Active or passive? Positive or negative?

[lpetrich]

 James David Barber had classified US presidents into four categories, combinations of active vs. passive and positive vs. negative. John Dean has followed up in Predicting Presidential Performance | FindLaw, Predicting the Nature of Obama's Presidency | FindLaw, John Dean: Active/Negative Trump Is Doomed to Follow Nixon

• Active: involved in the work of the presidency
• Passive: tries to avoid the work of the presidency
• Positive: enjoys the presidency
• Negative: gets little positive from the presidency

The first four presidents and the presidents starting with Theodore Roosevelt:

• Active-positive: Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama
• Active-negative: John Adams, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, George Bush II, Donald Trump
• Passive-positive: James Madison, William Howard Taft, Warren G. Harding, Ronald Reagan
• Passive-negative: George Washington, Calvin Coolidge, Dwight D. Eisenhower, George Bush I

Active-positive presidents enjoy the job, and they include the most loved presidents, like the two Roosevelts and JFK. Passive-positive presidents are generally liked while in office, but they do not have much achievement to show for themselves. Passive-negative presidents are presidents out of a sense of duty. Active-negative presidents are in it for the power, and they are the most dangerous. Their presidencies often end in disaster, though they can still do good things.

John Dean (Newsweek, 5-29-17):

Donald Trump is an active/negative. In fact, he is a stronger version of this category than all whom Barber collected during his analysis, and more so than George W. Bush, whom I found fell into this group.

He can be no doubt about Trump’s being active. He literally is on the job 24/7; when not in his office or making an official trip, he is on the telephone or tweeting, related to his work as president. He is a workaholic. (See, e.g., Time magazine’s account “ Trump After Hours.”

Nor is there any question of his being negative under Barber’s test. Trump can force a smile for the camera, but he never laughs, particularly at himself. His Twitter account reveals a man constantly complaining or whining about most everything.

His only enjoyment in the job is that it feeds his insatiable narcissistic appetite for attention, which is not the type of positive reinforcement and emotional reward Barber describes to be an active/positive.

However, Donald Trump, like George Bush II, likes to spend much of his time outside the White House, at his Mar-a-Lago resort or at various golf course. Despite attacking Barack Obama for golfing instead of working, he has golfed at some 10 times his predecessor's rate.

He has also continued to have a disastrous presidency. Concentration camps for refugee children, Putin-loving combined with hostility to traditional US allies, and now a trade war.

 

[lpetrich]

I've found this video:
Barber's Presidential Character - YouTube
by Prof. John Wesley Leckrone of Widener Univ.

He starts with how one's personality and ideas develop.

• Character (formed in childhood)
  • Orientation towards Life
  • Self Esteem
  • Self Judgment
• Worldview (formed in adolescence)
  • Primary Political Beliefs
  • View of Human Nature
  • View of Moral Conflicts of the Time
• Style (formed in early adulthood)
  • Rhetoric
  • Personal Relations
  • Homework

 

[lpetrich]

Then Barber's typology.

• Active - Positive
  • Adaptive
  • Wants Results
  • Enjoys Political Activity - Challenge
  • High Energy/Capacity for Work
  • Ambitious
  • High Self Esteem
  • Have goals/but flexible
  • Ultimately Pragmatic
  • Power Used to achieve beneficial results for Public
• Active - Negative
  • Compulsive
  • Wants Power
  • Low Enjoyment of Political Activity
  • High Energy/Capacity for Work
  • Ambitious
  • Poor Self Image/Low Esteem
  • Power and Domination over others compensates for Low Esteem
  • Perfectionist
  • Clearly Defines Enemies
  • Rigid in Pursuing Policy - Even to Detriment of Public
  • Surrender is a Personal Loss
• Passive - Positive
  • Compliant
  • Wants Love
  • Low Energy
  • Enjoys Politics - gives feeling of being loved
  • Low Self Esteem
  • Cooperation rather than Conflict
  • Guided by Others' Policy Preferences
• Passive - Negative
  • Withdrawn
  • Emphasizes Civic Virtue
  • Low Energy
  • Lack of Enjoyment of Political Activity
  • Public Service is an Obligation/Duty
  • Low Self Esteem

Notice what the active ones have in common, the passive ones, the positive ones, and the negative ones.

