The Unmaking of Restraint

How the American Presidency Slipped from Stewardship to Supremacy

From George Washington to Donald Trump, we have undergone two and a half centuries of drift, crisis, and ambition that resulted in an informal rewriting of the Constitution without a formal amendment.

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Choosing Our Republic—Before It’s Chosen for Us

This isn’t a biography of every American president. It’s a focused look at the inflection points—those moments when the presidency didn’t just change hands but changed shape. I’ve spotlighted the leaders who, for better or worse—and only in my opinion—fundamentally altered the office. Some rose to meet the moment. Others were the moment. But each marked a shift in how executive power is understood, exercised, and justified.

This isn’t about nostalgia or filling out a partisan scoreboard. It’s about understanding the arc of the presidency—and asking some hard questions about where that arc is taking us. Because here’s the reality: we’re at another inflection point. Arguably, the most consequential one yet.

Soon, we’ll have to decide—not just who should hold the office, but what that office even is. Is the presidency still a constitutional role grounded in stewardship and separation of powers? Or has it become something else entirely—a personal lever of authority, constrained only by ambition and public tolerance?

We can’t afford to dodge that question. The stakes aren’t theoretical. They’re existential. The Constitution is more than parchment—it’s a blueprint for liberty, and our best defense against power unbound. If we abandon it for convenience or spectacle, we won’t just lose the republic—we’ll lose any moral standing to lead by example. Most importantly, beyond the partisan politics of today, our actions will define roles, responsibilities, and powers of leaders for decades to come. Leaders who may (or may not) align with our beliefs.

This is the story of how we got here. What we do next—that’s what will determine what kind of republic we still have left to defend.

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The Founding Model: From Restraint to Necessity… The Original Design

In 1789, the presidency wasn’t a throne—it was a trust. A deliberately modest office, limited by design and animated by humility. George Washington, reluctant to take the job and eager to leave it, set the gold standard for constitutional restraint. No royal trappings. No lifetime authority. He deferred to Congress and voluntarily gave up power. That act did more to legitimize the new republic than any single clause in the Constitution.

The Founders understood that executive power was inherently dangerous. Washington made it tolerable by embodying civic virtue. But he couldn’t guarantee that future presidents would follow his lead.

His immediate successors—Adams, Jefferson, Madison—wrestled with translating Enlightenment theory into functional governance. Jefferson, champion of limited government, nearly swallowed his own principles to pull off the Louisiana Purchase. Madison took the country into the War of 1812. The office, once reactive, was already drifting toward initiative—still tethered to the Constitution, but stretching the leash.

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Jackson’s Populist Powerplay

Andrew Jackson didn’t inherit the presidency—he overhauled it. He governed not by institutional constraint, but by direct appeal to the people. His vetoes weren’t grounded in legal reasoning—they were political judgments. He ignored the Supreme Court in Worcester v. Georgia, rammed the Indian Removal Act through Congress, and expanded executive power through sheer force of will.

The presidency, once cautious and consensus-driven, had found its first warrior-king. Jackson’s playbook was simple and dangerous: trust your instincts, reward loyalty, punish opposition, and ignore elites. He left behind economic chaos, institutional damage, and a model of the presidency unbound by legal modesty. That model would go dormant for a while—but it wouldn’t stay buried.

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Lincoln’s Moral Expansion

By the mid-19th century, the presidency had receded into caution and timidity—paralyzed in the face of moral and sectional crisis. Then came Abraham Lincoln.

He inherited a fractured Union and a presidency too weak to preserve it. What he built was paradoxical: a radical expansion of power in the service of constitutional salvation. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and blockaded Southern ports—all without congressional preapproval.

But unlike future presidents, Lincoln didn’t wield power for personal gain. He did it to save the Union and, with it, the constitutional order. “The Constitution is not a suicide pact,” he said—and he meant it. He left behind a stronger executive, but one still grounded in purpose and principle.

Future presidents would remember the power. They wouldn’t always remember the restraint.

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The Rise of the Modern Presidency (TR to Reagan)…The Post-Lincoln Drift

After Lincoln’s assassination, the presidency shrank. Johnson’s battles over Reconstruction, Grant’s scandals, and a long string of timid caretakers turned the office into little more than a glorified accountant. Congress reigned. Political machines ruled. Industry filled the vacuum.

