National Perspective — David Shribman — September 27, 2017

David Shribman

Abraham Lincoln made the presidency a pulpit. Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt transformed the office into an engine of big government. John F. Kennedy made it a platform of inspiration. Presidents routinely take the office they inherit and reshape it to their own tastes, focus it on their own priorities, remake it in their own images.

It isn't even a year into Donald Trump's second term in the White House, and already he has transformed the presidency perhaps more profoundly than Andrew Jackson (who made it a vanguard of democracy), Woodrow Wilson (who made it an office of international engagement) or Jimmy Carter (who made it a tool to ensure human dignity and win human rights).

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