Jeremi Suri: History of American Power | Lex Fridman Podcast #180

The following is a conversation with Jeremy Surrey, a historian at UT Austin whose research interests and writing are on modern American history, with an eye towards presidents and, in general, individuals who wielded power. Quick mention of our sponsors Element Monkpack, Bel Campo, four Sigmatic and eight Sleep. Check them out in the description to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that in these conversations, for better or worse, I seek understanding, not activism. I'm not left nor right. I love ideas, not labels, and most fascinating ideas are full of uncertainty, tension and trade offs. Labels destroy that. I try ideas out, let them breathe for a time, try to challenge, explore and analyze. But mostly I trust the intelligence of you, the listener, to think and to make up your own mind. Together with me, I will try to have economists and philosophers on from all points on the multidimensional political spectrum, including the extremes. I will try to both have an open mind and to ask difficult questions when needed. I'll make mistakes.

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I'm still under development Pre release version 0.1 this is the Lex Friedman podcast and here is my conversation with Jeremy Suri.

You've studied many American presidents throughout history. So who do you think was the greatest president in American history?

The greatest American president was Abraham Lincoln. And Tolstoy reflected on this himself, actually saying that when he was in the Caucasus, he asked these peasants in the caucuses who was the greatest man in the world that they had heard of, and they said Abraham Lincoln. And why? Well, because he gave voice to people who had no voice before he turned politics into an art. This is what Tolstoy recounted the peasants in the caucuses telling him. Lincoln made politics more than about power. He made it an art. He made it a source of liberation. And those living even far from the United States could see that model, that inspiration from Lincoln. He was a man who had two years of education, yet he mastered the English language, and he used the language to help people imagine a different kind of world. You see, leaders and presidents are at their best when they're doing more than just manipulating institutions in power, when they're helping the people imagine a better world. And he did that as no other president has.

And you say he gave voice to those who are voiceless. Who who are you talking to about in general? Is this about African Americans or is this about just the populace in general?

Certainly part of it is about slaves, African Americans, and many immigrants. Immigrants from all parts of Europe and other areas that have come to the United States. But part of it was just for ordinary American citizens. The Republican Party, for which Lincoln was the first president, was a party created to give voice to poor white men as well as slaves and others. And Lincoln was a poor white man himself, grew up without slaves and without land, which meant you had almost nothing.

What do you think about the trajectory of that man with only two years of education? Is there something to be said about how does one come from nothing and nurture the ideals that kind of make this country great into something where you can actually be a leader of this nation? To espouse those ideas, to give the voice to the voiceless?

Yes, I think you actually hit the nail on the head. I think what he represented was the opportunity, and that was the word that mattered for him. Opportunity. That came from the ability to raise yourself up, to work hard and to be compensated for your hard work. And this is at the core of the Republican party of the 19th century, which is the core of capitalism. It's not about getting rich, it's about getting compensated for your work. It's about being incentivized to do better work. And Lincoln was constantly striving. One of his closest associates, Herndon, said, he was the little engine of ambition that couldn't stop. He just kept going, taught himself to read, taught himself to be a lawyer. He went through many failed businesses before he even reached that point. Many failed love affairs. But he kept trying. He kept working. And what American society offered him and what he wanted American society to offer everyone else was, was the opportunity to keep trying, to fail, and then get up and try again.

What do you think was the nature of that ambition? Was there a hunger for power?

I think Lincoln had a hunger for success. I think he had a hunger to get out of the poor station he was in. He had a hunger to be someone who had control over his life. Freedom for him did not mean the right to do anything you want to do, but it meant the right to be secure from being dependent upon someone else. So independence. He writes in his letters when he's very young that he hated being dependent on his father. He grew up without a mother. His father was a struggling farmer. And he would write in his letters that his father treated him like a slave on the farm. Some think his hatred of slavery came from that experience. He didn't ever want to have to work for someone again. He wanted to be free and independent, and he wanted again, every American, this is the kind of Jeffersonian dream to be the owner of themself and the owner of their future.

