Donald Trump is going against the grain of other American presidents by seemingly not trying to win over Americans who do not support him, Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian Jon Meacham tells Newsmax TV.
"I believe this president has not risen to the occasion in ways that I suspect those who voted for him hoped for and those who didn't vote for him were really hoping for," Meacham,
author of "The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels," told host John Bachman on Thursday's "Newsmax Now."
"I think that to a large measure President Trump has decided that he is going to carry on as he began by knocking down as many conventions as possible and trying to keep the support of those who are with him."
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In his new book, published this week by Random House, Meacham discusses the present turmoil in American politics and life by looking back at critical times in the nation's history when hope overcame division and fear.
He argues America's current climate of partisan fury is not new, and what Abraham Lincoln called the "better angels of our nature" have repeatedly won the day.
"The presidents who are remembered fondly are presidents who reach beyond their base, whether it's [Lyndon] Johnson on civil rights or Ronald Reagan on negotiating with the Soviet Union," Meacham told Bachman.
"The evidence so far . . . [is] that President Trump is more interested in those who are already with him then he is bringing along people who are not with him."
But Meacham — a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University, contributing writer for The New York Times Book Review, and fellow of the Society of American Historians – added Americans have always been separated by "fundamental disagreements."
"[They are] about the nature of the country, the nature of liberty, about the role of government, about the shape of culture," he said.
"And the good news about America, [is that with] the resilience, and in many ways the greatness in my mind of the American experiment, we have managed to move from strength to strength, despite many, many hours in which the whole enterprise seemed fraught at best and perhaps doomed at worst."
Meacham, who noted he is not a partisan – "I've voted for Democrats and Republicans" – said the president "has the capacity, as Woodrow Wilson once said, to be as big a man as he can" and called the presidency "one of the great offices devised by the minds and hands of man."
"Whether it’s [George] Washington creating it, [Andrew] Jackson broadening the idea of what democracy meant, whether it was [Abraham] Lincoln saving the Union, Theodore Roosevelt ushering us into the Industrial Age, Franklin Roosevelt saving capitalism and then leading us against the forces of tyranny, Dwight Eisenhower guiding us through the Cold War with a steady hand, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush bringing an end to the Cold War without a shot being fired," Meacham said.
"Those are noble stories, and you have to tell them. My argument is not that they were always right and not that all previous presidents were these kind of movie characters, or came ready-made for [Mount] Rushmore.
"But the interesting thing is they were deeply flawed. They had good days and bad days. And they made mistakes. But in the end, and this is the great thing about America, somehow or another 51 percent of the time they managed to get things right, and I think we're being tested again now in exactly that way."
In 2009, Meacham won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for "American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House."
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