‘The most ignorant and unfit’: What made America’s worst ever leader? (NYRB 3.7.20)
Jul 12, 2020“Being president,” former First Lady Michelle Obama has said, “doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are.” In this moment, we may also need to acknowledge that presidents also reveal much about who we are.
American presidents do not exist outside the systems or times that produced them. Great presidents—like Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and, arguably, Lyndon B. Johnson—have emerged when the nation has risen to meet challenging circumstances. And, granted, most presidents are middling—which tells us something about the quotidian nature of much of political life in the US. But America’s worst presidents demonstrate something essential about what is most broken or troubling in the character of the country and the temper of the times. A dismal or dire US president is a symptom of great problems within society that weaken it or put it in peril.
In this year of a presidential election, we must account for our forty-fifth president because the real challenge before us is not simply to replace a terribly flawed leader, but to understand how to fix a system that produces, promotes, protects, and even values the dangerous toxicity we see daily from our commander-in-chief.
This article was republished from The New York Review of Books on the 3rd of July. Please read the full piece here.
“Being president,” former First Lady Michelle Obama has said, “doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are.” In this moment, we may also need to acknowledge that presidents also reveal much about who we are.
Contributions to Pearls and Irritations
Your contribution will fund quality independent comment and analysis in Pearls and Irritations
Contribute
