Miller Center Studies on the Presidency – serie

Is the presidency a position one must learn on the job, or can one learn from others’ experience? No common thread runs through the list of forty-five presidents; no playbook provides the answers to all the challenges a president will face. Yet even in the most unprecedented situations, history can be instructive. Drawn from the Miller Center’s First Year project--which seeks to provide a historical framework to guide future presidents and their teams in the crucial first year of a new administration-- Crucible addresses core questions of governance facing a new president, from navigating a broken political system to thriving in a changing media environment. The project’s illustrious participants--including Stephen Skowronek, Alan Taylor, Gary Gallagher, Sidney M. Milkis, H. W. Brands, William A. Galston, and Peter Wehner, among many others--explore both opportunities and challenges in key policy areas, from national security, race, and immigration to opportunity, mobility, and fiscal policy.Crucible consolidates the most salient lessons that can be drawn from both the best and the worst presidencies in American history, as well as from the many in between, to provide true insight on the most important issues facing any new president in the first year of office.

Is the presidency a position one must learn on the job, or can one learn from others' experience? No common thread runs through the list of forty-five presidents; no playbook provides the answers to all the challenges a president will face. Yet even in the most unprecedented situations, history can be instructive. Drawn from the Miller Center's First Year project-which seeks to provide a historical framework to guide future presidents and their teams in the crucial first year of a new administration- Crucible addresses core questions of governance facing a new president, from navigating a broken political system to thriving in a changing media environment. The project's illustrious participants-including Stephen Skowronek, Alan Taylor, Gary Gallagher, Sidney M. Milkis, H. W. Brands, William A. Galston, and Peter Wehner, among many others-explore both opportunities and challenges in key policy areas, from national security, race, and immigration to opportunity, mobility, and fiscal policy.Crucible consolidates the most salient lessons that can be drawn from both the best and the worst presidencies in American history, as well as from the many in between, to provide true insight on the most important issues facing any new president in the first year of office.Contributors: Douglas A. Blackmon; Hal Brands; H. W. Brands; Robert F. Bruner; Mary Kate Cary; Jeffrey L. Chidester; Carolyn Dewar; Tom Dohrmann; Susan J. Douglas; Anita Dunn; Michael Eric Dyson; Jeffrey A. Engel; Andrew Erdmann; Michèle A. Flournoy; Jeffrey Frieden; Gary W. Gallagher; William A. Galston; Daniel J. Galvin; Stefanie Georgakis Abbott; David Greenberg; Ryan Harper; Willis Jenkins; Elaine C. Kamarck; Bruce Katz; Melvyn P. Leffler; Guian McKee; Sidney M. Milkis; Peter Morton; Michael Nelson; Patrick O'Brien; Margaret O'Mara; Orlando Patterson; Barbara A. Perry; Andrew Rudalevige; Marc Selverstone; Jeff Shesol; Stephen Skowronek; Jeremi Suri; Alan Taylor; Daniel Tichenor; Peter Wehner; Mason B. Williams; Philip Zelikow.

On the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s presidency, Michael Nelson, one of our finest and most objective presidential scholars, published Trump’s First Year, a nonpartisan assessment that was widely hailed as the best account of one of the most unusual years in presidential history. At the midpoint of Trump’s term, Nelson has updated his book to include the second year, which if anything has proven to be even more remarkable.Beginning with an examination of the dramatic 2016 election, Nelson’s book follows Trump as he takes office under mostly favorable conditions, with relative stability at home and abroad and his party in control of both houses of Congress. Trump leveraged this successfully in some ways, from the confirmation of his nominee Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court to the passage of his tax-reform bill. But many more actions were perceived as failures or even threats to a safe, functional democracy, including immigration policies defied by state and local governments, volatile dealings with North Korea, unsuccessful attempts to pass major legislation, and the inability to fill government positions or maintain consistent White House staff.As Nelson demonstrates in a substantial addition to the original book, Trump’s effectiveness, or lack thereof, did not change significantly in his second year in office, but his approach often did. With the Mueller investigation and the midterm elections looming, Trump threw off his advisors’ restraints and acted more directly on his impulses, reverting to the instincts and rhetoric that had won him the election. While opposition to Trump remained strong in many quarters, resistance among GOP leaders crumbled as they were confronted with their constituents’ support of the president.Published on the second anniversary of Trump’s inauguration, Nelson’s book offers the most complete and up-to-date assessment of this still-unfolding story.

Following the election of Donald Trump, the office of the U.S. president has come under scrutiny like never before. Featuring penetrating insights from high-profile presidential scholars, The Presidency provides the deep historical and constitutional context needed to put the Trump era into its proper perspective.Identifying key points at which the constitutional presidency could have evolved in different ways from the nation's founding days to the present, these scholars examine presidential decisions that determined the direction of the nation and the world.

