Did you ever wonder just where it all went wrong?
Certainly I think that in no time in United States history--not even at the height of Nixon's downfall--has so large a percentage of the population been so disillusioned and disgusted toward a president. I would also venture to say that at no time in U.S. history has the voting public--whatever the stripe of their political beliefs--been so universally cynical in attitude toward the government as a whole.
So, how did it happen? Why have we been so disgusted with our Chief Executives for so long? On the flipside is my exhaustively researched* timeline.
*-This should be read as "Whatever I could remember off the top of my head." Any errors you see, let me know and I'll correct them. I will be oversimplifying in many cases, and I ask that you understand that, though.
Now, on with the show...
We start with the administration of
James Buchanan(1857-1861). The only President from my fair commonwealth was...how do I put this?...utterly incompetent. The country began to rapidly--RAPIDLY--fall apart on his watch and Mr. Buchanan did exactly squat. The first seven states left the Union toward the end of his term and his efforts to do anything were feeble at best. Certainly this did not leave a good taste in the mouths of the people.
We then move on to that most legendary of Presidents, Abraham Lincoln(1861-1865). Now, as many of you are no doubt aware, Mr. Linconl didn't always enjoy such legendary status. In fact, his mere election trigged the original round of secession. Not to mention his call for 75,000 volunteers trigged the secession of four more states.
In fact, I may have to retract my earlier statement about Bush being the most disliked. The Emancipation Proclamation? Boy, people HATED that one. Gettysburg Address? Most thought it was weak.
But, as we all know, the country came round. Lincoln was re-elected and made plans for peace...which were interrupted by a bullet from John Wilkes Booth's derringer. No president was ever murdered before and the reaction of the country was shock and horror at this ripping away of the veil of innocence. Of course, it got worse when...
Andrew Johnson(1865-1869) assumed the office. Johnson, a conservative Southerner, immediately ran right up against the Radical Republican contingent of Congress over the issue of Reconstruction and civil rights. Suffice to say, it was a ugly fight that led to an uglier impeachment trial--another first in American history. This, of course, did nothing to increase public confidence in the office of the presidency.
Things seemed to look up with the election of Union war hero Ulysses S. Grant(1869-1877). Grant was well known as an honest, simple man of the sort who should make a good president. However, he proved to be entirely too honest and too simple. Grant's political ear was largely made of tin and he was incredibly naive. As a result, he was perhaps a larger political tool in the hands of greedy, evil men than even Shrub is. Grant's two terms were rife with corruption and graft...as the public was well aware. The stock of the President as an office continued to fall.
Things didn't get any better--indeed, they got worse--with the election of Rutherford B. Hayes(1877-1881). The shenanigans and circumstances behind Hayes' election put even Bush's Florida 2000 shenanigans to shame. Hayes' Democratic opponent, Samuel Tilden, won the popular vote by something on the order of 300,000 votes and seemed to also have a lock on the electoral vote. However, Republicans contested the election results in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina. If Hayes managed to get all of the electors of those states, he would win. However, Tilden needed only a single elector from any of those states to reach the magic number of 185.
This seemed highly likely--after all, Tilden was a Democrat and the three states in dispute were ex-Confederate states who were not well-disposed toward Republicans. However, following a series of furious backroom deals, the Republicans dangled the one carrot in front of the southerners that they could not turn down: the withdrawl of all Federal soldiers from southern states and the end of Reconstruction. All the electors from all three states went to Hayes. The final count: 185 to 184, and Hayes would be forever known as "Rutherfraud."
James Garfield(1881) was an intellectual who campaigned heavily on promises to restore honor and prestige to the Presidency. There was every reason for optimism that he would do this...until he caught an assassin's bullet while standing on a railroad platform in July 1881. He would linger until September, when he died of a secondary hemmorhage. The American public had now suffered the murder of two well-liked Chief Executives in less than 20 years.
Garfield's vice-president, Chester A. Arthur(1881-1885) stepped in and finished his former chief's term. Arthur was followed by Grover Cleveland(1885-1889), Benjamin Harrison(1889-1893), and Grover Cleveland again, serving a second term from 1893-1897. Together, the three men and four terms make up the single most useless, unremarkable span of American presidents ever, a title I would venture to say they are likely to retain forever. Except for an anti-trust act signed by Harrison, the entire period is notable for being the "Gilded Age" in America. It saw the rise of the robber barons, an enormously increasing gap between the haves and have nots, and a level of government subservience to big business not seen until, well...the present day.
