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From Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents

Richard Neustadt

The Art of Persuasion

With managing such a position in office, one needs to have the specific charm or logical argument strategy that leads more into bargaining tricks with others. Richard Neustradt explains how the bargaining tactic can influence others to vantage points, gaining a reputation, or confronting controversial policies which depends on his own charm.

Examples can be pushed to more of Ronald Reagan era.

Arguments

Presidents must persuade/bargain, not command

The president's primary power is to persuade and bargain, not to command. When a president has to resort to commanding people, he is showing weakness. Commands only work in very special circumstances. "The essence of a President's persuasive task is to convince such men that what the White House wants of them is what they ought to do for their sake and on their authority"

Shared, not separated powers

The American system is one of shared, not separated, powers. The president is only one of several masters of the bureaucracy, and even the White House staff have independent sources of power. People in all positions cannot do much without persuading others to help them, and this applies even to the president. However, more people need favors from the president than from any other person. This gives the president bargaining power.

Presidential Skepticism vs. Trust

The President must find the right balance in how much faith he has in his advisers. Putting too deep of trust in advisers without making decisions on his own could result in policy that fails to reflect the president's beliefs and a great burden being placed on the advisers.

Neustadt believes that presidents should be skeptical of the government. This skepticism will bring out the defects of our government and allow America to know in what areas we need to improve. For example, Reagan had too much trust in our government which resulted in various scandals throughout his time of office. A President should set a tone that bad behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

Discussion Questions

Do you think the president's power to persuade changed over time?

Lyndon B Johnson

Is a president's success always linked to them using their power to persuade?

Can a president be successful in office without skills in persuasion?

Franklin D Roosevelt

  • “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
  • First 100 Days and the New Deal
  • Calls Congress into session and convinces them action needs to be taken immediately
  • Congress passed 15 proposed bills which offered relief, reform, and recovery to the nation
  • Finances and Industries begin to gain federal support and funding
  • Job market widens
  • Second New Deal Programs implemented into society to help rebuild peoples prosperity
  • implements social security act for unemployment insurance
  • FDR's relationship with Congress: a lot of historians credit FDR's success to him assuming leadership of Congress. Also, FDR's party held both houses of Congress during his time.
  • FDR's relationship with the people: Congress included the public in his actions through his fireside chats which increased the public's approval of the president.
  • Provisions were no easy test to presidential expertise
  • Johnson had to find Republicans to support him while Southern Democrats controlled the House
  • Johnson builds a relationship with Congress and initiates action with Congress to strives for JFK's New Frontier policies to be finally passed
  • Establishes the ideas for a "Great Society"
  • Johnson proposed civil rights saying that the issue was not “whether you are black or white, the issue is whether everybody is equal." Which convinced Congress to enact the Civil Rights Act outlawing discrimination in all public places, education, and voting
  • Convinced Congress to take on liberal ideas: Declares War on Poverty, spending a billion dollars, to train, educate, and provide healthcare for individuals
  • Creates Medicare and Medicaid to provide insurance for all people
  • Aids poorer schools to help build up libraries and technology
  • Has Congress approve several environmental bills into policies or acts
  • Passes Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 to allow American immigration quota to increase
  • Congress passes acts to aid scholars and artists in 1965

FDR used the most executive orders of any president, (totaling 3,522). Do you think this negatively affected his power to persuade people?

President's sources of power

  • The president's resources include the bargaining powers that come with the position, professional reputation, and public prestige.
  • The president's professional reputation involves how others expect him to react. Isolated failures are not a problem, but if the failures form a pattern, this will weaken him. In addition to anticipating what the president wants, others also have to assess how hard he will try to get it. Tenacity is important. If a president cannot convince others that he will inevitably win, at least he needs to convince them that it will be costly to cross him. You can't punish everyone, but you need to selectively punish your enemies and reward your allies.
  • Public prestige deals with the president's popular support outside Washington. (With reputation, people anticipate the reactions of the president; with prestige, they anticipate the reactions of the voters.) Most politicians and bureaucrats do not watch poll numbers directly; they watch Congress. Prestige conveys leeway because low prestige encourages resistance.
  • The president must safeguard his power personally. No one else sees politics from the same vantage point, and so no one else can do this for him. Everyone else has the institutional pulls of their position tinting their judgment. "Yet nobody and nothing helps a President to see, save as he helps himself".
  • Do you think a president's power to persuade relies more on a good relationship with Congress or a good relationship with the people?

"Looking Toward Tomorrow from Today"

Neustadt believes that one of the most critical presidential success factors is for a president to always be looking and planning for tomorrow. In modern times, the President and Congress share powers fully in dealing with foreign and domestic policy. Presidents now are also having to focus more on economic and environmental issues than the presidents of the past. During the mid century, Congress gave the President more power to deal with other nations such as in World War II and the Cold War. However, during the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War, Congress tried to reclaim this power.

Presidents now have less of a reason to look to foreign policy to escape their frustrations from domestic policy. For presidents, dealing with other countries used to seem intriguing and easier than dealing with domestic affairs. However, times are now changing and telecommunications, the modernization of the world, the stock market, and global warming make dealing with foreign affairs much more difficult. Presidents are less eager to turn towards foreign policy as a safety net.

Would you agree with Neustadt that the President and Congress currently share equal power in dealing with foreign policy? Domestic policy?

Dwight D. Eisenhower

John F Kennedy

Trump and Foreign Policy

  • Believed to be able to keep a "middle road" in politics and did
  • Believed federal government had too much power, yet kept some if FDR's New Deal programs alive
  • Congress worked with him to help create the interstate highway system and increase federal spending through education
  • Peaceful, prosperous presidency if things were done his way, but exploded throughout the entirety of his presidency over party and non-party ideas that did not conform to his ideas
  • "When he's decided something, that ought to be the end of it..."
  • Eisenhower also stated, "I am a part of the legislative process." This was a reminder to Congress of his power to veto.
  • Kennedy did not have a great relationship with Congress
  • Won election by small amount, so Congress could easily resist his ideas
  • Congress is controlled by Conservative Democrats in South who resist his civil rights policies
  • Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis resulted in major collaboration of President and Cabinet to handle the issues with Russian missiles being housed in Cuba
  • Kennedy proposed Domestic "liberal" programs
  • New Frontier to improve healthcare, civil rights, education, and economy
  • Deficit spending stimulates economy; taxes wealthy citizens more
  • Passes voting rights laws and aid with federal money the desegregation of schools
  • Faced little Congressional support for all programs proposed for the country

-Trump signs an Executive order to move forward with the major campaign promise of building the wall on the southern border, and enforcing strict immigration policy.

-Citizens in favor are 37% and those who oppose make up 59%

-Target sanctuary cities, strict refugee policies.

-Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, was supported by Republicans and Democrats opposed his nomination because of his relationship will Russian president, Putin.

-War on Terror: Trump has endorsed torture tactics to fight terrorism. These may be limited by the law on how far one can go in interrogation.

-Will persuasion tactics work for Trump as they did in his campaign or will Congress hold him accountable and limit his actions?

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