New Books in American Politics

Michael McConnell, the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford University Law School and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, has written an examination of the power that the president has in the U.S. constitutional system. The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power under the Constitution (Princeton UP, 2020) presents a unique analysis of the powers that were allocated to the executive in Article II of the Constitution, as well as an exploration of the origin of many of the executive powers that are outlined in the Constitution but allocated to other branches of government within the new constitutional system. Thus, while McConnell’s focus is on the executive in the American constitutional system, the framing of this focus is in delineating the prerogative powers that Blackstone had noted belong to the monarch or the individual head of state, but that the Founders in 1787 split up. The argument in the book also clarifies the structure of Article II, explaining in important detail the sections of Article II and how they are connected to each other. McConnell’s deep dive into the discussions not only in Philadelphia in 1787, but also in the state ratifying conventions and among the different founders provide the historical context for the explicit and implied powers distributed throughout the Constitution. McConnell’s historical analysis pays particular attention to the committees that were established during the Constitutional Convention, like the Committee on Detail, that had to flesh out how the powers that were being invested in the document would manifest in operation. Thus, The President Who Would Not Be King is an historical examination of the competing ideas that were part of the conversation that ultimately became the U.S. Constitution. 

But McConnell does not stop at the founding period. He provides much more contemporary examples and case studies of some of the tensions around these prerogative powers that were not all given to the president in Article II. This takes up Justice Robert Jackson’s important decision in Youngstown Sheet and Tube v. Sawyer in terms of how that decision shaped expectations around executive use of power and authority, and has also positioned those expectations within, intentionally or not, our highly partisan political environment. McConnell’s work provides a path to understanding constitutional meaning from before the constitution itself was written, which is distinct from constitutional theories like originalism. The President Who Would Not Be King also wrestles with the Founders’ ideas around the complexity of separation of powers, given the executive powers that Congress holds and can use, as well as the executive powers vested in the presidency.

Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at [email protected] or tweet to @gorenlj.

From the New York Times bestselling author of A. Lincoln and American Ulysses, a revelatory glimpse into the mind and soul of our sixteenth president through his private notes to himself, explored together here for the first time. A deeply private man, shut off even to those who worked closely with him, Abraham Lincoln often captured “his best thoughts,” as he called them, in short notes to himself. He would work out his personal stances on the biggest issues of the day, never expecting anyone to see these frank, unpolished pieces of writing, which he’d then keep close at hand, in desk drawers and even in his top hat. The profound importance of these notes has been overlooked, because the originals are scattered across several different archives and have never before been brought together and examined as a coherent whole. 

In Lincoln in Private: What His Most Personal Reflections Tell Us About Our Greatest President (Random House, 2021), Ronald C. White walks readers through twelve of Lincoln’s most important private notes, showcasing our greatest president’s brilliance and empathy, but also his very human anxieties and ambitions. We look over Lincoln’s shoulder as he grapples with the problem of slavery, attempting to find convincing rebuttals to those who supported the evil institution (“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”); prepares for his historic debates with Stephen Douglas; expresses his private feelings after a defeated bid for a Senate seat (“With me, the race of ambition has been a failure—a flat failure”); voices his concerns about the new Republican Party’s long-term prospects; develops an argument for national unity amidst a secession crisis that would ultimately rend the nation in two; and, for a president many have viewed as not religious, develops a sophisticated theological reflection in the midst of the Civil War (“it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party”). Additionally, in a historic first, all 111 Lincoln notes are transcribed in the appendix, a gift to scholars and Lincoln buffs alike. These are notes Lincoln never expected anyone to read, put into context by a writer who has spent his career studying Lincoln’s life and words. The result is a rare glimpse into the mind and soul of one of our nation’s most important figures.

Zach McCulley (@zamccull) is a historian of religion and literary cultures in early modern England and PhD candidate in History at Queen's University Belfast.

All political candidates make strategic choices about how to present themselves to voters but not all candidates have to “weigh decisions about their self-presentation alongside stereotypical tropes, culture norms that denigrate Blackness, and European beauty standards, in addition to the historical legacies of racism, colorism, sexism, and heteropatriarchy.” Sister Style: The Politics of Appearance for Black Women Political Elites (Oxford UP, 2021) interrogates the “everyday politicization of Black women’s bodies and its ramifications for politics.” Hair is not simply hair.

