[Music] why are Americans so unhappy with their leaders if you take out anomalies like the September 11th attack American Trust in their government has been on a decades long steady decline elections for many have become a matter of choosing the least bad option the candidate who will do the least damage to the United States and hopefully with some luck we'll somehow create some real change many others now believe that the system itself is broken that it's unable to produce leaders that will help the public and the only solution is for an outsider to come in and more or less break the system and fashion a new one but how did things get to be this way the United States has had its share of inspirational leaders leaders that were widely popular in their time and who were seen to have positively contributed to the welfare of the American people and who went on to be venerated in American lore as one of the greats but why did these leaders seem so few and far between the United States has hundreds of millions of citizens to choose from how can such a massive country be perpetually unable to produce leaders that its public is at least reasonably happy with this video will look at two main things one is the nature of the presidency and the other is the Public's relationship to the presidency it will then argue that the Confluence of those two factors all but guarantees disappointment and disillusionment which in turn makes Democratic Leadership ever more difficult which also in turn drives the best and brightest of Americans away from seeking office and in short gives the United States a leadership problem we're going to start by considering the subject from an angle that I think is rarely discussed anymore which is ironic because I think it's an obvious starting point to gain a strong fundamental understanding of what we're talking about and that's to consider the intentions behind the role of the presidency and coupled with that the design of the presidency so we need to for a moment take ourselves back to the end of the 18th century when the American Founders were debating the design of their new government they had just decoupled themselves from monarchical England they had also just been traumatized by a popular Uprising known as Shea's Rebellion that put their thinking in a box they didn't want to make a government so elitist that didn't belong to the people but they also didn't want to make a government that could be taken over by popular passions they understood that when crowds of people came together and became passionate even angry they could become both powerful and unreasonable the theory goes that regardless of how intelligent any one individual is as you add more people into a conversation and start reaching Mass numbers sophisticated debate becomes ever more difficult and politics begin to resemble a clash of sloganeering which can quickly become a hot-headed clash of emotions which can also quickly become a liability for everyone involved so the founders believed that the excesses of mass politics needed to be kept under control Mass Politics on the whole needed to be kept away from the rooms where policy decisions were made and in general away from the seats of power for that very reason the Constitution itself was drafted in secret the windows to the building nailed shut the heavy drapes drawn it was a lesson they specifically believed they learned from ancient Athens which they believed drove itself to destruction through its popular political choices as the main framer of the Constitution James Madison described the problem of their system had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob to the founders these were pure democracies democracies where all eligible citizens could participate in politics and dictate policy they believed that the Roman Republic was by comparison much more stable and therefore PR able the Roman Republic had some democratic practices but also checked those practices against elitist ones and vice versa the elitist institutions could be checked by the Democratic ones which reflected the second fear of the founders the fear of Elites basically everyone involved in politics can only be expected to look out for their own interests Elites are no exception to that and cannot be expected to act in the Public's interest unless the public is somehow able to hold power over them it's a a balance they achieved by giving Elites responsibility for setting and carrying out policy but in a limited and ever expanding way the public was given the power to choose who those Elites were the public every election cycle could hire and fire them but the founders were still worried that a group of Elites could come together conspire and claim full control over the government they were similarly worried that a large group of citizens could come together and claimed disproportionate power based basically taking over the government and tyrannizing everyone else that meant that power had to be thoroughly broken up and checked in the United States extending that logic out into the federal system makes it even more complicated the federal government couldn't hold all the power and any one individual State couldn't hold Sovereign power power had to be broken up across the entire government giving some power to larger bodies other to smaller bodies power to Federal bodies and other power to State bodies power had to be so thoroughly broken up and checked that it would be exhausting for any one group however large or small to rise up and take control over the whole thing I'm specifically talking about how American politics are structured to deal with domestic issues foreign politics United States are by comparison much less decentralized the president serves as commanderin-chief of the military which is typically used abroad and leads foreign policy by representing the nation abroad but Americans are overwhelmingly and even notoriously concerned with domestic politics not Foreign Affairs and even historically ask the president to focus on domestic politics at the expense of Foreign Affairs which brings me to the first major problem that I want to talk about which is American disillusionment with the performance of their presidents presidents themselves are undoubtedly largely responsible for it the reason why is because they themselves set expectations for their performance candidates presumably because it's what they believe they need to do to get into office but perhaps to the detriment of the office overall overpromise on what they can do they don't just mildly overpromise they wildly overpromise and they don't just overpromise they have to get the public excited about those promises they spend much of their campaign traveling across the country trying to drum up that excitement across various parts of the electorate in the grand scheme of American History it's a phenomenon that's relatively new candidates used to able to focus on a much more narrow band of issues and had a much more subdued election process even the most notable presence in American history up until the 1940s only had a few issues they're expected to focus on for example George Washington was expected to focus on interpreting what the role of the president actually entailed in practice and was expected to perhaps most importantly retire once he had served his time therefore setting a precedent for