Dwight Eisenhower Presidential Library
The Harry Truman Presidential Library
The Franklin Roosevelt Presidential Library
