"A President is best judged by the enemies he makes when he has really hit his stride"
About this Quote
Max Lerner points the lens of judgment away from popularity and toward conflict. A president who has found his footing and is wielding power with purpose will inevitably collide with entrenched interests. The roster of opponents that rise up in response is a revealing X-ray: it shows whose privileges are threatened, which myths are punctured, and what costs a leader is willing to bear. Friends can flatter and allies can be transactional. Enemies are involuntary and thus more honest witnesses to the consequences of decisive action.
The phrase "when he has really hit his stride" signals timing. Early months can be noise and adjustment; later years can be drift. The telling period comes when the president knows the limits and capacities of the office and chooses to spend political capital. Then the shape of governance hardens into choices that produce visible antagonists. Abraham Lincoln invited the fury of slaveholding interests when he tied union to emancipation. Theodore Roosevelt drew the ire of monopolists by trust-busting. Franklin Roosevelt celebrated the hatred of "economic royalists" as proof he was tackling the Depression on behalf of the many. Lyndon Johnson accepted the enmity of segregationists to pass civil rights laws. These enemies were not incidental; they were diagnostic.
Lerner, a mid-20th-century journalist steeped in debates about democratic leadership and power, was skeptical of the cult of likability. In a pluralist society, a serious presidency cannot avoid making enemies; the real question is which enemies. The maxim also has a cautionary edge. If a president chooses as adversaries the press, independent courts, or the basic guardrails of law, the enemies list condemns rather than vindicates. The metric cuts both ways. It urges citizens to read opposition as a moral and political index, not to count applause. Leadership worth the name clarifies conflicts that were previously muddled and accepts hostility as the price of turning principles into policy.
The phrase "when he has really hit his stride" signals timing. Early months can be noise and adjustment; later years can be drift. The telling period comes when the president knows the limits and capacities of the office and chooses to spend political capital. Then the shape of governance hardens into choices that produce visible antagonists. Abraham Lincoln invited the fury of slaveholding interests when he tied union to emancipation. Theodore Roosevelt drew the ire of monopolists by trust-busting. Franklin Roosevelt celebrated the hatred of "economic royalists" as proof he was tackling the Depression on behalf of the many. Lyndon Johnson accepted the enmity of segregationists to pass civil rights laws. These enemies were not incidental; they were diagnostic.
Lerner, a mid-20th-century journalist steeped in debates about democratic leadership and power, was skeptical of the cult of likability. In a pluralist society, a serious presidency cannot avoid making enemies; the real question is which enemies. The maxim also has a cautionary edge. If a president chooses as adversaries the press, independent courts, or the basic guardrails of law, the enemies list condemns rather than vindicates. The metric cuts both ways. It urges citizens to read opposition as a moral and political index, not to count applause. Leadership worth the name clarifies conflicts that were previously muddled and accepts hostility as the price of turning principles into policy.
Quote Details
| Topic | Leadership |
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