No More Presidents | Renegade Cut

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this was a great breakdown of the slow roll of increasing presidential power and is an important message for the American people to demand more democratic institutions.

👍︎︎ 158 👤︎︎ u/blamelessfriend 📅︎︎ Nov 04 2020 đź—«︎ replies

Society has progressed past the need for presidents

👍︎︎ 79 👤︎︎ u/PM_ME_UR_VICTORIES 📅︎︎ Nov 04 2020 đź—«︎ replies

No more presidents

Finally, someone talking some fucking sense. The day after the election the storm may be clearing and the green shoots starting to peek through again. Quick, post more radical content while all the libs are off celebrating their 0.0000001% victory/defeat!

👍︎︎ 26 👤︎︎ u/voice-of-hermes 📅︎︎ Nov 04 2020 đź—«︎ replies

Renegade cut back with the high quality content

👍︎︎ 24 👤︎︎ u/Ndzhang 📅︎︎ Nov 04 2020 đź—«︎ replies

Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave?

👍︎︎ 11 👤︎︎ u/moreVCAs 📅︎︎ Nov 04 2020 đź—«︎ replies
👍︎︎ 5 👤︎︎ u/Holy90 📅︎︎ Nov 04 2020 đź—«︎ replies

That clueless, uninformed Switzerland stanning by US leftists really annoys me. Because being the last country in Europe to grant women the vote and having the world's most restrictive naturalization laws sure is something to aspire to.

👍︎︎ 19 👤︎︎ u/Sansa_Culotte_ 📅︎︎ Nov 04 2020 đź—«︎ replies

Always enjoy Leon covering American history. It is so important to share the narrative that has been repressed in popular thought for generations, but mostly restricted to little corners of exclusive academia, or only available through reading big-ass books most people don't have time, attention, or energy to read.

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/MostReputableSource 📅︎︎ Nov 04 2020 đź—«︎ replies

I honestly kinda dislike this video because Us presidents are one of my interest and it’s trying say I shouldn’t like any president