the peaceful non-hereditary transfer of power Abraham Lincoln was expected to focus on the issues of slavery and civil disunity which meant that he was able to spend a tremendous amount of time and attention contemplating and crafting his approach to solving those problems Franklin Delano Roosevelt was expected to deal with the threat of War abroad and the crisis of the Great Depression at home which again meant that he could work thoughtfully through those problems and if deemed successful he would be deemed a good president by most Americans contemporary Americans generally agree that that the present should focus on improving the economy which is complicated enough but beyond that each present is expected to provide a vast array of solutions to an equally vast array of problems an improbable array of solutions that the presidents themselves had largely pledged to provide that in part could be thought of as a natural development the longer the United States has existed the more complicated the world exists in has become as populations grow integrate and develop issues grow along with them which naturally makes leaders attempt to step up and solve those issues which makes the number of Demands on the American government increase but it's also in part A Change by Design in the late 1960s the Democratic party changed its primary process which made the Republican party in turn change its own up until that point getting nominated by a party was a much more passive process many candidates wouldn't actively C campaign during the primaries thinking that having to do that would be a sign of weakness the public had very little say in the process and the parties internally chose their candidates in 1968 Hubert Humphrey was nominated by the Democratic party despite not having participated in the primaries and the backlash was so intense that a Reform Commission pledged to look into the nomination process which would ultimately transform the nomination system for Democrats and Republicans alike under the new system the public would now choose their preferred candidate and the political parties would nominate according to the Public's choice that meant that candidates now had to participate in the primaries to win over voters and would now make their cases for their candidacies directly to the public this isn't to say that the new system necessarily affected the quality of candidates one way or the other but the new system brought in an important change candidates would no longer have to sit down with political insiders and have a serious discussion about what could and could not be accomplished and perhaps most importantly how their platform would be accomplished candidates would now make their cases directly to the public a public that may or may not be interested in dissecting the realism of their platforms that has led us to a culture of one-upping on the campaign Trail where candidates compete to offer the public something ever better than their competitors in that process they again don't necessarily have to be realistic they need only to make the public believe in them as a result of all their promises candidates come into office with a lofty range of expectations on their shoulders expectations then that they can't possibly live up to power in the United States as we've established is heavily broken up by Design the office that the founders were especially keen on constraining was that of the president regardless of how popular that president was they believed that people naturally inclined towards the rule of one which to them was a monarchy but you could also call a dictatorship Ben Franklin for example knowing George Washington would likely be the first president said the first man put at the helm will be a good one nobody knows what sort may come afterwards the executive will always be increasing here as elsewhere till it ends in a monarchy so they're especially concerned with constraining and limiting the power of the president making it so the survival of the country didn't depend on the talent and virtue of the executive when it comes to domestic politics a president can make recommendations but cannot forcefully dictate what the law is or how the law is interpreted their main power is to see to it that the laws are Faithfully executed but even then a president is one figure in a large Department the overwhelming majority of people working in the executive branch are long-term employees and are not necessarily supportive of and are not hired by the president and the federal government itself is is limited against the rights of state governments and against the rights of individual citizens of the United States when the president tries to make change happen it's been likened to a penny being dropped through the top of a machine a president's directives are filtered by so many figures that if and when change does occur there's no guaranteeing it will create the result the present intended lynen Johnson put the problem colorfully when he was advised to fire an employee who had just undermined one of his programs fire him Johnson shot back I can't even find him George W Bush's Chief of Staff put the problem more modestly in the presidency there is the illusion of being in charge but all presidents must accept that in many Realms they are not in charge the presidents then who campaigned as if they had something like full control over the government we want to have faith again we want to be proud again we just want the truth again it's time for the people to run the government and not the other way around find themselves in office having far from it presidents underperform then over and over held against the standards that they themselves set at the same time they tell the public to care if you look at the messaging from the successful campaigners since the mid 20th century they tend to present two themes one is hope there's a Rosy future available they say just tantalizingly Out Of Reach hire that president and that future is yours think that as president I could help to change all our people's lives for the better and bring hope back to the American dream the other theme is fear there is existential danger danger that could reach you in the very neighborhood that you're in but that danger could be averted again hire that President and you will be saved vote for President Johnson on November 3rd the stakes are too high for you to stay home both themes tap into some of our deepest emotions and if we're to believe them get us to care about the candidates and the life of their candidacies if this happens enough times people care are disappointed are convinced to care again and again are disappointed disillusionment is bound to set in what probably makes this all worse is that it's a job that's becoming we'll say ever more questionably desirable the role of the president has always been difficult but since FDR expanded the scope and operations of the executive branch it has become a job that borders on inhumane presidents up to and including FDR used to have relatively leisurely daily schedules they had fewer responsibilities and typically only a handful of meetings on any given day their slower schedule gave them time to think to deliberate over difficult problems and to be spontaneous if spontaneity struck the role of the president has evolved the president's time as one author put it is now