The presidency wasn’t weak by law—it was weak by ambition. And that kind of vacuum never stays empty for long.

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Theodore Roosevelt’s Reawakening

TR took office by chance and changed it by choice. He didn’t ask what the Constitution permitted—he asked what it didn’t forbid. He busted trusts, settled labor disputes, conserved national lands, and reshaped foreign policy through sheer force of personality.

He called the presidency a “bully pulpit”—a moral megaphone more than a legal instrument. Roosevelt made the presidency the face of national will. Bold. Public. Assertive. But he also moved the executive office further away from the original limits designed by the Founders.

The presidency was no longer just a servant of the system. It was becoming the driver.

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Wilson’s Idealism—and Breakdown

Woodrow Wilson carried TR’s activist energy into the realm of idealism. He reengineered domestic policy, centralized power during World War I, and tried to reshape global order through the League of Nations. But when he suffered a debilitating stroke, governance effectively transferred to his wife and close aides.

No constitutional safeguard kicked in. No system corrected the dysfunction. The presidency had grown too big to fail—and yet too fragile to fix. The illusion of continuity masked a real leadership vacuum. That dynamic—an all-powerful office with no backup plan—would resurface in later presidencies, with far greater consequences.

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Harding to Hoover: Retreat and Paralysis

In Wilson’s wake, Harding and Coolidge retreated into minimalism. Hoover followed with principle-bound paralysis in the face of economic collapse.

By 1932, the presidency was an office with enormous potential—but nobody was willing to use it.

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FDR’s Transformation

Franklin Roosevelt didn’t just use the presidency—he rebuilt it. Confronted with economic catastrophe, he launched the New Deal: massive public works, sweeping regulations, and a direct channel to the American public through radio.

Then came WWII, and FDR went further: rationing, censorship, internment, global war strategy—all centralized under his command. By the time he died in office during his fourth term, the presidency had evolved from constitutional executor to global commander-in-chief.

And it never fully shrank back. From then on, the executive wasn’t just one co-equal branch. It was the center of American government. The others became, at times, supporting actors.

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Truman and the National Security State

Truman inherited not just the presidency, but the bomb—and a permanent war footing. He institutionalized the postwar security state: the CIA, the NSC, and a restructured Pentagon. He committed American forces to Korea without a declaration of war.

The 22nd Amendment put a cap on presidential terms. But it didn’t cap presidential power. In fact, Truman showed future presidents how to grow government around the executive—and how to keep war powers without the war declarations.

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JFK, LBJ, and the Limits of Modern Power

John F. Kennedy mastered image and rhetoric. He projected confidence and vision, particularly during the Cuban Missile Crisis. But his presidency was short—and largely untested.

Lyndon Johnson, by contrast, delivered monumental domestic reforms—civil rights, Medicare, the Great Society. But in Vietnam, he pushed executive power past its breaking point. He bypassed public consensus and lost the public’s trust. By the end of his presidency, the office was bigger—but the faith in it was smaller.

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Nixon and the Collapse of Norms

Richard Nixon had strategic depth—but personal demons. He opened China, launched environmental reform, and expanded federal authority—but also weaponized federal agencies, spied on political opponents, and tried to obstruct justice.

Watergate wasn’t just a scandal—it was a constitutional reckoning. Nixon didn’t invent executive overreach, but he brought it to a breaking point. When he resigned, the term “imperial presidency” became more than a warning. It became a diagnosis.

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Ford, Carter, and Reagan: From Caretakers to Communicators

Ford tried to steady the ship. Carter tried to reform it. Both struggled to command the institution they led.

Then came Ronald Reagan. A gifted communicator with a big vision and broad appeal, he rebuilt confidence in the office. He slashed taxes, rebuilt the military, and helped push the Cold War to its finale.

But Reagan’s hands-off management style created new blind spots—especially in covert operations. Iran-Contra wasn’t just a scandal. It was a preview of how executive freelancing could bypass oversight entirely.

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From Crisis Manager to Campaign Brand—Clinton to Obama…Moving from Bush 41, the last strategist, to a new form of presidency

George H.W. Bush was a Cold War strategist and statesman—steering the U.S. through the Soviet collapse, German reunification, and Desert Storm with clarity and competence.

