it doesn't matter who the president is

In Brettschnieder’s The Presidents and The People, I take issue with a lot of his background argument. His book hopes to detail five presidents who threatened democracy, John Adams, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Woodrow Willson and Richard Nixon as well as the citizens who fought to defend it. I clash with the idea that it is these five presidents that are the sole threats to democracy and all other structures of the United States are fit to be democratically equal. I think this view, while attempting to rectify American wrongs, is highly limited insofar as its inability to imagine outside the institutional level. 


In detailing history about Washington, Brettschneider discusses the authenticity and inspiration of Washington's words (13). I think it would be a mistake to conflate Washington's intentions with the entire young nation's intentions. I find myself wondering if it's possible that Washington was such a unique man that he truly had no desire to derive power or control from the Constitution or what it represented. Further though, I wonder how practical it can be to base all the intentions of a government off one man’s perception. I mean to say that while Washington may not have wanted his nation to be founded off the backs of exploitation and murder, his nation is. I might be hyperbolizing but I feel it necessary to point out that the second we had written endorsement and authorization of the commodification of human beings savored into our history in dark ink, our democracy faced a far worse threat than anything Adams could really do. The callous disregard for human life was inevitable to a nation built upon the slaughter and exploitation of Native Americans. Importantly, today and for the past centuries we have committed global atrocities, destabilizing nations, ignoring the real needs of our own people who lack health security or shelter and more. Democracy or not, we are failing as a nation and I am certain that has to do with more than five presidents.


I think in putting such an emphasis on the Constitution and ways to be constitutional (79), Brettschneider seems to be equating our constitutional democracy with goodness or some system we should strive for. If that is true, it is important to recognize that our constitutional democracy “functions” off the exploitation of thousands of workers. I wonder what good it does to focus on democracy in a manner that is so narrowly institutionalized even though time and time again we have seen stale institutions operate in accordance with the scars of their past. 

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