Drs. Brown and Lemi use a wide-range of qualitative and quantitative methods, including focus groups with Black women candidates and elected officials to argue that “Black women's political experience and the way that voters evaluate them is shaped overtly by their skin tone and hair texture, with hair being a particular point of scrutiny.” Sister Style explores “what the politics of appearance for Black women means for Black women politicians and Black voters, and how expectations about self-presentation differ for Black women versus Black men, White men, and White women.” For many black women in politics, racist and sexist cultural ideas have been used to “demean and fetishize” them based on their physical appearance. They are oftentimes pressured into changing their appearance to look more like their white female counterparts. But Brown and Lemi highlight the agency of Black women candidates and the book reconceptualizes how “Black women political elites are thought about, assessed, measured, and evaluated.”

The book is organized around several questions. What are the origins of the contemporary focus on Black women’s bodies in public life? How do Black women politicians make sense of the politics of appearance? Is there a phenotypic profile in who which most Black women politicians fit? How do voters process the appearances of Black women candidates?

Dr. Nadia Brown is an Associate Professor of Political Science and African American Studies at Purdue University. Beginning in July 2021, Dr. Brown will be a professor of Government and director of the Women’s and Gender Studies program at Georgetown University. Dr. Brown is also the author of Sisters in the Statehouse: Black Women and Legislative Decision Making (Oxford, 2014) and editor of three books: Distinct Identities: Minority Women in U.S. Politics (Routledge, 2016), Body Politics (Routledge, 2019), and Me Too Political Science (Routledge, 2019). She edits Politics, Groups, and Identities and is a founding board member of @WomenAlsoKnowStuff. Her most recent public facing publication is “Here’s how to teach Black Lives Matter: We’ve developed a short course” Washington Post’s Monkey Cage with Ray Block, Jr. and Christopher Stout.

Dr. Danielle Casarez Lemi is a Tower Center Fellow at the John G. Tower Center for Political Science at Southern Methodist University. Her specialization is representation in American politics with a focus on gender, race, and identity. Her research has appeared in Politics, Groups, and Identities, Du Bois Review, Journal of Race, Ethnicity and Politics, PS: Political Science and Politics, British Journal of Political Science, and Perspectives on Politics.

Daniella Campos assisted with this podcast.

Susan Liebell is an associate professor of political science at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. Why Diehard Originalists Aren’t Really Originalists appeared in the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage and “Sensitive Places: Originalism, Gender, and the Myth Self-Defense in District of Columbia v. Heller” can be found in July 2021’s Polity. Email her comments at [email protected] or tweet to @SusanLiebell.

Why do so many conservative Christians continue to support Donald Trump despite his many overt moral failings? Why do many Americans advocate so vehemently for xenophobic policies, such as a border wall with Mexico? Why do many Americans seem so unwilling to acknowledge the injustices that ethnic and racial minorities experience in the United States? Why do a sizeable proportion of Americans continue to oppose women's equality in the workplace and in the home?

Andrew Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry seek to answer these questions in Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States (Oxford University Press, 2020), which explores the phenomenon of "Christian nationalism," the belief that the United States is-and should be-a Christian nation. Christian ideals and symbols have long played an important role in American public life, but Christian nationalism is about far more than whether the phrase "under God" belongs in the pledge of allegiance. At its heart, Christian nationalism demands that we must preserve a particular kind of social order, an order in which everyone--Christians and non-Christians, native-born and immigrants, whites and minorities, men and women recognizes their "proper" place in society. The first comprehensive empirical analysis of Christian nationalism in the United States, Taking America Back for God illustrates the influence of Christian nationalism on today's most contentious social and political issues.

Drawing on multiple sources of national survey data as well as in-depth interviews, Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry document how Christian nationalism shapes what Americans think about who they are as a people, what their future should look like, and how they should get there. Americans' stance toward Christian nationalism provides powerful insight into what they think about immigration, Islam, gun control, police shootings, atheists, gender roles, and many other political issues-very much including who they want in the White House. Taking America Back for God is a guide to one of the most important-and least understood-forces shaping American politics.

Andrew Whitehead is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Clemson University and Assistant Director of the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, 2020). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com.

Cristina Beltrán has written a thoughtful and interrogating analysis of the concept of citizenship, particularly in the United States, and how the history of the United States as a country has shaped an understanding of who gets to be “belong” as a member of this society. The book, Cruelty as Citizenship: How Migrant Suffering Sustains White Democracy is part of the Forerunners book series published by the University of Minnesota Press—this series, as we discuss in our conversation, publishes shorter works that dig into ideas across a broad and interdisciplinary spectrum. And this is precisely what Beltrán has done in this book, in terms of engaging historiography, Cultural Studies, LatinX Studies, political theory, American Studies, and other disciplines to aid her unwrapping of our understanding of immigrants and migrants, and why there is an interest in seeing these groups as “others” and, among certain segments of the population, wanting to make sure they suffer in this exclusionary position. Beltrán takes the reader through both imagined and real spaces in terms of the place of the immigrant and the migrant in the United States, weaving the role of the American frontier, the way that settler-colonialism operated inside the U.S., and an understanding of white identity within all of these contexts.

