One of the book’s ongoing themes is the evolution of national identity, as the authors explore how Americans developed a shared identity and how that shared identity has faced divisions and challenges over the centuries. One of the most significant sources of division throughout American history is racism. The authors present different presidents across the centuries as playing a decisive role, for better or for worse, in this area. President Chester A. Arthur contributed to racism and violence in the Western states by signing the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned the immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years. The personal racism of President Woodrow Wilson led to the return “of segregation in the federal government after six decades of integration, denying employment to men of color” (225). When it came to Indigenous Americans, President Andrew Jackson set a precedent of brutal treatment of Indigenous people by the US government. In signing the 1830 Indian Removal Act, Jackson condemned tens of thousands of Indigenous people to be forcibly removed from their homelands and marched to new lands in the Great Plains, a journey in which many of them died. More positively, Theodore Roosevelt invited African American activist and educator Booker T. Washington to the White House, “send[ing] a signal” (210), even though Roosevelt would try to downplay the gesture. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and President Lyndon Johnson likewise shepherded significant legislative victories for civil rights. However, when it came to combatting racism, even presidents have limits. One example is how President Ulysses S. Grant’s “attempts to treat Native Americans more humanely [we]re undone by unscrupulous individuals who st[ole] government supplies from the Indians” (151).

Presidents have always been significant in dealing healing or exacerbating divisions within the American public over racial and political issues. Even during the presidency of George Washington, the nation’s first president, there was “divisive infighting” not just between leaders but also between average Americans (11). Noting the conflicts between the earliest political parties, the Democrat-Republicans and the Federalists, President Thomas Jefferson vowed to “heal the national divide” (24). The US Civil War was preceded by decades of tension over the issue of slavery, which various presidents had failed to address. For example, when discussing “Bleeding Kansas,” one of the pre-Civil War outbreaks of violence between anti-slavery and pro-slavery factions, the authors describe the violent incident “as a huge deficit for the [Franklin] Pierce administration” (114). By contrast, President Abraham Lincoln is remembered primarily for his role in ending slavery and seeing the nation through the Civil War—the starkest example in US history of the division that comes from racism.

The authors also suggest that the current polarization between Americans over political beliefs and identities resulted from racist reactions to the presidency of Barack Obama. Dugard chides President Joe Biden for failing to fully address “America’s disunity” (401), and both authors note that Biden’s predecessor and successor, Donald Trump, exacerbated that disunity in part by scapegoating immigrants and people of color for the country’s perceived problems. Presidents have a profound influence over the unity of the country, both in their policy decisions and in their role as cultural and moral leaders.