But in the media-driven, soundbite era, strategy wasn’t enough. The public had started valuing style over substance.

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Clinton and the Permanent Campaign

Bill Clinton merged Reagan’s charisma with policy chops. He balanced the budget, passed NAFTA, reformed welfare. But he also turned the presidency into a nonstop campaign—governing in spin cycles, weathering scandal, and waging political warfare 24/7.

The office became less about stewardship and more about survival.

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Bush 43 and the Fortress Presidency

George W. Bush entered office promising humility. Then came 9/11.

The War on Terror gave rise to a fortress presidency—preemptive war, mass surveillance, indefinite detention, and enhanced interrogation. Congress largely stood aside. Courts blinked. The public, in fear, accepted it.

But the costs piled up. Iraq unraveled. Katrina exposed leadership failure. The 2008 crash shattered trust. Executive power expanded—but confidence in the institution did not.

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Obama: The Technocrat as Symbol

Barack Obama brought discipline, dignity, and institutional respect. He passed the ACA, stabilized the auto industry, and reached international agreements on climate and Iran. But with Congress gridlocked, he increasingly turned to executive orders and administrative rule-making.

It was legal. It was smart. It was also fragile.

Obama modeled competence. But he also normalized executive workaround as a governing strategy. He handed the tools to the next person—who might not use them so judiciously.

And in doing so, he revealed just how fractured the electorate had become. The divisions weren’t new—but they were now front and center.

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The Personalization—and Weaponization—of the Presidency…Trump 1.0 as the Showman Becomes Sovereign

Donald Trump didn’t hijack the presidency—he revealed what it had become.

He governed not as a steward of institutions. He governed as a sovereign brand. Executive orders became press releases. Twitter replaced the press briefing. Loyalty trumped competence.

He didn’t invent the imperial presidency. He simply dropped the pretense.

There were real policy wins—tax reform, deregulation, the Abraham Accords. But they served the brand, not the institution.

Then came 2020. The refusal to concede. “Stop the Steal.” January 6. It wasn’t just unprecedented—it was the culmination of years of drift. A cult of personality had captured a constitutional office.

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Biden: Restoration Without Reinvention

Joe Biden came into office promising calm after chaos. And he delivered results: COVID relief, infrastructure, Ukraine support.

But he governed as if the old norms still applied.

They don’t.

Faced with polarization and paralysis, Biden leaned into executive action. Like his predecessors, he governed by fiat—leaving the courts to sort it out. The presidency he hoped to restrain mirrored the one he inherited.

Intentions aside, Biden left the door open. And into that vacuum stepped the only man loud enough to fill it—again.

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Trump 2.0: The Post-Constitutional Presidency

Trump’s return isn’t a second term—it’s a second regime.

Schedule F. A politicized DOJ. Loyalty oaths. Bureaucratic purges. It’s not hypothetical. It’s a plan.

Trump 2.0 merges Reagan’s optics, Nixon’s defiance, and Jackson’s vengeance—without their virtues. It’s not governance. It’s domination.

And this time, the guardrails are already bent.

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The Future at Risk

The presidency is no longer a constitutional office. It’s a projection of personal power. Its authority is vast. Its constraints are brittle. And its legitimacy now depends entirely on the character of the individual who holds it.

We were meant to have a strong but limited executive. Now we have one that is strong—and limitless.

And the consequences are not abstract. They’re real. They’re accelerating. And they’re dangerous.

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Conclusion: The Presidency Reflects Us—And That’s the Problem

From Washington’s quiet exit to Trump’s refusal to concede, the arc is clear: from restraint to reach, from servant to spectacle.

Presidents don’t seize power in a vacuum. We hand it to them. Congress abdicated. The courts hesitated. The public, hungry for theater, tolerated it.

We didn’t lose the presidency. We traded it.

Now we face a choice. Do we restore limits and demand constitutional fidelity? Or do we keep playing Caesar roulette, gambling that the next strongman will be benevolent?

Because we’re not just choosing presidents anymore. We’re choosing the kind of republic we intend to be.

And if we get it wrong again, there may not be a republic left to choose from.