Cruelty as Citizenship is an accessible exploration of the tensions within the United States that surround our reactions to those coming to this country (forcibly, or by choice) and how racial identity has shaped the varied experiences and responses of those who come to the United States and those who have proceeded them here. As Beltrán noted in our discussion, she had come to this work in an effort to tease out the different political affiliations within the LatinX population in the U.S. What she found was that in order to understand the political responses by LatinX voters, the entire dynamic between different racial groups and the role of racial domination needs to be explored. Thus, Cruelty as Citizenship is the result of digging into the political dynamics within different racial groups in the United States, and getting at the role of white identity, and thus white democracy, within American cultural concepts and expectations of political and state power. Cruelty as Citizenship guides the reader through multiple facets of American history, politics, culture, and ideas about what it is to be American and who has the right to claim this identity as their own.

Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at [email protected] or tweet to @gorenlj.

In The Other Side of the Coin: Public Opinion toward Social Tax Expenditures (Russell Sage Foundation, 2021), political scientists Christopher Ellis and Christopher Faricy examine public opinion towards social tax expenditures—the other side of the American social welfare state—and their potential to expand support for such social investment. Tax expenditures seek to accomplish many of the goals of direct government expenditures, but they distribute money indirectly, through tax refunds or reductions in taxable income, rather than direct payments on goods and services or benefits. They tend to privilege market-based solutions to social problems such as employer-based tax subsidies for purchasing health insurance versus government-provided health insurance. 

Drawing on nationally representative surveys and survey experiments, Ellis and Faricy show that social welfare policies designed as tax expenditures, as opposed to direct spending on social welfare programs, are widely popular with the general public. Contrary to previous research suggesting that recipients of these subsidies are often unaware of indirect government aid—sometimes called “the hidden welfare state”—Ellis and Faricy find that citizens are well aware of them and act in their economic self-interest in supporting tax breaks for social welfare purposes. The authors find that many people view the beneficiaries of social tax expenditures to be more deserving of government aid than recipients of direct public social programs, indicating that how government benefits are delivered affects people’s views of recipients’ worthiness. Importantly, tax expenditures are more likely to appeal to citizens with anti-government attitudes, low levels of trust in government, or racial prejudices. As a result, social spending conducted through the tax code is likely to be far more popular than direct government spending on public programs that have the same goals. The first empirical examination of the broad popularity of tax expenditures, The Other Side of the Coin provides compelling insights into constructing a politically feasible—and potentially bipartisan—way to expand the scope of the American welfare state.

Stephen Pimpare is director of the Public Service & Nonprofit Leadership program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire.

For the Many: American Feminists and the Global Fight for Democratic Equality (Princeton University Press, 2021) presents an inspiring look at how US women and their global allies pushed the nation and the world toward justice and greater equality for all. Reclaiming social democracy as one of the central threads of American feminism, Dorothy Sue Cobble offers a bold rewriting of twentieth-century feminist history and documents how forces, peoples, and ideas worldwide shaped American politics. Cobble follows egalitarian women’s activism from the explosion of democracy movements before World War I to the establishment of the New Deal, through the upheavals in rights and social citizenship at midcentury, to the reassertion of conservatism and the revival of female-led movements today.

Cobble brings to life the women who crossed borders of class, race, and nation to build grassroots campaigns, found international institutions, and enact policies dedicated to raising standards of life for everyone. Readers encounter famous figures, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Frances Perkins, and Mary McLeod Bethune, together with less well-known leaders, such as Rose Schneiderman, Maida Springer Kemp, and Esther Peterson. Multiple generations partnered to expand social and economic rights, and despite setbacks, the fight for the many persists, as twenty-first-century activists urgently demand a more caring, inclusive world.

Putting women at the center of US political history, For the Many reveals the powerful currents of democratic equality that spurred American feminists to seek a better life for all.

Marshall Poe is the founder and editor of the New Books Network. He can be reached at [email protected].

