That doesn’t happen with many of the presidents whose decisions the series reviews, such as John Adams’ aforementioned penchant for authoritarianism. And as they say that history is written by the victors, here there are many little-known or forgotten stories due to the bad press that some of the leaders had, thus, in the same way that the attention that JFK paid to win the race against the Soviets is celebrated space, the viewer can also learn about the terrible measures of the less remembered Grover Cleveland, who in the midst of the economic crisis of 1890 supported with all the power of the federal government the millionaires who hooked their Pullman wagons for personal use to the railway networks that they carried the mail (a federal issue), crushing the strike of railway workers whose meager wages had been lowered by 25 percent from one day to the next – and without anything like parity.
This critical spirit and taste for colorful anecdotes is the strength of this “The American Presidency”, where director Philip Montgomery uses imaginative visual devices and narrative concepts to jump from a presidential period of the nineteenth century to a very recent one of the twenty-first century to follow the evolution of the same conflict, supported by recreations, archive material, rare photos and the comments of historians and political scientists.
As the reader can guess, Clinton resorts to the famous slogan “It’s the economy, stupid” for his introduction to the subject of economic growth promoted by visionaries such as Thomas Jefferson, who proposed to Napoleon to buy the strategic city of New Orleans from the French Empire for 10 millions of dollars of the time, getting Bonaparte, who needed funds for his wars, to sell him not only the city that controlled the Mississippi but also the entire territory of Louisiana for the bribe of 15 million. And a fascinating topic in economics is the battle of Andrew Jackson, the first truly commoner president, against the banks, which caused financial chaos that retarded the growth of the United States by almost a century. In addition to extremism and the economy, the different episodes focus on racism, the importance of the presidential vision and constitutional conflicts.
“The presidency of Bill Clinton” (USA, 2022). Dir.: J. Cooperman. Documentary Series (History).
Source: Ambito
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