Good Monday evening and happy Presidents' Day. This is Daniel Allott with The Hill's Top Opinions.
Americans want their presidents to be strong, but they also want them to be resilient and persevering because when crises come, as they inevitably do, the public needs someone to look to for comfort and reassurance.
What has allowed so many of our presidents to rise to the occasion during times of national crisis, writes presidential historian Barbara A. Perry, is the personal crises many of them had to endure early in life.
"Starting with Theodore Roosevelt, one of the first 20th-century presidents, occupiers of the White House seem to have endured trials of Biblical proportions on par with Job's calamities," she writes.
A disproportionate share of our presidents lost parents, siblings or other close family members early in life. Perry notes that President Biden's "first spouse and baby daughter died in a 1972 car crash just after his first election to the Senate. In addition, Biden's two young sons were severely injured."
Many other presidents (including President Kennedy and both Roosevelts) had to endure ill health or disability. "All three of these illness-prone presidents portrayed an indomitable spirit that bolstered Americans even in their darkest hours," writes Perry, who is Presidential Studies director and Gerald L. Baliles Professor at the University of Virginia's Miller Center.
"Although political science might not draw a direct correlation between presidents' painful losses and their subsequent toughness…" Perry concludes, "modern leadership theory teaches that addressing adversity with positive affect can overcome even the most dreadful experiences — and inspire others to adopt this optimistic attitude toward life's inevitable challenges."
Read Perry's op-ed here.
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