Political actions are arguably motivated by moral beliefs of both the citizens of a state and their elected leaders. Since religion inherently contains a moral and ethical standard for participants to abide by, the use of religious statements by presidents can effectively provide insight into their moral realm. A president that frequently utilizes subtle religious rhetoric is also providing his listeners with an understanding of his moral beliefs. As Jonathan Haidt illustrates in his book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, people’s decisions and actions are driven by their emotional and moral beliefs subconsciously, and the logic and reasoning people provide to defend these decisions and actions are developed
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Sitting atop this elephant is the “rider”, which Haidt considers to be an individual’s logic and reasoning. Metaphorically, the elephant cannot be controlled by the rider. The rider sits passively on top of the beast, observing its actions and behavior and contemplates of ways to logically defend the elephant’s decisions when they are questioned by another (Haidt, 2012). In this psychological context, a president’s actions can ultimately be attributed to the irrevocable desires of their elephant that are founded on deeply seated emotional, moral, and religious beliefs.
Throughout American history there has been a great diversity in presidential personalities and leadership styles. International relations and American foreign policy expert Walter Russell Mead provides four major presidential archetypes that can be used as a lens to analyze a president in terms of historical figures. These four archetypes are not comprehensive in the description of a president, but can be applied as an historical comparative to better understand a president’s leadership methods. The four archetypes are: Jacksonian, Wilsonian, Hamiltonian, and Jeffersonian (Mead, …show more content…
Peter H. Smith, in his book Talons of the Eagle: Dynamics of U.S.-Latin American Relations, provides a brief outline of some of the policies enacted by Kennedy. The Food for Peace program sent American surplus agriculture yields to countries in need, which effectively acted as a means to gain additional allies in future business on the domestic front. Kennedy also enacted the Peace Corps program which sent Americans to underdeveloped countries to assist with a broad range of issues; this program, however altruistic it may seem, ultimately served the United States in gaining even more supporters internationally. As the underdeveloped countries improve, they will eventually become useful in serving the United States when they pay back the favor. The Alliance for Progress program, in which the United States agreed to provide monetary support to Latin American countries on their march to become more stable democracies, again formed friendships between the U.S. and foreign nations (Smith, 1996). It is apparent that the Kennedy felt that gaining allies on the global scale would eventually lead to economic stability on the domestic front. Kennedy thus falls into the classification of a Hamiltonian president on the scale of Mead’s presidential
Sitting atop this elephant is the “rider”, which Haidt considers to be an individual’s logic and reasoning. Metaphorically, the elephant cannot be controlled by the rider. The rider sits passively on top of the beast, observing its actions and behavior and contemplates of ways to logically defend the elephant’s decisions when they are questioned by another (Haidt, 2012). In this psychological context, a president’s actions can ultimately be attributed to the irrevocable desires of their elephant that are founded on deeply seated emotional, moral, and religious beliefs.
Throughout American history there has been a great diversity in presidential personalities and leadership styles. International relations and American foreign policy expert Walter Russell Mead provides four major presidential archetypes that can be used as a lens to analyze a president in terms of historical figures. These four archetypes are not comprehensive in the description of a president, but can be applied as an historical comparative to better understand a president’s leadership methods. The four archetypes are: Jacksonian, Wilsonian, Hamiltonian, and Jeffersonian (Mead, …show more content…
Peter H. Smith, in his book Talons of the Eagle: Dynamics of U.S.-Latin American Relations, provides a brief outline of some of the policies enacted by Kennedy. The Food for Peace program sent American surplus agriculture yields to countries in need, which effectively acted as a means to gain additional allies in future business on the domestic front. Kennedy also enacted the Peace Corps program which sent Americans to underdeveloped countries to assist with a broad range of issues; this program, however altruistic it may seem, ultimately served the United States in gaining even more supporters internationally. As the underdeveloped countries improve, they will eventually become useful in serving the United States when they pay back the favor. The Alliance for Progress program, in which the United States agreed to provide monetary support to Latin American countries on their march to become more stable democracies, again formed friendships between the U.S. and foreign nations (Smith, 1996). It is apparent that the Kennedy felt that gaining allies on the global scale would eventually lead to economic stability on the domestic front. Kennedy thus falls into the classification of a Hamiltonian president on the scale of Mead’s presidential