considered one of the most precious Commodities in the world as a modern president your entire day is scheduled even your rare breaks snipers sit perched on your roof your every movement is tracked the extreme stress pressure and work ethic imposed on Modern presidents visibly ages them they regularly speak of the sense of isolation the office gives them Barack Obama's National Security adviser put it this way to get fresh air you're either on the south lawn which gets very confined or you're playing golf in a bubble you literally can't get out if you want to watch a movie you have to watch it in the White House theater if you want to see your friends you basically have to invite them over if you go to their house it's a whole production they've got to sweep the house it's ridiculous you really feel that the walls are closing in on you Obama fantasized about being able to put on a baseball cap in sunglasses and walk through Central Park and just look like some normal black guy and even if he tried to do that now everybody would recognize him you never Escape that once you've given up your Independence you never get it back and one shouldn't underestimate what that does to people as president you'll be expected to make decisions on a bewildering range of issues that you can't possibly have expertise on and you might even be entirely unprepared for George W bush for example planned on having a humble foreign policy and centering his presidency around education policy and domestic issues only to be defined by terrorism and War in the Middle East the private life of a president is also increasingly less private from the popular images you see of FDR you might forget that as president he had polio and lived in a wheelchair the reason why is because there was a general understanding in the Press not to publish images of him that way out of respect for the Dignity of the office John F Kennedy's many extramarital Affairs were similarly generally kept out of the press Richard Nixon used to drunkenly call reporters late at night slurring his words the reporters again respectfully didn't report it if you want to become a president now you can and should expect every detail of your life to be rifled through and every unflattering image or deed or phrase you've ever said or done to be Unearthed and published which on one hand humanizes presidents but also when politics are heated makes them into Prime subjects for public abuse as one historian put it presidents had been heroes in the past they became targets of derision by the second half of the 20th century an important question should be under these circumstances who wants this job if you were the best and brightest of your country would you go for it anyone looking for reasons to not like a particular president will now find them reasons regardless of who they are will be dug up and delivered which brings us to perhaps the most important change in the country which makes the job arguably less desirable and certainly more difficult 1968 was a traumatic year for the American people two beacons of peaceful Change Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy were both assassinated within 2 months the Ted offensive by the North Vietnamese also revealed that Johnson's administration had been lying to Americans about their progress in the Vietnam War leaving Americans feeling angry betrayed and cynical about Johnson's Administration and turning large sections of the public against the Vietnam War many conservatives felt threatened by a series of Supreme Court cases that strengthened abortion rights and stripped Christian practices from public life meanwhile an Ever greater number of protest groups told Americans that the Golden Age they thought they had just lived through wasn't such a golden age after all if you weren't a straight white male to make it all worse the costs of living were rising and no one seemed able to stop it stressed and fractured Americans blamed one another and over time more and more consumed media geared at them that affirmed they were correct the United States polarized briefly coming together in a crisis or times of relative prosperity but over time polarizing more and more unlike autocracies where a right-wing dictator can more or less Force the country to go right or a left-wing dictator can more or less Force the country to go left polarized democracies flounder trying to get anything done forging a consensus to pass legislation becomes more difficult successful action on one side is likely to infuriate the other which then becomes energized gets into the power and undo it making the country expend a lot of energy But ultimately stagnate polarization also makes the job less appealing for presidents who now have to decide to inherit an even more difficult position a position that on one hand demands high performance from them while also making that performance more difficult and on the other causes half the country to dislike or even revile them by virtue of having come into their life as the representative of the other side of the polarized sphar short of the extraordinary circumstance that brings people together the days of American presidents having a strong majority of the country behind them seem to be gone if they do anything unpopular they can Now quickly expect to have less than half the country supporting them a precarious position to be in for any leader in a two-party system approval for every president starts at a high many people despite everything more or less believed their campaign rhetoric or wish the best for the presidency and the country but then time passes and the country is still more or less the same as it was perhaps a little better or perhaps a little worse the president wasn't able to bring about the profound change that was expected in the worst cases presidents create scandals they lie or even break the law in the very worst cases presidents can bring about crises or even National humiliations a hostage rescue goes wrong Banks fail questionable Wars are started it seems over and over that presidents can't live up to Americans expectations in many cases Americans even find their presence to be disasters that has led to a downward Trend in support for the American government which certainly isn't helped by Congress by its gridlock and Domination by special interests but Americans look to presidents to solve these problems to take strong action and turn the country towards a brighter future and presidents over and over aren't able to deliver to use stock market terminology the United States is going through a bearish trend in their attitudes towards their leaders while we were at one point perhaps overly optimistic about our leaders we're now perhaps overly cynical even if it's a cynicism that was largely self-inflicted by presidents a cynicism brought by their own behaviors and misbehaviors onto the office it's also also a cynicism that almost certainly makes their job more difficult which in turn lowers the performance of presidents which also in turn invites more cynicism whether the United States can pull out of the trend it's in whether the American people can one way or another regain trust and develop a healthier relationship with their leaders or whether the trend will continue and cause the United States to face the consequences of the decline of its highest office remains to be see