Following the election of Donald Trump, the office of the U.S. president has come under scrutiny like never before. Featuring penetrating insights from high-profile presidential scholars, The Presidency provides the deep historical and constitutional context needed to put the Trump era into its proper perspective.Identifying key points at which the constitutional presidency could have evolved in different ways from the nation's founding days to the present, these scholars examine presidential decisions that determined the direction of the nation and the world.

In the controversial legacy of the Nixon presidency, the administration’s effort to curb and control the spread of the world’s weapons of mass destruction is often overlooked. And yet by the time President Nixon left office under the cloud of the Watergate scandal, his actions on this front had surpassed those of all his predecessors combined and laid the foundations of WMD arms control and nonproliferation policies that persist to this day.In Averting Doomsday, Patrick Garrity and Erin Mahan explore and assess Nixon’s record, addressing not only nuclear but also biological and chemical weapons. Drawing substantially on presidential recordings and other primary sources not widely consulted, the authors shed new light on milestones such as the first SALT agreement on strategic nuclear weapons and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, as well as the renunciation of US offensive biological weapons and a Seabed treaty. The WMD-control landscape had accumulated many divergent visions and interests over time—technical, diplomatic, domestic political, and utopian. The Nixon administration had to adjust to and build on this eclectic foundation, creating a new layer of policies to deal with WMD that substantially set the course—and perhaps limited the options—for future administrations in ways that are still with us.

Ronald Reagan called the peaceful transfer of power from one U.S. president to the next a miracle, and it is. It is also the most delicate and hazardous period in the entire political cycle. Americans learned the stakes in 2020, when President Donald Trump’s refusal to trigger the formal start of the transition process to President-Elect Joe Biden created perhaps the worst crisis for American democracy since the Civil War. Even at the best of times, an incoming administration faces a gargantuan task, as every new president must make more than four thousand political appointments in a short period of time.Yet the day-to-day process of presidential transitions remains poorly understood, even by government specialists. This is why the Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Presidential Transition created Transition Lab, a one-year podcast series that ran through January 2021. The Peaceful Transfer of Power now puts those distinct interviews with scholars, journalists, public servants, and—most important—participants in every transition from Ford–Carter to Trump–Biden into a narrative format that illuminates the long history, complexity, and current best practices associated with this most vital of democratic institutions.Presidential transitions stand at a critical juncture here and abroad. Highly readable and deeply informative, this book offers every citizen invested in safeguarding our democracy accessible and concentrated insights that will help future transitions run better, faster, and more smoothly.The Partnership for Public Service is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that is building a better government and a stronger democracy.

The death of a chief executive, regardless of the circumstances—sudden or expected, still in office or decades later—is always a moment of reckoning and reflection. Mourning the Presidents brings together renowned and emerging scholars to examine how different generations and communities of Americans have eulogized and remembered US presidents since George Washington’s death in 1799. Over twelve individually illuminating chapters, this volume offers a unique approach to understanding American culture and politics by uncovering parallels between different generations of mourners, highlighting distinct experiences, and examining what presidential deaths can tell us about societal fissures at various critical points in the nation’s history, right up to the present moment.

The death of a chief executive, regardless of the circumstances—sudden or expected, still in office or decades later—is always a moment of reckoning and reflection. Mourning the Presidents brings together renowned and emerging scholars to examine how different generations and communities of Americans have eulogized and remembered US presidents since George Washington’s death in 1799. Over twelve individually illuminating chapters, this volume offers a unique approach to understanding American culture and politics by uncovering parallels between different generations of mourners, highlighting distinct experiences, and examining what presidential deaths can tell us about societal fissures at various critical points in the nation’s history, right up to the present moment.

Although many associate Franklin D. Roosevelt with the inauguration of the robust, dominant American presidency, the roots of his executive leadership style go much deeper. Examining the presidencies of John Quincy Adams, Ulysses S. Grant, and William Howard Taft, Stephen Rockwell traces emerging connections between presidential action and a robust state over the course of the nineteenth century and the Progressive Era.By analyzing these three undervalued presidents’ savvy deployment of state authority and their use of administrative leadership, legislative initiatives, direct executive action, and public communication, Rockwell makes a compelling case that the nineteenth-century presidency was significantly more developed and interventionist than previously thought. As he shows for a significant number of policy arenas, the actions of Adams, Grant, and Taft touched the lives of millions of Americans and laid the foundations of what would become the American century.

Although many associate Franklin D. Roosevelt with the inauguration of the robust, dominant American presidency, the roots of his executive leadership style go much deeper. Examining the presidencies of John Quincy Adams, Ulysses S. Grant, and William Howard Taft, Stephen Rockwell traces emerging connections between presidential action and a robust state over the course of the nineteenth century and the Progressive Era.By analyzing these three undervalued presidents’ savvy deployment of state authority and their use of administrative leadership, legislative initiatives, direct executive action, and public communication, Rockwell makes a compelling case that the nineteenth-century presidency was significantly more developed and interventionist than previously thought. As he shows for a significant number of policy arenas, the actions of Adams, Grant, and Taft touched the lives of millions of Americans and laid the foundations of what would become the American century.

