Rumors of the death of American democracy are greatly exaggerated.
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Chris Cillizza recently penned a column arguing that it is basically impossible for modern presidents to be successful. He starts off with the claim that, “Being president is the most powerful job in the world. At which you will almost certainly fail.” And in some ways he’s right; it is basically impossible for presidents to get to be some sort of elected Roman Emperor who always get their way and never face any problems. But those limits have more to do with the nature of the presidency, and I suppose life in general.
Presidents are not kings or absolute rulers of the government. Indeed they aren’t even absolute rulers of the executive branch or sometimes even their own White House! The reasons for this are pretty basic, but let’s review. When the framers sat down to write the Constitution they had just gotten done fighting a seven-year war against what they saw as a tyrannical King. They were wary of creating a new tyrant, and thus fractured power in the American political system dividing it among separate institutions that would be forced by design to share power. Hence, we have two legislative bodies in Congress; hence we have a federal system with a national and state governments.
The result is a paradoxical position for the person who gets to sit in the Oval Office. That person is the single most influential and powerful individual person in the government, but the President’s office is fairly weak compared to the political leaders in other democratic systems. Mattew Dickenson recently pointed out just a few of the tools that say the British Prime Minister has that American presidents can only dream of:
That’s why presidents cannot dismiss Congress, call for new elections, or even count on the support of a legislative majority to pass legislation—all expectations that many prime ministers in other nations possess. And, with the ratification of the 22nd amendment, presidents lucky enough to win reelection serve most of their second term as de facto lame ducks.
Which means that presidents can in fact succeed, even if they have to deal with a party in opposition or all sorts of disasters occurring all over the world. And the reason for this is all modern presidents have had to deal with a party in opposition and the occasional disaster. That’s just part of the job. But that doesn’t mean that they are doomed to failure, unless your definition of success is completely unreasonable.
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How about upholding the Constitution and enforcing the Bill Of Rights? I have seen 10 Presidents in my lifetime and all of them have fallen short on this.
Wes, isn’t it amazing what we’ve seen in our life time … even long enough to see history repeat itself. But us guys …. we don’t know what we’re talking about.”Things are different now” How many times have you heard that? My response is to smile,nod my head and say “yeah, riiiiight.”