As a result, the average American voter became quite aware that the President was less than ever a public servant.
William McKinley(1897-1901) was popular enough to be elected twice and managed to raise a great deal of patriotic (some would say "nationalistic") sentiment with the Spanish-American War of 1898. McKinley, however, did not quite live up to the mental standards of, say, Lincoln and Garfield. He once confessed he couldn't even find the Philippines on a map. This was surprising, because he had sent American soldiers there to fight and die during the 1898 war. (I would say that Bush, at least, could probably pick out Iraq.) McKinley also tragically became the third president in U.S. history to be assassinated. Clearly, then, the last 44 years had not been kind to the office of the presidency and had mostly demolished its standing in the public eye.
Things, however, were at last about to get better.
First there was the whirlwind presidency of Theodore Roosevelt(1901-1909). Teddy's roaring, "lust for life" style of living and policy making revigorated an office that had been stagnant for decades. Things returned to the status quo for a term with the dull, uninspiring presidency of William Howard Taft(1909-1913). Taft himself admitted he wasn't up to the job. His presidency, however, would be no more than a bump in the road.
Woodrow Wilson(1913-1921) was not nearly as dynamic as Teddy, but his presidency marked the beginning of a growing prosperity in the U.S. His calm, steady leadership guided the country through the turmoil of World War One.
Even though many historians would rank Warren Harding(1921-1923) as the greatest presidential criminal (minus Bush the Lesser, at any rate), the public outrage over such things as the Teapot Dome scandal was muted due to an economy that was really beginning to crank into overdrive. The president for the balance of the Roaring Twenties, Calvin Coolidge(1923-1929) was a true believer in laissez-faire and left little impression on the American people overall. They were too busy making money.
Of course, things came to a screeching halt just months after Herbert Hoover(1929-1933) ascended to the post. Hoover's seeming inability to do anything about the Great Depression threatened to sink public opinion of the presidency to previous lows once again.
That possibility came to an end when Franklin Delano Roosevelt(1933-1945) swooped in, saved the day, and single handedly revived public faith in the presidency, the government, the capitalist economic system, and the entire country. FDR was followed by two different but equally remarkable men in their own right: Harry S. Truman(1945-1953) and Dwight D. Eisenhower(1953-1961). Though all three men had their fair share of faults and blunders during their times in office, all three were instrumental in reviving public faith in the presidency.
Things were only getting better with the election of John F. Kennedy(1961-1963). The youthful, handsome, brilliant Kennedy and his beautiful, elegant, graceful wife Jackie captured the hearts and imaginations of Americans. There was, at long last, true optimism about the future of the American government and the Chief Executive.
Then came that horrible day in Dallas...November 22nd, 1963. If you had to ask me the one moment when America irrevocably and irretrievably went to hell, it would be that day. The optimism was shattered. The belief in the future was gone. All that was left was darkness, hardened cynicism, and the slow descent into Vietnam. John Kennedy's murder started us down a slippery slope that we are still sliding down this very day.
Nothing got better. Lyndon B. Johnson(1963-1969) did wonderful things domestically. In the foreign sphere, however, he succeeded primarily in getting us entangled in the quagmire of Vietnam that would end in the useless deaths of 58,000 Americans. He was, of course, followed by Richard M. Nixon(1969-1974). I don't really have to go into Nixon's crimes yet again, do I? Suffice it say that Nixon's crimes as president only hardened public cynicism and skepticism towards the Chief Executive...an attitude which has never gone away.
Gerald R. Ford(1974-1977) was perhaps the only person to have a less notable and less inspiring presidency than Taft. Ford's term summed up in one word? Inflation. There you go. Oh, and he restored Robert E. Lee's citizenship and narrowly missed getting shot by Squeaky Fromme.
Then we move on to perhaps the most honest and thoroughly decent man to ever hold the office of President, Jimmy Carter(1977-1981). He was, as the thing turned out, entirely too honest and decent to be President. At one point, I believe his approval rating dipped to 29 percent.
Do I really have to go into what happened next? No, I don't. Or at least I don't want to. It's too disheartening, especially after writing all of this. At least I didn't have to live through all of that. This is all too real.