The Lack Of Diversity In America's Presidents

George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.

     Throughout American history, there have been some solid presidents. Washington through Monroe served in the American Revolution and established the U.S. as a world power. Polk brought the nation to the Pacific, Lincoln presided over the Civil War and abolished slavery, and Grant won the war. Hayes. Garfield, and Arthur brought about civil service reform, and Harrison set policy precedents that others would soon follow. Roosevelt fought for environmental protection; consumer protection from trusts, big business, and bad drugs; and had a remarkable foreign policy legacy in the Panama Canal and ending the Russo-Japanese War. Wilson reformed labor and economics while laying the groundwork for the United Nations, Harding returned the nation to normal after World War 1, and Roosevelt pulled Amedica through World War 2 and the Great Depression as the only president elected to 4 terms; Truman ended World War 2 and returned Europe to normal. Eisenhower pursued an aggressive foreign policy, promoted civil rights, launched an interstate highway system, and founded NASA. Kennedy and Johnson founded the Peace and Job Corps, sent a man to the moon, and achieved remarkable reforms in civil rights, poverty relief, gun control, environmental protection, disability and infrastructure reform, and other aspects of domestic policy. Clinton and Obama continued with remarkable efforts in these fields. 

     Despite this, one glaring thing stands out: 98% of presidents are white men with an average age of 55. Obama was the only exception, and Hillary won the popular vote, which in any true democracy would have made her the first female president. It is clear that the needs of the people are changing, as is the image of who they see fit to represent them. Yet we live in a nation in which the needs of the real majority, blacks, browns, Asians, Native Americans: women, and the LGBTQIA+; are ignored for the benefits of the well-established old white men.

     It is heartening to see the increased diversity in government, and I welcome the day when these "milestones in history" are nothing out of the ordinary.