 

[lpetrich]

He then lists some archetypical examples:

• Active-Positive - Achieve Results - Franklin D. Roosevelt - Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Gerry Ford, George Bush I, Bill Clinton
• Active-Negative - Get and Keep Power - Richard Nixon - Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Lyndon B. Johnson
• Passive-Positive - Seek Love - Ronald Reagan - William Howard Taft, Warren Harding
• Passive-Negative - Emphasize Civic Virtue - George Washington - Calvin Coolidge, Dwight Eisenhower

There are some differences in opinion with an assessment that I'd quoted earlier, like for George Bush I. So these categories may not be absolute, and some Presidents may straddle some of them.

Abraham Lincoln he considers active-negative. The negativity was in his depression and his agonizing over decisions, especially in the Civil War. But his negativity does not seem to be the sort that is dangerous to other people, like wanting vengeance against them or keeping an enemies list.

He doesn't discuss Barack Obama or Donald Trump, but it seems to me that Obama was active-positive and Trump active-negative.


One can assess other leaders with this schema, like Congresspeople. Both Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell are active, but I'm not sure whether to consider them positive or negative. MMC once laughed over his keeping Obama from appointing a Supreme Court Justice. What might that make him?

Of other prominent Congresspeople, AOC seems very active-positive.

 

[lpetrich]

I've taken  Historical rankings of presidents of the United States and created a composite list. Here is how they fit into Barber's typology.

• Abraham Lincoln AN
• Franklin D. Roosevelt AP
• George Washington PN
• Theodore Roosevelt AP
• Thomas Jefferson AP
• Woodrow Wilson AN
• Harry S. Truman AP
• Dwight D. Eisenhower PN
• Ronald Reagan PP
• John F. Kennedy AP
• John Adams AN
• Lyndon B. Johnson AN
• Barack Obama AP
• James Madison PP
• Bill Clinton AP
• William Howard Taft PP
• George Bush I PN
• Jimmy Carter AP
• Gerald Ford AP
• Calvin Coolidge PN
• Richard Nixon AN
• Herbert Hoover AN
• George Bush II AN
• Warren G. Harding PN
• Donald Trump AN

I tried some statistical tests, and I found a lot of overlap.

• AP: 1/0.96 - 0.21/0.19 - 0.51/0.46 - 0.33/0.29
• AN: 0.21/0.19 - 1/0.96 - 0.59/0.76 - 0.89/0.83
• PP: 0.51/0.46 - 0.59/0.76 - 1/0.82 - 0.80/0.77
• PN: 0.33/0.29 - 0.89/0.83 - 0.80/0.77 - 1/0.92

I used the T-test for means and the Mann-Whitney rank test for medians.

AP's overlapped with the others the least, with them having the most overlap with PP's.

Of the others, AN's and PP's overlapped the least, with them having a lot of overlap with PN's.

Mean/median ranks:
AP: 10.3/10.0 - AN: 15.1/16.5 - PP 13.0/14.0 - PN 14.4/17.0

 

[Keith&Co.]

• Active: involved in the work of the presidency
• Passive: tries to avoid the work of the presidency
• Positive: enjoys the presidency
• Negative: gets little positive from the presidency

Can't argue that Trump was negative, but not comfortable with the designation as active.
He certainly used the perks of the office, and the attention, but i don't think he ever actually undrrstood the purpose of the job.
He barely tolerated briefings, and ignored anything that didn't directly impact himself. And huge swaths of 'executive time' on his calendar, rather than 'the work of the presidency.'

All in all, strikes me as if my grandfather hired a pharmacist to run his drugstore while on vacation. If the guy was talking to customers up at the soda fountain the whole time, he was active, but not active in the work of the pharmacy. More just taking advantage of it....

 

[lpetrich]

He was active in what he liked about the Presidency, even if he was not active in what he didn't like about it. He didn't like reading briefing papers, for instance.

 

[Keith&Co.]

even if he was not active in what he didn't like about it.

In other words, the work.

This is the problem hiring an idiot. He thinks he gets to define what the work is. But large parts of his job did not get done.