Presidency, Populism, & the Decline of Parties w/ Sidney Milkis | BRI Scholar Talks

0:00 for me tony the modern presidency uh represents a change whereby the president uh rather than congress or political parties or state leaders becomes the the center of american uh democracy and part of that was a

0:21 change where both democrats and republicans uh and in a sense uh forfeit they’re important responsibilities to sustain the parties [Music] hi this is tony williams senior fellow at bri and we are pleased to bring you another episode of scholar talks for

0:42 this episode we are honored to have scholar sydney milkus who is going to discuss his book what happened to the vital center presidentialism populist revolt and the fracturing of america which he co-authored with nicholas jacobs and this is part of our american presidency series so the guiding question for this series

1:03 is what are the constitutional powers and limits of the american presidency and by way of introduction dr sydney melkis is the white burkitt miller professor in the department of politics at the university of virginia and a faculty fellow at the miller center he has written or edited 14 books including the president and the parties

1:25 the transformation of the american party system since the new deal also presidential greatness and a book in its ninth edition the american presidency origins and development 1776-2021 and a book i love theodore roosevelt the progressive party and the transformation

1:45 of american democracy and of course he’s won numerous awards for his scholarship and teaching and lectures frequently all over the country and really all over the world so sid i want to thank you very much for joining us thanks for having me tony great to be with you uh really you know i really love this book because you know i’ve thought a lot about and we do a lot of work at bri on how to promote civil

2:06 conversations why do americans seem so divided and and you give a very important and and very interesting answer to that kind of centered on uh the presidency so so let’s dig a little deeper and my first question is the vital center of american politics seems to have pressured along these deep

2:27 ideological divides it’s political polarization as i like to say we’re even fighting about where we buy our burritos or our coffee and that kind of thing and we were just so divided uh but and and but how has the presidency populism and especially as you know the decline of parties really contributed to

2:49 our current situation our current predicament yeah well um an important um buttress of the vital center uh was the party system and in fact the party system is a critical intermediary intermediary organization that has played a critical role in building a consensus in american politics tony

3:11 going back to the beginning of the 19th century it’s formed during the jeffersonian and jacksonian periods as a highly decentralized highly mobilized kind of patronage-based system um and it kind of uh it lasts so long it’s so powerful uh because it fits it dovetails with powerful um principles of american

3:33 politics decentralization love localism love of community um limited government um and also a commitment to kind of a kind of a property and comfortable materialism uh and and so it it it rema

3:53 it rooted itself deeply in americans hearts until that it began to fall apart in the 20th century because it began to be viewed with the changes in the world in american politics as an institution that was too provincial too on principle uh to uh govern american politics in the

4:15 wake of the massive changes that began to occur in the 20th century the industrial revolution uh the united states being pulled into world affairs massive immigration rise of civil rights activism which seemed to call for a more purposeful national uh government uh and those those calls for more purposeful government uh led to

4:36 the defense of a stronger presidency which was really uh uh tony uh as you and your listeners probably know quite weak uh until the 20th century now there were exceptions to that episodically we’d have heroic leadership like jefferson jackson and lincoln because of crises but what begins to happen in the 20th century is the presidency become power

4:59 becomes more routine uh rather than episodic this begins with woodrow wilson and theodore roosevelt uh during the progressive year i’m honored to hear you you loved my book on theater roosevelt uh but it’s consolidated modern presidency is institutionalized uh as the center of the new deal political order

5:20 during uh the 1930s and what that tends to do is to shift a partisan responsibility to executive responsibility and whereas in the traditional party system members of congress and state and local public officials were really the key figures

5:40 that power begins to shift gradually to the presidency uh and and so roosevelt describes this as a shift from kind of uh of provincial uh politics inefficient politics uh to what he called optimistically enlightened administ enlightened uh administration and uh

6:03 this of course uh strains the constitutional foundations of american politics considerably executive aggrandizement challenges all those those features of american politics so deeply rooted i mentioned before particularly a commitment to a decentralized republic uh and limited uh government uh and the the growing power

6:26 of the presidency makes american politics a more um uh either uh winner take all kind of politics it’s not an institution uh like the congress or the states uh state legislatures or the party system which pulled these things together to hammer out consensus to build

