Here is an excellent and detailed review of my new book, Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster, which is out this week, and which you can order here now.
“Rating America’s Presidents,” review by Loren Rosson, August 6, 2020:
There’s a new book coming out, and it’s quite a treat: Rating America’s Presidents. The author, Robert Spencer, wrote the magisterial History of Jihad and many other books on Islam. A ranking of the U.S. presidents is outside his usual area, but he does a very good job where most others fail. Of the countless president rankings flooding the market, there has been only one that I find useful: Recarving Rushmore by Ivan Eland. Spencer’s book is now a second helpful remedy to the established mainstream views of which presidents were good and bad and somewhere in-between.
Mainstream historians tend to favor presidents who were (a) charismatics, (b) goal-oriented “managers”, (c) foreign interventionists, (d) big-government statists, and (e) globalists. Call these biases the (a) charisma bias, the (b) effectiveness bias, and the (c-d-e) activist biases. I’ve said this many times before: Just because a leader is charismatic and can move you with speeches, doesn’t say anything about his policies and how good he was for the American people. That he accomplished his goals says nothing about how good those goals were. (James Polk and Lyndon Johnson were the two most effective presidents in history; they were also bad ones.) That he intervened militarily abroad, economically at home, and meddled in worldly affairs are just as likely bad signs as good ones, and usually more bad; it’s precisely when presidents “do too much”, instead of showing executive restraint, that America (and other nations) end up suffering for it.
Seriously: On the basis of charisma, effectiveness, and activism, some of the worst leaders in history would have to be pronounced great, not least Adolf Hitler. These are lousy criteria to judge our chief executives, and yet most everyone uses them, consciously or not. Human beings are suckers for charisma; we feel the pull of magnetically persuasive leaders like FDR, JFK, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama (charismatics are usually Democrats, for whatever reason). We also like to focus on a president’s effectiveness (in achieving his goals, no matter what those goals are), because it allows us the illusion of neutrality, and to abstain from judgment and keep our politics private; but we can’t be apolitical in evaluating politicians. We have to get our hands dirty for the exercise to mean anything. Spencer’s cards, refreshingly, are all on the table. In his introduction he writes:
New criteria are needed—or more precisely, old criteria. In fact, what is needed is the oldest criterion of all for judging the success and failure of various presidents: were they good for America and Americans, or were they not?… What makes a great president is one who preserved, protected, and defended the Constitution of the United States. Or to put it even more simply, a great president is one who put America first.
The idea that all responsible leaders have an obligation to serve their own citizens primarily, rather than those of the world at large, has been out of fashion since World War II, and in many ways since World War I. It has been mislabeled, derided, and dismissed as ‘isolationism,’ a fear or unwillingness to engage with the wider world, even as it is becoming increasingly interconnected and interdependent. But it does not necessarily mean that America will withdraw from the world; it only means that in dealing with the world, American presidents will be looking out primarily for the good of Americans.
The term America First has also been associated, quite unfairly, with racism and anti-Semitism. The founding principles of the republic, notably the proposition that, as the Declaration of Independence puts it, ‘all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,’ shows that putting America First has nothing to do with such petty and irrational hatreds.
That will therefore be the principal criterion of the evaluations of the presidents in this book: Did he put America first? Was he good for Americans? Or did he leave us in a worse, poorer, more precarious, or more dangerous position than we were in before he assumed office?
Indeed, an “America First” criteria would seem so obvious, and I tend to frame that issue in the way Ivan Eland does in Recarving Rushmore. Presidents should be judged by what they did for the American causes of peace (foreign policy), prosperity (domestic policy), and liberty (freedom). After all, those are what most Americans want from life: to live in peace, to prosper, and to enjoy freedom. Though Spencer doesn’t spell out his criteria this way, they emerge implicitly in his assessments…
There is a great deal more. Read the rest here.
Loren Rosson says
Thanks for posting this, Robert, and I hope the book is widely read!
vlparker says
Looking forward to reading it.
The Supreme Court may be the highest authority in the land, but it is only because they arrogated power to themselves that was not granted by the US Constitution at the very beginning of the republic. The President prior to Andrew Jackson should have ignored all illegal rulings by the Supreme Court and nipped their tyranny in the bud. Nothing in the Constitution gives the SCOTUS the authority to legislate from the bench or to overrule every action the other two branches take.
The idea that nine unelected judges (politicians really) with life tenure have veto power over every action the Legislative and Executive branches take makes a mockery of the term representative republic and also of the notion of 3 co-equal branches of government.
In fact, according to the Federalist Papers we were not supposed to have 3 co-equal branches of government. The Legislative branch was supposed to be the strongest and the judicial branch the weakest. It didn’t turn out that way.
I tend to agree more with Rosson than with Spencer on Andrew Jackson, although the Bank of the United States is one of several reasons that makes Alexander Hamilton my least favorite founding father.
vlparker says
That should say “Presidents prior to Andrew Jackson”.
