Open    Access



President Andrew Jackson’s Transformative Presidency Transformed the American Political System, by Creating the Democratic Party



Author(s)

William A. P. Thompson

Full-Text PDF XML     663 Views

DOI:10.17265/2328-2134/2021.07.002

University of Texas at Dallas, Texas, USA

Andrew Jackson utilized a public philosophy of populism, defined by Terry Bimes in her dissertation, “as a mode of rhetorical appeal, one that pits the president and the people against a corrupt special interest”. According to Bimes, the origins of presidential populism originated with Andrew Jackson, were not invented by him, but were “combined with elements of current theories and practices of presidential leadership and governance”. Bimes, in her discussion of how Jackson emphasized the use of populism, stressed that all parts of the government ultimately received their legitimacy from the people and that the government should pursue the common good and prevent those with particular interests from dominating the political process. American politics, I utilize Terry Bimes’ definition of populism, “as a mode of rhetorical appeal, one that pits the president and the people against a corrupt special interest”. A public philosophy has been defined by James W. Ceaser who reviewed the concept that was first used by the journalist Walter Lippman in his book The Public Philosophy that was concerned about competing philosophies with liberalism against its adversary, such as Marxism. Political scientists Theodore Lowi and Samuel Beer defined a public philosophy “as a synonym for what social scientists in American politics called ideology”. Lowi and Beer further defined how a public philosophy was a transforming idea that governs public opinion by utilizing Roosevelt’s New Deal to explain an example of a change in public philosophy, in which a federal government is strengthened, replacing the older idea of an inactive government. Further, Lowi described how a public philosophy is a way of understanding the significance of public policies, i.e., New Deal Policies on society. In addition, James W. Ceaser described a public philosophy “as a core set of values embodied in long term opinion that influences public policy over a full era”.

public philosophy, populism, periodization, executive power