The Presidents and the People Audiobook By Corey Brettschneider cover art

The Presidents and the People

Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It

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The Presidents and the People

By: Corey Brettschneider
Narrated by: Stephen Bel Davies
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About this listen

Imagine an American president who imprisoned critics, spread a culture of white supremacy, and tried to upend the law so that he could commit crimes with impunity.

In this propulsive history, constitutional law and political science professor Corey Brettschneider provides a thoroughly researched account of assaults on democracy by not one such president, but five.

John Adams waged war on the national press of the early republic. 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 after the Civil War. In the 1910s, Woodrow Wilson modernized, popularized, and nationalized Jim Crow laws. In the 1970s, Richard Nixon committed criminal acts that flowed from his corrupt ideas about presidential power.

Corey Brettschneider shows that these presidents didn't have the last word; citizen movements brought the United States back from the precipice by appealing to a democratic understanding of the Constitution and pressuring subsequent reform-minded presidents to realize the promise of "We the People." This is a book about citizens who fought back against presidential abuses of power. Their examples give us hope about the possibilities of restoring a fragile democracy.

©2024 Corey Brettschneider (P)2024 Tantor
Democracy Law United States Richard Nixon War
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It was refreshing to learn a little more about the current state of our nation with historical context and much less political bias than other media sources. I learned a lot from this book an ls would recommend it to anyone.

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Similar Presidencies to the Trump Era

History repeats. We can learn from prior history so as not to allow for the repeat and to act more quickly when we see the signs.

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