You know, that's a really nice definition of freedom. We often think kind of this very abstract notion of being able to do anything you want, but really it's ultimately breaking yourself free from the constraints, like the very tight dependence on. Whether it's the institutions or on your family or the expectations or the community or whatever. Be able to be. To realize yourself within the constraints of your own abilities. It's still not true freedom because true freedom is probably sort of almost like designing a video game character or something like that.

I agree. I think that's exactly right. I think freedom is not that I can have any outcome I want. I can't control outcomes. The most powerful, freest person in the world cannot control outcomes. But it means that at least I get to make choices. Someone else doesn't make those choices for me.

Is there something to be said about Lincoln and on the political game front of it, which is he's accomplished some of them, I don't know. But it seems like there was some tricky politics going on. We tend to not think of it in those terms because of the dark aspects of slavery. We tend to think about it in sort of ethical and human terms. But in their time, it was probably as much a game of politics, not just these broad questions of human nature. Right. It was a game. So is there something to be said about being a skillful player in the game of politics that you take from Lincoln?

Absolutely. And Lincoln never read Carl von Clausewitz, the great 19th century German thinker on strategy and politics, but he embodied the same wisdom, which is that everything is politics. If you want to get anything done, and this includes even relationships, there's a politics to it. What does that mean? It means that you have to persuade, coerce, encourage people to do things they wouldn't otherwise do. And Lincoln was a master at that. He was a master at that for two reasons. He had learned through his hard life to read people, to anticipate them, to spend a lot of time listening. One thing I often tell people is the best leaders are the listeners, not the talkers. And then second, Lincoln was very thoughtful and planned every move out. He was thinking three or four moves, maybe five moves down the chessboard, while others were at move number one or two.

That's fascinating to think about him just listening, just studying. That's, you know, they look at great fighters in this way, like the first few rounds of boxing and mixed martial arts. You're studying the movement of your opponent in order to sort of define the holes. That's a really interesting frame to think about. It Is there in terms of relationships, where do you think as president or as a politician is the most impact to be had? I've been reading a lot about Hitler recently and one of the things that more and more I'm starting to wonder what the hell did he do alone in a room, one on one with people? Because it seems like that's where he was exceptionally effective. When I think about certain leaders, I'm not sure Stalin was this way. I apologize. Been very obsessed with this period of human history. It just seems like certain leaders are extremely effective one on one. A lot of people think of Hitler and Lincoln as a speech maker, as a great charismatic speech maker. But it seems like to me that some of these guys were really effective inside a room. What do you think? What's more important, your effectiveness to.

Make.

A hell of a good speech? Sort of being in a room with many people, or is it all boiled down to one on one?

Well, I think in a sense it's both. One needs to do both and most politicians, most leaders are better at one or the other. It's the rare leader who can do both. I will say that if you are going to be a figure who's a president or the leader of a complex organization, not a startup, but a complex organization where you have many different constituents and many different interests, you have to do the one on one really well. Because a lot of what's going to happen is you're going to be meeting with people who represent different groups, right? The leader of the labor unions, the leader of your investing board, et cetera. And you have to be able to persuade them. And it's the intangibles that often matter most. Lincoln's skill, and it's the same that FDR had, is the ability to tell a story. I think Hitler was a little different. But what I've read of Stalin is he was a storyteller too.

One on one.

Storyteller, yeah. That's my understanding is that he and what Lincoln did. I don't want to compare Lincoln to Stalin. What Lincoln did is he was not confrontational. He was happy to have an argument if an argument were to be had. But actually what he would try to do is move you through telling a story that got you to think about your position in a different way, to basically disarm you. And Franklin Roosevelt did the same thing. Ronald Reagan did the same thing. Storytelling is a very important skill.

It's almost heartbreaking that we don't get to have. Or maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong. On this, but it feels like we don't have a lot of information how all of these folks were in private, one on one conversations. Even if we get stories about it, it's like, again, sorry to bring up Hitler, but people have talked about his piercing gaze when they're one on one. Like, there's a feeling like he's just looking through you. I wonder. Like, it makes me wonder. It was Lincoln, somebody who's a little bit more passive, like, who's more.