Loren Rosson says
It’s true that SCOTUS has no business legislating from the bench, but if justices kept their roles in perspective it makes sense that the buck stops at the supreme court, without betraying the founding fathers’ vision. If only more justices believed in impartial interpretation.
Agreed about Hamilton. Jackson may have killed the bank for the wrong reasons, but the result is really what matters.
gravenimage says
Rating America’s Presidents: ‘Quite a treat…a helpful remedy to the established mainstream views’
…………………
Good review by Loren Rosson
Rod says
Winston Churchill, when Britain faced a deadly crisis, told his people he could offer them only “blood, sweat and tears”. And so it transpired. His duty was to warn his people. They were warned, and able to prepare for the danger ahead..
Donald Trump, facing a similar challenge, assured his people “It will soon go away. Like a miracle.” Sadly, it didn’t. His people were unprepared. Catastrophe ensued.
Churchill ensured that Britain made urgent preparations – fighters, bombers, tanks. His people revere him still for his wisdom and foresight.
Trump ensured that adequate preparations were NOT made, Disorganisation resulted, much needed equipment was unavailable when urgently needed, thousands allegedly died unnecessarily.
Any votes for America’s Worst POTUS?
Loren Rosson says
Any votes for America’s Worst POTUS?
Woodrow Wilson, hands down. George W. Bush and James Buchanan are close seconds. Those three would qualify as an “anti-Mount Rushmore” for me.
gravenimage says
President Trump has acted more than any modern president to protect us from the depredations of Jihad. Not that this is a goal of “Rod’s”, of course.
Rod says
Trump “protects us from the depredations of Jihad ” which are largely imaginary, so Trump’s efforts serve only to inspire hatred, intolerance and division. Come to think of it, he’s very good at it, and he does little else.
But let’s give him credit – his revolutionary treatments for Covid-19 – ingestion of bleach, injections of disinfectants, will ensure his place in the history books.
And building a wall to protect him from his neighbours, and making them pay for it. Has any leader since Caligula ever displayed unfathomable stupidity more convincingly?
One day, people like the leaders of France, Germany, Britain, Canada, Australia, Korea, will speak openly of what a fool they thought Trump was. How long must we wait?
gravenimage says
Ah, yes–Jihad is “largely imaginary”–forget 9/11 and all the horrors that have followed, you ‘filthy Infidels’.
And note that “Rod” doesn’t say how protecting Americans from Jihad is “hate”.
As for Covid, the records per capita of Covid deaths are actually worse in Belgium, Britain, Spain, Italy, and Sweden than they are in the US. *That* certainly doesn’t fit “Rod’s” narrative:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/
Rod says
The “horrors that followed”. Would that be the illegal, idiotic, catastrophic US devastation of Iraq, and the many disasters directly and indirectly caused thereby?
re the US horrific Covid death rate, which continues – if only Trump had functioning intellect, the US deaths might not be “beating the world”, and Trump might have “protected you” from the real depredations of a real threat.
Rod says
No, on second thoughts – by the “horrors that followed” you must mean, not that the lives of many thousands of Muslims were destroyed, but that a small number of Americans died, and a large number of Americans became frightened of terrorists.
Perhaps some day they will see that fellow Americans with guns are much, much more dangerous. (Read today’s news. Or news from any other day).
gravenimage says
Note that “Rod” here is sneering at Americans being slaughtered by Jihadists.
But then, this does not surprise, considering this poster’s history.
Then, the idea that the US is “beating the world” (what bizarre phrasing) re Coronavirus cases, this is quite false.
Actually, the US is eighth in per capita cases–nations with worse records include Belgium, the UK, Spain, Italy, and Sweden:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants
Could things have been handled better in all of these nations? Perhaps. But the idea that any of this is improved by allowing Jihadists to murder us is grotesque.
Then, the idea that taking out Saddam Hussein and the Taliban destroys the lives of many thousands of Muslims is very telling–but does not in any way surprise.
Loren Rosson says
President Trump has acted more than any modern president to protect us from the depredations of Jihad.
Agreed. Though my overall assessment of Trump is less than flattering, I have to give him that: his policies in the Middle-East are refreshing and long overdue.
Rod says
I have to wonder what “the depredations of jihad” really are, and what Trump actually did. Talk? Lie? Tweet?
It’s beyond doubt however that Trump’s performance in protecting Americans from the depredations of Covid-19 have been disgracefully inadequate and laughably incompetent.
More people have died from the virus during this week’s Republican national convention alone, than in the terror attacks of 11 September 2001. And it goes on. What is he doing? Tweet. Lie. Rant.
Donald is a lame duck president, it seems.
gravenimage says
More of “Rod” sneering at Jihad existing–despite their being almost 40,000 Jihad terror attacks just since 9/11.
Then, Trump has cut Muslim immigration by 90% even before the lockdown, has stood against Iran and the Mullah’s nuclear plans, and has moved the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Could he have done more? Possibly, although he has had to fight tooth and nail for what he has been able to accomplish so far.
And “Rod” is sneering at the fact that Jihadists were not able to murder *even more victims*. *Ugh*.