6:47 compromises to pull together uh some kind of uncommon understandings in in a large diverse country and so that begins as that develops and the presidency grows stronger coming out of the 1930s uh that begins to put a serious strain

7:07 uh on on the on on the country the country is gradually fractured and the national resolve is some somewhat weakened now what really makes this this change uh uh radioactive uh is uh the changes uh that occur in the in the 1960s

7:27 um for a while there was a kind of a rough consensus uh a kind of bipartisan commitment to the new deal uh and uh because it it was embodied by a national security state and welfare state which seemed to provide a sense of needed security in the wake of all those

7:48 changes that had occurred in the uh 20th century and the great depression and world war ii seemed to make the new deal uh such an indispensable kind of of political uh order uh but that began uh to fall apart uh in in in the 1960s and this is

8:09 where we get to populism uh populism has always been important in american politics you know episodically again uh there’s this eruptions against the constraining forces of the constitution claiming the systems is rigged uh that it that it uh ignores the disadvantage in american politics

8:30 that allows elites an establishment to feather their own mess at the expense of the people but what happens in the 60s is that there’s this kind of uh explosion of issues that for a long time had been not if marginalized or at least constrained in

8:51 american politics matters of uh race and uh and gender uh broadly conceived matters of identity uh which kind of agitates the culture war which is so familiar to us now and where’s the new deal emphasized battles

9:13 over security and domestic and international affairs which lends itself somewhat to compromise and bargaining uh the issues that emerge in in the 60s uh civil rights women’s rights the anti-war movement those issues seem to defy the kind of pragmatic political system

9:35 that the american that had traditionally characterized american politics so the growth of the presidency uh and this movement politics combined in the 60s we see this with lyndon johnson and richard nixon both who who see their ambitions being served by tapping in uh to this co these cultural conflicts

9:57 that are emerging in a way that’s very combustible and and fractures the nation uh and really leads to a major departure from the new deal state and i would say now uh what what conservatives and liberals are doing is battling for the services of the administrative state ford’s women deal to serve either liberal or conservative

10:19 purposes right yeah uh very important and and uh the two-party system seemed to mitigate two of the problems that we face in our society namely uh the the threat of populism and demagoguery uh and and how they uh perhaps threaten our democratic constitutional order so so how did the

10:40 party party system for so long mitigate that it mitigated it because it was uh it was highly decentralized and so it wasn’t possible for donald trump to capture somebody like donald trump a charismatic leader uh to capture uh the party uh and uh and also it had

11:03 uh important institutional power to constrain the presidency so with the development of the two-party system during the jacksonian area era you get these uh the national convention which is kind of the institutional foundation of the two-party system and every four years uh the democratic and republican parties that’s the way it looks after

11:24 after the civil war uh but both the democratic and republican parties would kind of reassert themselves in these quadrennial elections and the conventions were made up of party leaders members of congress state local leaders who had the power to nominate a president uh and to and to establish

11:45 a a platform and a lot of times those conventions were messy compromises were formed the convention system uh like many institutions in american politics was uh destroyed by the antinomians politics the anti-institutional politics of the 1960s so um throughout the 20th century there

12:07 had kind of been a kind of a populist insurgency attacking parties uh the leading institutional uh remedy or weapon of that populism was the direct primary which would take power away from the party uh leaders and give it to voters in primary elections uh and uh but but uh those reforms move

12:28 rather slowly until the 60s and there and there’s a really powerful destination with what are called the governing for asian reforms which uh which grow out of the civil rights uh an anti-war movement an attack on this kind of important institution of the establishment these decentralized provincial corrupt

12:50 party organizations there are obstacles to achieving racial justice uh justice abroad in the united in the united states and so the national conventions are replaced by this system we have now of primaries and open caucuses the kind of plebiscite media-driven system and it really reaches its culmination tony with uh

13:11 barack obama and donald trump who for all their uh really remarkable differences share two traits uh they both um disdain party organization and they both see themselves as leaders of movements you mentioned a a little bit in the first question but what role do the progressives and franklin roosevelt play

13:33 in the development of what you call in the book a president-centered partisanship the idea um behind the modern presidency first of all we have to say well what is the modern presidency whatever i teach it my students say well what is this the modern presidency how’s the presidency from let’s say franklin roosevelt aren’t different