Designing and operating an effective White House are critical to the success of any presidency—and to democracy in the United States. Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Christopher Liddell offers a strategic approach to building a strong and successful presidency. An astute and experienced operative, he demonstrates persuasively that action must be taken early, comprehensively, and visibly, starting in what he calls Year Zero, the year before governing. His book lays out concrete nonpartisan steps and recommendations that would significantly improve how the White House functions and thus rebuild trust in one of our most fundamental institutions.

For two Americans in Saigon in 1963, the personal and the political combine to spark the drama of a lifetimeBefore it spread into a tragic war that defined a generation, the conflict in Vietnam smoldered as a guerrilla insurgency and a diplomatic nightmare. Into this volatile country stepped Frederick “Fritz” Nolting, the US ambassador, and his second-in-command, William “Bill” Trueheart, immortalized in David Halberstam’s landmark work The Best and the Brightest and accidental players in a pivotal juncture in modern US history.Diplomats at War is a personal memoir by former Washington Post reporter Charles Trueheart—Bill’s son and Nolting’s godson—who grew up amid the events that traumatized two families and an entire nation. The book embeds the reader at the US embassy and dissects the fateful rift between Nolting and Trueheart over their divergent assessments of the South Vietnamese regime under Ngo Dinh Diem, who would ultimately be assassinated in a coup backed by the United States. Charles Trueheart retells the story of the United States’ headlong plunge into war from an entirely new vantage point—that of a son piecing together how his father and godfather participated in, and were deeply damaged by, this historic flashpoint. Their critical rupture, which also destroyed their close friendship, contains the kernel of how the United States became inextricably embroiled in the Vietnam conflict.

The last line of defense for our institutions, and our democracyInspectors general may be the most important public servants you’ve never heard of. In Watchdogs, Glenn Fine—who served as the inspector general of the Department of Justice from 2000 to 2011 and the acting inspector general of the Department of Defense from 2016 to 2020—explains why all Americans should be familiar with this critical pillar of our democracy.Drawing on his own experiences in numerous high-profile investigations over two decades, from 9/11 to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Fine provides a fascinating insider’s view of government at the highest levels, illuminating how federal officials spend our tax dollars and how inspector general oversight seeks to make government more honest and accountable. Full of revealing stories—from the FBI’s handling of evidence in the Timothy McVeigh trial to the treatment of post-9/11 detainees to investigating the US Navy’s most infamous corruption scandal—Watchdogs illustrates the mission of inspectors general in improving government operations, deterring wasteful spending, and curtailing corruption, and the ways they work every day in America’s unique system of oversight.

A timely analysis of the historic 2024 elections from some of the leading minds in US political scienceContinuing a tradition begun in 1984, and for every presidential election year since, renowned political scientist Michael Nelson and a team of scholars have put together a comprehensive, scholarly, and compelling account of the 2024 elections. This diverse cast of experts scrutinizes every stage of the presidential race as well as the concurrent congressional elections in all their aspects, from campaigning to media coverage to PACs and fundraising. This timely volume even analyzes the impact of the pending lawsuits against Donald Trump. Supplemented by critical data gathered from exit polling and voting results from primaries, caucuses, and the general election, this volume weighs the consequences of the 2024 elections not only for the presidency but for Congress and our entire political ecosystem.ContributorsMichael Nelson, Rhodes College * William G. Mayer, Northeastern University * Marc J. Hetherington, University of North Carolina * Charles Hunt, Boise State University * Marjorie Randon Hershey, Indiana University * Paul J. Quirk, University of British Columbia * Gary C. Jacobson, University of California, San Diego * Andrew Rudalevige, Bowdoin College * Gerald M. Pomper, Rutgers University

A timely analysis of the historic 2024 elections from some of the leading minds in US political scienceContinuing a tradition begun in 1984, and for every presidential election year since, renowned political scientist Michael Nelson and a team of scholars have put together a comprehensive, scholarly, and compelling account of the 2024 elections. This diverse cast of experts scrutinizes every stage of the presidential race as well as the concurrent congressional elections in all their aspects, from campaigning to media coverage to PACs and fundraising. This timely volume even analyzes the impact of the pending lawsuits against Donald Trump. Supplemented by critical data gathered from exit polling and voting results from primaries, caucuses, and the general election, this volume weighs the consequences of the 2024 elections not only for the presidency but for Congress and our entire political ecosystem.ContributorsMichael Nelson, Rhodes College * William G. Mayer, Northeastern University * Marc J. Hetherington, University of North Carolina * Charles Hunt, Boise State University * Marjorie Randon Hershey, Indiana University * Paul J. Quirk, University of British Columbia * Gary C. Jacobson, University of California, San Diego * Andrew Rudalevige, Bowdoin College * Gerald M. Pomper, Rutgers University