Who.

The ego doesn't shine. It's not like an overwhelming thing. Or is it more like.

Again, don't want to bring up controversial figures, but Donald Trump, where it's more menacing.

Right. There's a more like physically menacing thing where it's almost like a. Almost like a bullying kind of dynamic. So I wonder. I wish we knew, because from a psychological perspective, I wonder if there's a thread that connects most great leaders.

Great question. So I think the best writer on this is Max Weber. Right. And he talks about the power of charisma. The term charisma comes from Weber. Right. And Weber's use of it actually to talk about profits. And I think he has a point. Right. Leaders who are effective in the way you describe are leaders who feel prophetic or Weber says, they have a kind of magic about them. And I think that can come from different sources. I think that can come from the way someone carries themselves. It can come from the way they use words. So maybe there are different kinds of magic that someone develops. But I think there are two things that seem to be absolutely necessary. First is you have to be someone who sizes up the person on the other side of the table. You cannot be the person who just comes in and reads your brief. And then second, I think it's interactive and there is a quickness of thought. So you brought up Donald Trump. I don't think Donald Trump is a deep thinker at all, but he's quick. And I think that quickness is part of. It's different from delivering a lecture where it's the depth of your thought. Can you, for 45 minutes analyze something? Many people can't do that, but they still might be very effective if they're able to quickly react, size up the person on the other side of the table and react in a way that moves that person in the way they want to move them.

Yeah. And there's also just a. Coupled with the quickness is a kind of instinct about human nature.

Yes.

Sort of asking the question, what does this person worry about? What is what are the biggest problems? Somebody, what is this? Stephen Schwartzman, I think, said to me, this businessman, I think he said, like, what I've always tried to do is try to figure out, like ask enough questions to figure out what is the biggest problem in this person's life. Try to get a sense of what is the biggest problem in their life, because that's actually what they care about most. And most people don't care enough to find out. And so he kind of wants to sneak up on that and find that and then use that to then build closeness in order to then probably he doesn't put it in those words, but to manipulate the person into whatever, to do whatever the heck they want. And I think, I think part of it is that and part of the effectiveness Donald Trump has is how quick he's able to figure that out. You've written a book about how the role and power of the presidency has changed. So how has it changed since Lincoln's time?

The evolution of the presidency as a.

Concept, which seems like a fascinating lens through which to look at American history as a president. You know, we seem to only be talking about the presidents, maybe a general here and there, but it's mostly the, the story of America is often told through presidents.

That's right. That's right. And one of the points I've tried to make in my writing about this and various other activities is we use this word president as if it's something timeless. But the office has changed incredibly just from Lincoln's time to the present, which is 150 years. He wouldn't recognize the office today and George Washington would not have recognized it in Lincoln, just as I think a CEO today would be unrecognizable to a Rockefeller or a Carnegie of 150 years ago. So what are some of the ways in which the office has changed? I'll just point to three. There are a lot one, Presidents now can communicate with the public directly. I mean, we've reached the point now where a president can have direct, almost one on one communication. President can use Twitter if he so chooses to circumvent all media. That was unthinkable. Lincoln, in order to get his message across, often wrote letters to newspapers and waited for the newspaper, for Horace Greeley in the New York Tribune to publish his letter. That's how he communicated with the public. There weren't even many speaking opportunities. So that's a big change. Right. We feel the president in our life much more. That's why we talk about him much more. That also creates more of a burden. This is the second point. Presidents are under a microscope. Presidents are under a microscope. You have to be very careful what you do and what you say. And you're judged by a lot of the elements of your behavior that are not policy relevant. In fact, the things we judge most and make most of our decisions on about individuals are often that. And then third, the power the president has, it's inhuman, actually. And this is one of my critiques of how the office has changed. This one person has power on a scale that's, I think, dangerous in a democracy, and certainly something the founders 220 years ago would have had trouble conceiving. Presidents now have the ability to deliver force across the world to literally assassinate people with remarkable accuracy. And that's an enormous power that presidents have.