13:54 uh from the presidency before um and the difference is uh the the political system and the presidency before the new deal um uh was anchored by us decentralized parties with a that really had a a a a collective identity with a past and a

14:14 future couldn’t be dominated uh by by a president for me tony the modern presidency uh represents a change whereby the president uh rather than congress or political parties or state leaders uh becomes um

14:35 the the center of of american uh democracy and part of that was a change where both democrats and republicans uh and in a sense forfeit their important responsibilities to sustain the parties nominating candidates for office raising

14:57 funds developing a program uh mobilizing a base all that which was done by this highly mobilized decentralized partisan party system is kind of transferred to the presidency uh and and that begins an important way uh during the presidencies of uh wilson

15:18 uh theodore roosevelt and frank and franklin roosevelt franklin roosevelt really brings it to a head in his second term uh where he begins to come into conflict with the decentralized democratic party particularly this very fragile alliance between southern democrats and northern democrats southern

15:39 democrats very opposed to some of the overtures more ambitious programs of the new deal and when southern democrats start the center and voting two critical parts of new deal institutional reform down that being the court backing plan and the executive reorganization act which would create

16:00 the an institution of the presidency making an institution rather than office roosevelt seeks vengeance on southern democrats and engages in what was really then a revolutionary action pioneering the purge campaign in the 1938 midterm elections where he enters the primary particularly with notable southerners and border state

16:20 senators who oppose the new deal and tries them to replace them 100 uh new dealers but it shifts the gravity in the party uh from this kind of decentralized establishment to the presidency and thereafter the presidency begins to give a form to parties and that’s accelerated

16:41 uh by the mcgovern fraser reforms which enables presidential candidates and presidents to form a direct connection with the party base with the party constituency right and something very interesting that happens in in the 60s and 70s which you alluded to are are the transformation and of liberalism and the conservative movement and so how do they

17:02 contribute to this growing polarization and sort of shared mistrust of institutions what what happens uh coming out of the kind of um rebellions of the 60 the emergence of all these uh these movements is what we now consider the democratic and republican bases the

17:24 most loyal party uh supporters who are unyielding defenders of its most ambitious programs and commitments the critical nature of the transformation is liberalism which was dedicated to a kind of moderate view of the welfare state one that

17:44 compromised with jim crow in in the south uh and and uh national security shifts from uh from that kind of commitment to domestic and international security to what we now refer to as identi identity politics uh the notion i think jesse jackson uh talked about liberals and new liberals

18:05 ambition being a rainbow coalition a a a commitment to satis to fulfill the rights of those who are under privilege in society and also to um uh to reject the kind of imperialism uh that uh the activists that emerged in the 70s associated uh with our foreign policy

18:26 after after after vietnam america was no longer a city on the hill as it was uh and and conservatism which was committed to limited government you think of mr republican senator robert taft from ohio who was committed to limited government in domestic and international affairs and that

18:46 that represented his opposition to the new deal um that kind of conservatism shifts into a much more uh aggressive form of socialism uh aroused and barry goldwater is the kind of blares the trumpet to summon uh this new new conservatism

19:07 uh which uh believes still believes in in traditional values and america playing uh fighting uh evil like communism abroad but feels that liberalism has so corrupted the country that just restraining government is no

19:28 longer adequate that now conservatives must commit themselves to modern to modern executive power as a weapon to defend uh traditional values uh to restore america’s uh the idea of america as a city on the hill with a

19:48 with a critical role to play in foreign affairs and then uh with the uh after september 11 2001 to protect the homeland which which really becomes the kind of core commitment of the republican party after the bush administration so one of the things that happens with uh conservatives as a result of the new deal

20:08 is they no longer committed to limited government and they begin to view the presidency as a double-edged sword that can cut ideologically in a conservative as well as a liberal direct direction nixon begins this in defense of the silent majority but ronald reagan really uh establishes them as a critical part of conservative politics in the united

20:30 states so we now have the liberal conservatism that that view themselves view each other as kind of an existential threat uh to the country uh they have an unde unyielding view of what it means to be an american uh each of them has a view but those

20:51 views are really in serious conflict so much so that a lot of my colleagues suggest that we’re now in a period of the cold civil war that note uh that leads me to my final question and maybe final question we’re just getting warmed up here again that’s true and maybe it’s the sobering one but well hopefully you can leave us

