Opinion: ‘No Kings’ but for the kingly presidents we’ve already had?

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These “No Kings” demonstrations of recent weeks are certainly very much in the American tradition, aren’t they? How could they not be, since we once fought a war to rid ourselves of rule under the thumb of King George III of England? But wait a minute. Strangely enough, such rallies — and placards — seem to pretty much be a new thing. How to explain it?

Maybe the answer goes something like this. Right from the outset we have expected and appreciated energy on the part of our chief executives. In fact, that very word “energy,” as in presidents exhibiting such, appears in the Federalist Papers defense and promotion of an independent, perhaps even a sometimes kingly, executive.

That expectation — and appreciation — is reflected in our rankings of “great” and “near great” presidents. Pick your poll among historians and who appears at the top of such lists. It might be either Washington, Lincoln or Franklin D. Roosevelt. No matter who leads that short list, the other two would likely rank no worse than No. 2 or 3.

Harvard historians Arthur Schlesinger Sr. and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. both asked their fellow academics to rank American presidents. The senior Schlesinger did so in 1948, and his son followed suit many years later. Leading the “great” on both lists was the aforementioned threesome, who were followed by Wilson, Jackson and Jefferson. Remember when Minnesota’s DFL would hold its annual Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner?

And others among the near-great? Here, there is much variation, but often appearing on such lists are Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, James K. Polk and Lyndon Johnson, energetic presidents all. Maybe they were even occasionally kingly presidents on the model of the out-and-out greats when you stop and think about it.

So perhaps the recent flurry of “no kings” demonstrations is actually a protest against past American presidents and the historians who have admired them. Maybe this was also a belated call to action against George Washington, who to date is the only sitting American president to lead troops into battle, which he did — and not against a foreign enemy — but against his fellow Americans when he moved to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. Slapped with an excise tax on whiskey, farmers in western Pennsylvania had taken up arms, since whiskey had been their medium of exchange in the absence of hard currency. They had to be put down, didn’t they?

Or maybe our current “no kings” folks were out to call Thomas Jefferson to account for his defiance of the Supreme Court. After all, Jefferson actually orchestrated the impeachment of a sitting Supreme Court justice. And Jackson? Not only did he defy the court as well, but he presided over the “trail of tears” dictating the removal of American Indians from the southeastern portions of the country to their confinement on reservations somewhere far removed from their ancestral homes.

And then there is the monarchical Lincoln who suppressed a rebellion, suspended habeas corpus, and refused to enforce a crucial Supreme Court decision (Dred Scott) among other highly — or should that be lowly — kingly actions. Not really. Heck, the way things are going we might need another Lincoln one of these days.

Oops, let’s not forget a Lincoln predecessor, the Jacksonian Democrat James K. Polk, who presided over a war of conquest against Mexico in order to expand the American southwest further west, while adding crucial ports along our suddenly much more extensive Pacific coastline. Then there is Theodore Roosevelt, who inherited and continued an undeclared forever war in the Philippines and dispatched troops to end a major coal strike while trumpeting “to hell with the Constitution, the people need coal.”

Roosevelt’s fellow progressive, the “great” to “near-great” Woodrow Wilson, deserves mention here as well. While a late comer to the Great War, he managed to join in time to act harshly to suppress domestic dissent. That action included the deportation of immigrant aliens, including the redoubtable anarchist Emma Goldman, as well as the conviction and jailing of his political opponents, including Eugene Debs. The equally redoubtable Debs had been the socialist candidate for president in 1912, and he would run again in 1920 even though he was then behind bars. (The “near-great” Wilson refused to pardon him, but that all-time presidential failure Warren Harding did.)

All of this finally brings us to the last of the big three “greats,” namely Franklin D. Roosevelt. That would be the same Roosevelt who weaponized the IRS against his political opponents, tried to pack the Supreme Court, and removed Japanese Americans from their homes before herding them into various encampments around the country.

Returning to the subject of presidential treatment of striking workers, let’s not forget the “near-great” Harry Truman who proposed using the army to break a strike of railroad workers. Then there was his “police action” in Korea, which was fought without constitutional sanction by our Congress.

While on the dual subjects of forever wars and Asian wars, let’s recall Lyndon Johnson, who can occasionally be found on lists of the near-great past presidents. That would be the same Lyndon Johnson who dispatched thousands of American soldiers to Vietnam without the benefit of a congressional vote to go to war.

To be sure, there was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which his attorney general labeled the “functional equivalent” of a declaration of war, thereby prompting Minnesota’s U.S. Sen. Eugene McCarthy to challenge Johnson for the Democratic nomination in 1968.

Maybe it was that kingly action on the part of an energetic president that has led today’s aging and nostalgic baby boomers to take to the streets with their “no kings” placards defiantly — if belatedly — in hand.

There you have it — multiple actions of multiple presidents acting energetically and earning high marks from our established professoriate in the process. Then again, maybe this will lead some to conclude that all of this amounts to solid evidence that U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota is right to label her adopted country as one of the worst on the face of the earth.

On the other hand, maybe this ought to persuade our “no kings” protesters to save their banners for another day. After all, our current president has yet to lead an army into battle against his fellow Americans. Nor has he deployed the military against striking workers, engaged in either a war of conquest or an undeclared forever war, overseen the impeachment of a Supreme Court justice, consigned any American citizen to a camp or a reservation or jailed a political opponent.

Then again, let’s not give him any ideas. Maybe it’s a good thing that he doesn’t know much history. In fact, keeping this information from our current president ought to be a high priority. Just think what he might do if he only knew what had to be done to deserve elevation to a standing anywhere close to our top-ranked great or near-great presidents.

As matters stand, he has governed domestically on the order of a more flamboyant version of Calvin Coolidge. Let’s hope that he continues to do so. While we’re at it, let’s hope that both of these presidents one day rise in the estimation of historians who have an almost knee-jerk tendency to look favorably on our most energetic presidents, even those who have sometimes exercised presidential power in what might be regarded as a very kingly manner.

John C. “Chuck” Chalberg writes from Bloomington. He is the author of a biography of Emma Goldman.