4/5

This book did a very good job knitting together some ideas that have been kicking around my head about the emergence of the Imperial Presidency and its relation to how we arrived at Trump. The two track narrative of the emergence of the Administrative State and the rightward plunge of the Republicans towards personalist authoritarianism gets the synthesis it needed and this is something I will recommend to others. If I have any issues, I think it was the laser focus on the 20th century and the knock on effects of the post Wilsonian empowered presidency. I think some discussion of the threat of the presidency in the 19th century could have been useful to paint this into a longer narrative. The failure of impeachment of Andrew Johnson, Jackson’s escapades from the Seminole Wars, BoUS and issues with the court… Hell can you really tell a story of a presidency gone off the tracks without Polk? Regardless, this is very strong scholarship and something I will recommend. The constitution is riddled with issues and we should be clear about that, despite Madison’s straining towards balance we have arrived at the framer’s nightmare scenario and it is worth asking what mechanisms could have allowed this.