21:12 with a hint of optimism you know what can be done to limit or or hopefully perhaps even reverse the effects of this executive-centered partisanship uh that that seems to just divide us so much and sort of plague our embattled political systems civil society social media

21:32 all of it can you suggest a few things that might be done one i think is to enhance participation in the united states now this may seem to be in conflict with the idea of populism that we that has become so rampant in american politics but but what has happened in this kind of movement politics tied to the presidency

21:53 is it presumes to be participatory democracy but really you have strong feeling minority factions dominating each party and even though we’ve had some increase in our turnout 60 percent i think last election 40 percent still don’t vote uh and so i think the effort now in some of the states in the name of populism

22:16 restricting voting um uh access to voting is the wrong way to go uh and and i would just um go with walt whitman the poet who described america’s uh elections as america’s great choosing day and make our elections a national holiday and i also think we should encourage voting in person

22:38 it’s better when people see each other out at the polls uh there’s a i maybe it’s just because i’m a political scientist but i feel like i’m doing something important when i go to polls i think we need to get more people out to vote to to begin to take some power away from these bases a second thing is we have to figure out a way tony and i haven’t figured it out a way to revitalize party organizations

23:00 we can’t restore the state state and local parties their day has passed that would lead to a kind of national tammany hall um you thought you mentioned tammany hallway right while we came on uh you know a kind of national spoils and we can’t no larry can afford that but we have to figure out how to establish national organizations

23:20 that have some independence from the presidency and uh we go into some detail of this in the book i would but i would just say that what we nick and i really urge is to strengthen the national conventions and and change them so they no longer simply confirm the verdict of the prime

23:41 minister and incarnate the presidential candidate we have to figure out a way to engage members of congress uh important figures at the state state and local uh level before the primary contest in a kind of convocation where they they begin to lay out the principles of the parties that might shape

24:02 the primary context i know that sounds pretty utopian uh but it’s the general objective is what i would i would stress and then finally i think we have to figure out a way uh to um uh to uh uh to roll back presidentialism in our politics and government

24:24 uh and and re-engage the presidency uh with um with the congress uh because one of the things that’s happened in this executive-centered partisanship is congress has kind of delegated responsibility to the president to carry to carry out its objectives so when there’s a democratic president uh

24:45 democrats in congress uh sacrifice institutional integrity or royalties for partisan loyalties and the same thing happens with the republic we saw this with in the 2020 convention the republicans said our platform is we pledge our loyalty to the president’s america first so we have to figure out a way to tone back

25:05 uh the the [Music] presidentialism in the united states and reengage the president with congress one of things i’ve stressed and nobody seems too excited about this idea but i i don’t think we can become a parliamentary system um but i think it would be a good idea to adopt one

25:26 um uh one um ingredient of a parliamentary system and that is has the president go before congress at least once every two weeks and engage in a question period instead of the president just simply um [Music] carrying out uh responsibilities that have been delegated to him uh by the congress are only engaging

25:46 congress in the state of the union message uh it would lead to some serious arguments uh people may get a little frustrated but i think it it potentially could be healthy i also think we need to cut back on the institution of the presidency which is in this white house office the west wing and this massive executive office of the

26:07 president and and restore some of those responsibilities to the cabinet uh and the congress uh um i think presidents ought to be defending the regulatory program not before omb and the office of management budget but before important committees in the congress and departments and agencies and the executive branch so

26:28 those are melchized responses to an existential crisis of democracy fair enough uh fair enough said i i think that uh we would all watch c-span a little bit more if those debates are on yeah we might even get some coverage on by the regular networks right that’s right i i know i would watch so uh the book is

26:50 what happened to the vital center uh and basically an important book on uh helping to restore american democracy and civil conversation sid thank you so much for joining us really my pleasure thanks it’s been an honor to be with you thank you and thank you all for joining us on this episode of scholar talk so please check out our other interviews in the series with our illustrious

27:11 political scientists and historians on the american presidency and also watch our extensive library of interviews on the topic including the series the cold war and the presidency also steve knott on the constitutional unpopulace presidency and sarah burns did a great interview on the presidency and war powers also please check out our

27:32 highly popular bri curriculum the presidents and the constitution thank you