#1588 Presidential Norms

Listening to America

History, Politics, Unitedstates, Society & Culture, American

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2024

⏱️ 67 minutes

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Summary

Guest host David Horton of Virginia leads a discussion with Clay Jenkinson about the difference between Constitutional requirements and what are called presidential norms. George Washington, for example, did not shake hands with the American people. He held formal levees once a week. Jefferson regarded those as monarchical habits and he performed a series of acts of political theater to tone down the presidency during his two terms. Nothing in the Constitution requires the outgoing president to attend his successor’s inauguration, but it is an established American norm, and when that norm and others are violated, it weakens the fabric of the American republic. David and Clay talk about the presidencies of the two Roosevelts, both of whom enjoyed expanding the powers of the presidency, and of course the disruptive events of the last ten years.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone I'm Clay Jenkinson and welcome to this podcast introduction to this week's program
0:05.2	about norms around the executive office, norms of the presidency.
0:10.0	I'll be talking with David Horton, who is a guest host from Radford University.
0:14.4	We're both interested in the Constitution and the politics around the Constitution of the United States.
0:20.3	David, my old friends now, we met probably 15 years ago, I've been two or three times to
0:25.2	Radford University, and we'll be going, again and we'll be catching up with him of course in my travels
0:29.8	over the next couple of years for listening to America. This week presidential norms,
0:35.8	executive norms. So the Constitution is pretty quiet on a lot of these things.
0:39.3	It doesn't require that the president stayed to see his successor take the oath of office.
0:46.7	It doesn't require that the incumbent or the loser in the election concede the election. Nothing requires the person who lost to say
0:56.7	I'll do everything in my power to help you have a successful term as president.
1:08.0	There are many things that are not built into the Constitution, which have emerged as norms,
1:12.0	and they have a kind of small C constitutional status, and we took them for granted until very recently but
1:16.4	we've learned in the last eight or nine years that we should not take them for
1:21.6	granted that the Constitution is silent on these things and if you get a person who's a sore loser
1:28.0	or let's say who believes that the election was stolen nothing requires that person to be gracious.
1:34.7	So we'll talk about this.
1:35.7	I don't know what his questions will be.
1:36.8	We never really know in advance.
1:38.0	We don't rehearse.
1:39.0	I like to have open discourse and to see what happens. So we've gone from the early presidencies,
1:46.0	Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison,
	...

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