Growing Up America: Youth and Politics Since 1945 (U Georgia Press, 2019) is a fascinating book that weaves together the burgeoning field of Childhood History, the post-World War II history of the United States, and the familiar concepts of political advocacy by younger citizens. Eckelmann Berghel, Fieldston, and Renfro, all historians, have brought together a rigorous and engaging work by other historians, legal scholars, and ethnic and indigenous studies experts, to which they have also contributed their own expertise. This book brings in the actual voices of children in the United States in the postwar period, highlighting their roles as political actors in their own right, and examining so many aspects of politics and culture as seen through the eyes of young people. The contributing authors of Growing Up America are knitting together, in their respective chapters of the book, children as agents, as actively engaged members of the society, and children as symbols, used in a whole host of different ways by different political actors and organizations.

The book is divided into three sections that follow the chronological direction of recent American history, but that also focus on conceptual frameworks for each era under examination. The first part of the book is focused on the Cold War period and how children were integrated into both the symbolic and the political constructions of life during the Cold War. This section integrates the book’s first discussion of young people and science, as well as exploring the role that groups like the Boy Scouts played in building America’s Cold War empire. There is also research about the ways in which American girls and women, in particular, were supposed to look and act and how they were taught these qualities in school and how they were to shape the projected image of Americans. The second part of Growing Up America follows the arc of history through the Rights revolution that comes to dominate the political and cultural landscape in the U.S. (and elsewhere) in the 1960s and 1970s. This part of the book examines expected areas of youth involvement, but perhaps in unexpected ways, such as the many pre-adolescents who wrote to President Lyndon Johnson supporting the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The final section of the book examines the late 20th century political turn towards conservativism in American politics, and how this shift impacted and was experienced by children. Growing Up America brings in another chapter focusing on young people and science in this section, with a chapter on young women and STEM. The final chapter in this section evaluates the real and perceived vulnerability of childhood, especially in the racially segregated symbolism that was the milk carton campaign for missing children in the mid-1980s. Growing up America will be of great interest to scholars and students across a range of disciplines and areas of expertise, especially in the ways it draws on different arenas of politics and culture to explore youth engagement in the United States since 1945.

Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at [email protected] or tweet to @gorenlj.

The ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which granted women the right to vote nationwide, was the culmination of a long and oftentimes contentious campaign that had its origins in the beginnings of the nation itself. In American Women’s Suffrage: Voices from the Long Struggle for the Vote, 1776-1965 (Library of America, 2020) Susan Ware provides readers with a sampling of the letters, articles, speeches, and other contemporary documents that reflect both the ideas of the movement and the arguments deployed against it. Her selections demonstrate how the battle of women’s suffrage was itself a part of a broader campaign for women’s rights in the early 19th century. Though it was galvanized by the activism of women from the abolitionist movement, the solidarity born of common oppression was shattered after the Civil War, when many suffragists expressed frustration with their exclusion from the voting rights being granted to Blacks. While a corps of dedicated activists continued their campaign into the 20th century, it was only in the 1910s that momentum shifted decisively in their direction. As Ware demonstrates, their success in gaining ratification in 1920 was less the conclusion of women’s efforts for political quality than it was the end of one stage and the beginning of a new effort to turn the newly-won franchise into political power – an effort that continues down to the present day.

Much has long been made of the bold legislative action that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt marshalled forward in his first 100 days in office in the midst of the Great Depression. To take stock of the Biden presidency, Lilly and Susan asked three thoughtful political scientists—Dr. Jonathan Bernstein (Bloomberg Media), Dr. Nadia E. Brown (Purdue University), and Dr. Jane Junn (University of Southern California) to interrogate the early days of the Biden Administration. They not only provided keen observations about the Executive Branch, but also about Congress and state governments. The lively discussion shifted quickly from the arbitrary marker of the first 100 days to what is necessary to move policy forward in the closely divided U.S. House and Senate, and what the legislative agenda may look like going forward. We chat about the apparent pause in the swift swirling of our politics—though we debate whether the new administration is a return to normalcy and if it is possible, post Trump, to return to normalcy. In this context, there was a discussion of competence, expertise, intelligence, rationality,

preparation, and integrity. We pay close attention to the political parties, with specific focus on the internal tensions in both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Our guests also spend time framing the political landscape with an understanding of the role and place of news media and social media.

Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at [email protected] or tweet to @gorenlj.

Susan Liebell is an associate professor of political science at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. Why Diehard Originalists Aren’t Really Originalists recently appeared in the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage and “Retreat from the Rule of Law: Locke and the Perils of Stand Your Ground” was published in the Journal of Politics (July 2020). Email her comments at [email protected] or tweet to @SusanLiebell.