So your sense of this is not to get conspiratorial, but do you think a president currently has the power to initiate the assassination of somebody of a political enemy or a terrorist leader or that kind of thing, to frame that person in a way where assassination is something that he alone or she alone could decide to do?

I think it happens all the time. And it's not to be conspiratorial. This is how we've fought terrorism, by targeting individuals. Now you might say these were not elected leaders of state, but these were individuals with a large following. I mean, the killing of Osama bin Laden was an assassination operation. And we've taken out very successfully many leaders of terrorist organizations and we do it every day.

You're saying that back in Lincoln's time or George Washington's time, there was more of a balance of power. Like a president could not initiate this kind of assassination.

Correct. I think presidents did not have the same kind of military or economic power. We could talk about how a president can influence a market. Right. By saying something about where money is going to go or singling out a company or critiquing a company in one way or another. They didn't have that kind of power. Now much of the power that a Lincoln or a Washington had was the power to mobilize people to then make their own decisions. At the start of the Civil War, Lincoln doesn't even have the power to bring people into the army. He has to go to the governors and ask the governors to provide soldiers. So the governor of Wisconsin, the governor of Massachusetts. Could you imagine that today?

So, but yeah. So they use speeches and words to mobilize versus direct action in closed door environments, initiating wars, for example.

Correct.

It's difficult to think about if we look at Barack Obama, for example, this. If you're listening to this and you're on the left or the right, please do not make this political. In fact, if you're a political person and you're getting angry at the mention of the word Obama or Donald Trump, please turn off this podcast.

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We're not going to get very far. I hope we maintain a political discussion about even the modern presidents that view through the lens of history. I think there's a lot to be learned about the office and about human nature. Some people criticize Barack Obama for sort of expanding the military industrial complex, engaging in more and more wars, as opposed to sort of the initial rhetoric was such that we would pull back from sort of be more skeptical in our decisions to wage wars. So from the lens of the power of the presidency as the modern presidency, the fact that we continued the war in Afghanistan and different engagements in military conflicts, do you think Barack Obama could have stopped that? Do you put the responsibility on that expansion on him because of the implied power that the presidency has, or is this power just sits there and if a president chooses to take it, they do, and if they don't, they don't. Almost like you don't want to take on the responsibility.

Thanks. So Barack Obama, I'm quite certain, came into the office of the presidency committed to actually reducing the use of military force overseas and reducing presidential war making power. As a trained lawyer, he had a moral position on this, actually, and he tried. And he did withdraw American forces from Iraq and was of course criticized by many people for doing that. But at the same time, he had some real problems in the world to deal with, terrorism being one of them. And the tools he has are very much biased towards the use of military force. It's much harder as president to go and get Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping to agree with you. It's much easier to send these wonderful toys we have and these incredible soldiers we have over there. And when you have Congress, which is always against you, it's also easier to use the military because you send them there. And even if members of Congress from your own party or the other are angry at you, they'll still fund the soldiers. No member of Congress wants to vote to starve our soldiers overseas. So they'll stop your budget. They'll even threaten not to pay the debt, but they'll still fund your soldiers. And so you are pushed by the circumstances you're in to do this, and it's very hard to resist. So that's I think the criticism of Obama, the fair one, would be that he didn't resist the pressures that were there, but he did not make those pressures.

So is there something about the putting the responsibility on the president to, to form the structure around him locally such that he can make the policy that. That matches the rhetoric. So what I'm talking to is hiring. So basically just everybody you work with, you have power as a president to fire and hire or to basically schedule meetings in such a way that can control your decision making. So I imagine it's very difficult to get out of Afghanistan or Iraq when most of your scheduled meetings are with generals or something like that. But if you reorganize the schedule and you reorganize who you have late night talks with, you potentially have a huge ripple effect on the policy.

I think that's right. I think who has access to the president is absolutely crucial. And presidents have to be more strategic about that. They tend to be reacting to crises because every day has a crisis. And if you're reacting to a crisis, you're not controlling access because the crisis is driving.