Presidents and Political Parties

The role of the president as the chief communicator of party ideals goes back well into the nation's history; Andrew Jackson's early claims to an electoral mandate rooted presidential authority in partisan electoral victory. On January 20, 2017, the first president to win by imposing himself on a party took the oath of office. Donald Trump was neither a party politician who rose through the ranks nor an outsider recruited for the nomination like Dwight Eisenhower. History provides ample stories about how presidents have changed their parties. Franklin D. Roosevelt molded the Democrats into a liberal, New Deal party, Lyndon Johnson made his party a civil rights party, and Ronald Reagan reshaped the Republicans around the conservative movement. Finally, the president-party relationship is sometimes characterized by the insider-outsider dichotomy. The inception of the modern party system meant that presidents were now contending with parties that were robust organizations.