New Books In American Studies

In 2024, people around the world focus on an American president who calls for the imprisonment of critics, spreads the culture of white supremacy, and upends the law to commit crimes with impunity. Is Trump the first authoritarian to threaten American constitution democracy? Corey Brettschneider’s new book, The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It (W.W. Norton, 2024) argues that the United States has had previous authoritarian presidents who similarly threatened core democratic and rule of law values – and each was challenged by non-elected leaders Brettschneider terms “democratic constitutional constituencies.” John Adams waged war on the national press of the early republic, overseeing numerous prosecutions of his critics. In the lead-up to the Civil War, James Buchanan colluded with the Supreme Court to deny constitutional personhood to African Americans. A decade later, Andrew Johnson urged violence against his political opponents as he