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/Original_Marzipan685 📅︎︎ Apr 21 2021 đź—«︎ replies
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In many nations, the positions of head of state and head of government are divided. The head of government is the chief officer of the executive branch, and the head of state is the public representative whose duties vary depending on the nation's constitution. In Austria, the president is the head of state, and the federal chancellor is the head of government. In Denmark, the queen is the head of state, and the prime minister is the head of government. In the United States, the president is both head of state and head of government. Internationally, this is not unusual, as many nation-states in Africa and South America combine head of state and head of government, but this is unusual – even unique – in the global north, the term associated with rich nations. Due to this consolidation of power within the structure of the United States as well as the international influence and wealth of the United States, the president is arguably the most powerful and influential individual in the world. The President of the United States is the only nationally elected representative in the nation. Other representatives are elected only by their district, only by their city, and so forth, depending on the political office. The President, so they say, represents the entirety of the nation. Every four years, the people of the United States of America take all of their rights, their safety, their autonomy, and their power, and willingly hand it all over to this representative. This is the one act, they are told, that defines them as Americans and as good citizens. The people have been conditioned to imagine the general election as an exercise in democracy that faithfully elects their representative instead of seeing it how it functions in practice: choosing who will rule over them. The people frame this relationship of power as the people above the president, having final authority on who will be the president, but once said president is elected, the relationship grants authority to the president, not the people, making the election not an exercise in power but the surrender of power. The right to choose the president is certainly a lot better than no right to choose the president, and we absolutely should exercise that right, but the existence of a head of state – chosen or otherwise – does not make us more powerful. Because of this emphasis on the election, this focus on one day of action, the ritual of the general election hides opportunities for more direct action: activism, protest, building solidarity through groups and unions – actual democratic power. Self-governance. Democracy taken seriously. Once we fill out our ballots, we neglect to exercise our agency for years, drifting through our days, safe in the knowledge that our ruler has our best interests at heart – a faith in paternalism more than government, worship more than autonomy. Defenders of this consolidation of power invariably reference the “checks and balances” that children in the United States are taught and then expected to assume are functioning properly as adults. However, the increasing authority of a single individual calls this common wisdom into question. The Constitution of the United States, once granting the president only the authority of a functionary officer, has been stretched to give the president far greater authority than the legislature in many instances and absolute authority in other instances. Defenders of this consolidation of power often retreat to referencing kings and queens to draw contrast between the antiquated executive power of old that the colonists defeated during the American Revolution and the modern, allegedly “checked” executive power of today. While the President of the United States is not a king, the president's reach and influence is greater than, say, King George III. An 18th century king could not wage war through drone strikes and did not have access to a nuclear arsenal. The President of the United States in the 21st century has been granted – and in some cases has granted himself – unilateral authority that bypasses Congress. An 18th century king did not have a surveillance system to spy on every citizen of the entire nation, but a 21st century president nominates the heads of the National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security, and the heads of a number of other federal organizations that control and surveil the people. The only way in which an 18th century king was more powerful than a 21st century president was that their power was established through hereditary inheritance instead of an election. However, some presidents and presidential candidates are relatives of former presidents or are born into the wealth required to launch such a campaign. The president, unlike a king, may have term limits, but the president establishes federal officers and nominates court of appeals judges, district court judges, and Supreme Court justices who are loyal to the president's political goals and ideology. In effect, they continue the president's rule through ideology long after the president has retired or even died. The modern President of the United States has significantly more power than King George III, who, lest we forget, was cast aside to form the independent nation to begin with. The increasing overreach of the executive branch is not only a failure of checks and balances in one nation, though. It is the inevitable outcome of vertical power hierarchies and the increasing authority of the modern state – a region in which the use of legitimate violence has been monopolized. States granting more and more violent authority to themselves internationally runs parallel to the president granting more and more violent authority to himself. The President of the United States is simply the most obvious example of this unassailable pattern of the past few centuries. If we acknowledge that the fewer who hold power, the less democracy we have, and the more power that these few have, the less democracy we have, then we have to conclude that the existence of the modern president of the United States, meaning incredible power held by only one individual, makes us less free. How did this happen, how does it currently function, and what can we do about it? [I. The Origins of the Presidency] Modern glorification of the president sets Americans' imaginations on George Washington as the father of the nation, and if he were the first president, then surely that is when the nation truly began – but that is not true. Following the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the United States of America did not have a President for thirteen years. The Articles of Confederation did not create an office of the presidency, an executive. Instead, the first organization of the government of the United States was represented by coequal states with a horizontal distribution of power – not vertical. Some historians claim that the Articles of Confederation “failed” because this early