The Return of the One-Term Presidency?
The election of Donald Trump, and the early days of his presidency, have driven many Americans to rummage through history in search of context and understanding. Trump himself has been compared to historical figures ranging from Ronald Reagan to Henry Ford, and from Andrew Jackson to Benito Mussolini. His steps have been condemned as unprecedented by his critics, and praised as historic by his supporters.
To place contemporary events in perspective, we turned to a pair of historians of the United States. Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author, most recently, of The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society. Morton Keller is a professor emeritus of history at Brandeis University. He has written or edited more than 15 books, including Obama’s Time: A History. They’ll be exchanging views periodically on how to understand Trump, his presidency, and this moment in political time. —Yoni Appelbaum
Morton Keller: At its inception, the American presidency was a mix of the European monarchical model, and the new American idea of limited rule, reinforced by George Washington's two-term limit. The Virginia Dynasty presidents—Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe—served the two-term span; their regionally limited Massachusetts competitors—John Adams and John Quincy Adams—managed only one.
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