No Kings Part 5

The lament that “the king will take, and you will become his servants,” warned the ancient Israelites of a universal temptation: the drift from government by the people to government for, by, and of a ruling class. In American history, this temptation has not been absent; it has simply worn the clothes of law and progress rather than of crowns and scepters. The Founders, acutely aware of history, built a system to stave off monarchy—checks, balances, divided powers, and regular elections. Yet, human nature persists, and so does the hunger for control—sometimes for noble reasons, but often accelerating, step by step, toward centralization and dependency.

Defining “Kingly” Leadership in America

I asked AI to rank our presidents, including any stand-out candidates - on the following metrics. The request was to be fully balanced and objective - to not have this be partisan in any way.

Kingly leadership: Policy and executive action that centralizes authority, demands dependency, expands surveillance or control, suppresses dissent, or uses government to create favored elites—at the expense of personal liberty and accountability.
Servant leadership: Policy and executive action that diffuses power, champions rights, checks dependency, restrains the temptation toward executive fiat, and exposes government itself to the same standard as the governed.

Few leaders are pure examples of either; most fall somewhere in between. And yet, there are patterns—and consequences. Madison again reminds us that no structure can preserve freedom amid declining virtue:

“To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.”

And as Lord Acton observed, liberty is always threatened by both lack of self-restraint and the lure of power:

“Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. ... But to liberty there are two obstacles; the one is the absence of self-control, the other, the abuse of power.”

In designing the American system, the Founders opted for checks and balances not because they idealized the people, but because, as Madison confessed, “there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust.”

Ranking the Kings: A Scale from 1 (Least Enslaving) to 5 (Most Enslaving)

Note: This ranking is not exhaustive, nor definitive, but aims to stimulate deeper reflection on how power is—and isn’t—tamed in a republic.

1 – Least Enslaving: Submitting to Principle

George Washington (1): Set the precedent for peaceful transfer of power and declined calls to become king or lifelong president. His voluntary restraint defined servant leadership.
Calvin Coolidge (1): Famously minimal in his use of executive power—“the business of America is business”—he reined in federal overreach, reduced regulation and spending, and let social forces play out without constant intervention.

2 – Tending Toward Liberty, With Cautions

Thomas Jefferson (2): Champion of liberty and limited government, but also expanded federal power through the Louisiana Purchase and used executive means to enforce the Embargo Act, with major economic and social consequences.
Dwight D. Eisenhower (2): Warned prophetically against the “military-industrial complex,” generally avoided major expansions of federal power but presided over federal intervention in civil rights in Little Rock, setting important precedent.

3 – The “Middle Kings” – Balancing Liberty and Order

Abraham Lincoln (3): Preserved the union and liberated millions, but at the cost of suspending habeas corpus, expanding executive war powers, and centralizing federal authority in unprecedented ways. The Emancipation Proclamation was a moral act—carried out by singular authority.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (3.5): New Deal reforms gave a safety net to millions during the Depression and World War II, but also exploded executive agencies, created vast entitlements, and expanded the state’s reach into daily life—often with little judicial oversight.

4 – Increasing Kingly Drift

Woodrow Wilson (4): Led America during World War I; his Espionage and Sedition Acts chilled dissent; created the Federal Reserve and the income tax system; his administration saw large increases in centralized control and limits on civil liberties.
Lyndon B. Johnson (4): The “Great Society” brought civil rights and poverty relief, but also the creation of sprawling bureaucracies and a “War on Poverty” whose unintended consequences include lasting fiscal dependency. Vietnam War escalation also extended presidential war powers far beyond congressional intent.
Richard Nixon (4): Expanded executive surveillance (see Watergate), waged the “War on Drugs” (leading to mass incarceration), and flouted constitutional limits until being forced to resign.

5 – Most Enslaving: Policy, Not Person

Failed Candidates:
- Hillary Clinton (4.5): Advocated for expanded federal programs, stricter mandates (healthcare, guns), and international military action—had a (hypothetical) presidency continued her well-known policy patterns, government centralization would likely have grown.
- Bernie Sanders (5): His vision calls for state-managed healthcare, cradle-to-grave entitlements, and major redistributions of wealth—all noble in intent, yet dependent on huge executive and bureaucratic apparatuses, enforced compliance, and top-down control.
- Barack Obama (4): The Affordable Care Act was a signature move for government-funded security, but achieved through nationwide mandates, economic controls, and increased executive reliance on regulation (“pen and phone” governance).

Addendum: While contemporaries such as Kamala Harris and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have not occupied the presidency, their legislative efforts consistently favor more expansive federal mandates, compliance regimes, and surveillance justified by social justice, health, or safety.

Patterns and Ironies

Across this ranking, we find curious ironies:

Those most vocal about freedom often yielded to kingly tools in crises (Lincoln, Wilson, FDR).
Democratic society regularly rewards leaders who “do something” for security, comfort, or justice—even when that “something” expands dependency and diminishes self-governance.
As technology advances, executive orders, regulations, and agencies take the role once reserved for feudal lords and royal edicts—masking old tendencies under new forms.

The Unfinished American Revolution

James Madison wrote the following - from the Federalist Papers No. 55

“As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust; so there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence.”

From the Founders’ experiment to today’s near-constant promises of federal solutions for every ill, the dilemma persists: how much government is enough, and how much is fatal? When do good intentions metastasize into dependency, when does necessary protection become perpetual oversight? America’s story, like Israel’s, is the perpetual temptation to trade the hard work of virtue and communal self-restraint for comforting, managerial kings. Oftener than we admit, we have gotten the leaders our longings demand.

Coming Next: Trump in Context

In Part 6, we’ll turn this same “rack-and-stack” lens to the presidency of Donald Trump—was he, as charged, a new kind of king, or did he in fact represent a backlash against the long slide into paternalistic control? Was his promise of “returning power to the people” real, or another page from the old book of thrones?

As always, your thoughts and critiques are welcomed. The reckoning over “No Kings” only sharpens as we examine the present with clear eyes and a long memory. Up next: Trump, policy, populism, and the enduring battle for the soul of civic leadership.