constitution created a “weak” government, but modern scholarship and research shows that the economy was doing well during the 1780's. According to Dana D. Nelson, author of Bad for Democracy, the office of the presidency was created to better control the people. “This growing democratic involvement was amplified in the increasing phenomenon of extragovernmental organizations of people: county assemblies, watchdog committees, radical associations, and other 'unofficial' out-of-door actions. We typically remember these self-organizations of citizens in the framers’ hostile terms, as a threat to orderly government. This might sometimes have been true. But from another vantage, we can just see them as people excited about and experimenting with new practices of participatory self-government. … It was this democratic excitement that the new office of the president was designed, in part, to calm.” Radical, free associations and rebellions against the wealthy class concerned the Founding Fathers, as they themselves were among the wealthy class. At the Constitutional Convention, the signers aimed to put a stop to this and create a “strong” government to better control the poor. With this came the creation of the executive officer – the president. So concerned were the Founding Fathers that Alexander Hamilton infamously suggested that the President be chosen for life and that they people are not to be trusted. In his own words “All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well-born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right.” Although the Constitutional Convention did not take Hamilton's advice about the nation being ruled by an executive chosen for life, his general beliefs about the control of the people – those he did not consider 'well-born' – was accepted. Neither the Articles of Confederations nor the initial Constitution of the United States provided for popular elections, except for the House of Representatives, but only for property-holding white men. The Constitution provided for Senators to be elected by the state legislators, not the people, for the President to be elected by electors chosen by the state legislators, not the people, and for the Supreme Court to be appointed by the President. If we acknowledge that the fewer people are given power, the less democracy there is, and the more power that the few are given, the less democracy there is, then the creation of the presidency in the Constitution of the United States made the people less free. Bestowing incredible power into very few is argued as a means of maintaining peace and defeating disorder, as was said in the Federalist Papers, but the aim of the state itself is not to maintain order as a kind impartial judge. The state maintains a particular kind of order, a particular distribution of power, a particular distribution of wealth. The “disorder” that worries the state is rebellion against those who control the wealth. With this in mind, the creation of the president by the very class who controlled the wealth can be seen as fortifying itself against rebellion, and maintaining control over the poor, over the people in general. There was a brief moment in history in which the United States, even with the dissolution of the Articles of Confederation, could have continued without a president. During the Constitutional Convention, those present debated forming an executive office that would be shared, perhaps co-equally, among several people. A concept not unlike the Swiss Model of government today. Those who supported this model of the executive branch perhaps feared what a single executive could do, having only recently cast off the King of England. Proponents of a single president argued, instead, that a sole executive would offer a sense of governmental strength, or, to put it in more realistic terms, a single executive would have the people attach their sense of self to a single man. That single man – that president – would represent the nation to the people. Attacking the president would be seen as tantamount to attacking the nation. The people would learn to “trust” the president in spite of what he might do. In other words, for reasons of propaganda and control, a sole executive who “represented” the nation suited the interests of the wealthy political class. We see this in action even today, as criticizing the president is met with cries of “That's your president!” by his defenders. If the president is criticized by a foreign power, his defenders will feel that they, too, have been insulted, and will then support the president with even greater zeal. The president represents the “strength” of the nation. Strangely, when Americans are unsatisfied with a president’s performance, instead of believing the president should have less power or finding ways to limit the president's power, the president is given more power, with the promise that greater authority will allow the president to accomplish his goals. This is touted as “strong leadership” instead of what it is: the consistent increase presidential power throughout the course of American history. [II. Pardons and the Protection of the Presidency] Presidential powers are not simply those written explicitly in the United States Constitution. They are also a series of “implied” powers that a president has suggested that he has, then has exercised successfully, subsequently creating a precedent either in law or in ritual to normalize and codify this power. Article II, Section II of the Constitution establishes the authority of the president, but this authority has been stretched and expanded through these “implied” powers. For example, the power to pardon is explicitly given in Article II, Section II, Clause 1, but the manner in which this should be carried out as well as limits on pardons are vague. Pardons are only mentioned once in the Constitution, practically in passing, not even given its own sentence. “...and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” Because the entirety of the pardon power is less than half a sentence, presidents have pushed the limits of pardons to suit their political goals and personal interests, and since the Supreme Court is often made up at least partly by justices who were chosen by that very president, this executive overreach is often held up as constitutional and therefore permissible by future presidents as well. For example, in 1865, Congress passed a law that disbarred former members of the Confederacy. Augustus Hill Garland, a former Confederate Senator, received a pardon from President Andrew Johnson. This ended up in the Supreme Court, and the Court sided with President Johnson. Because of this reaffirmation of the absolute nature of the presidential pardon, the president can even pardon individuals who have not yet been charged or convicted – pre-emptive pardons. That was the court precedent used in the presidential pardon of Richard Nixon. It also allowed President George H.W. Bush to pardon former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and former CIA official Duane Clarridge before they were tried on Iran-Contra Affair charges. Presidential authority that is “implied” but not explicitly stated by the constitution is often cited, but implied limitations are hypocritically ignored. For example, the end of the sentence, “...except in Cases of Impeachment.” is implied to bar the president from pardoning anyone being impeached or anyone involved in charges related to the president's own impeachment. However, because it does not explicitly say so or go into details, the “traditional” view of this part of the clause is that only impeachment charges themselves are precluded from presidential pardons. The impeachment charges against President Donald Trump focuses predominantly on his allegedly withholding of foreign aid from Ukraine, but the articles of impeachment also referenced his “previous invitations of foreign interference in United States elections,” meaning Russian interference in the 2016 election. Roger Stone was convicted of obstructing an investigation into Russian election interference. This means that President Trump should not have been able to commute Stone's sentence since his conviction was related to Trump's impeachment charges. The part of the clause about impeachment is clearly meant to suggest that the president cannot use the pardon to protect himself. Nevertheless, Stone's sentence was commuted. Wealthy individuals who commit crimes in favor of the president know that they can be pardoned or have their sentence commuted if they are caught. For example, President Ronald Reagan pardoned New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, having previously been convicted of 14 counts of illegal contributions to Richard Nixon. President Donald Trump pardoned Dinesh D'Souza for his illegal campaign contributions. In short, implied powers are utilized, and implied limitations are ignored. Although the president seemingly does not have the power to pardon himself, he is almost completely protected from prosecution, absolving anything he does in office of any legal consequences. The United States Constitution does not say that the president cannot be charged, arrested and prosecuted. Who says that the president cannot be prosecuted? The Department of Justice. And who selects Attorney General, the head of the department? The president. Thus, even though it is technically not law or in the constitution, the policy to protect the president enforced by a federal executive department, whose head is chosen by the president. This immunity from prosecution is another example of the president becoming more powerful over time, as the Department of Justice that protects the president did not exist until 1870, almost a century after the United States declared its independence. The structure of the government changed to give even greater power to the president. The only remedy for a criminal president is the impeachment process outlined in the Constitution, Article II, Section IV: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” However, the makeup of the nation and how it interacts with the government changed following the signing and ratification of the Constitution that outlined this process. The Constitution was signed in 1787 and was in effect by 1788. Only after its ratification did the United States have its first formal political party, the Federalist Party, in 1789. This spun out of the Federalist and Anti-Federalist debates in drafting the Constitution. Due to party loyalty, no president has ever been convicted by the Senate. The House of Representatives has impeached Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, but the Senate has never convicted. This is because the Constitution states that the House only requires a simple majority, but the Senate requires a two-thirds vote to convict, meaning the vote to convict must be bipartisan. If there were, say, three major parties in the United States, a Senate conviction might be possible, but in the two-party system, the barrier is too high. Due to the emergence of the party system, the president is nearly invulnerable to conviction by the senate, and even if he were convicted, the Constitution states that the penalty for conviction is simply removal from office. The Senate is not putting the president on “trial” in the tradition sense. If the president ever feels that he could be convicted by the Senate and charged after he is no longer a sitting president, he can always resign before impeachment even comes up in the House and have his vice president pardon him in exchange for the presidency. The people of the United States are at the absolute mercy of the president if there is nothing he can't do, and nothing he can't get away with. If the president is effectively above the law, then the president has too much power. [III. War and Foreign Policy] According to Bad for Democracy by Dana Nelson “The Constitution, as we know, both defines and limits the power of the three branches. Its description of presidential powers, however, is both less extended and less precise than its description of the scope and limits of the legislative and judicial branches – a vagueness within which claims to executive power have found traction. … It also seems possible that understandings of the founders’ 'intent' have changed with the times. To take a prominent example of such a historical shift, the Constitution denominates the president as 'commander in chief.' This is a title that seemingly decrees wide powers over democracy for the president. But most governmental historians agree that the title – invented by King Charles of England in 1639 and regularly granted to the British colonies’ governors – was a simple and hollow formality, not a signal that the president was to be vested with supreme constitutional agency...” Even the authors of the aforementioned Federalist Papers, who were strongly in favor of having a president, were explicit that there was no intention in the Constitution whatsoever to give significant war powers to a single individual, even the president. Nevertheless, when a president wanted more power in foreign policy, he exercised it through this vague, formal title of commander-in-chief. For example, when John Tyler assumed the presidency after the passing of William Henry Harrison, he quickly informed the cabinet – who had already decided all issues during Harrison's brief tenure – that he, instead, would have the final say on all matters, and if they had a problem with that, they could resign. When nearly all of them did, in fact, resign, he chose a cabinet full of loyalists who would not oppose him. Tyler was so reviled that he was expelled from the Whig Party. Tyler expanded the powers of the presidency in regards to the military through his annexation of Texas. Tyler used Secret Service funds to support military actions without congressional approval. This effectively seized war powers in peacetime. When Abraham Lincoln assumed his office, Congress was in recess, so he delayed their convening so that he could act unilaterally, enlarge both the army and navy beyond their authorized strength, spent public money without congressional approval, and instituted a naval blockade. Theodore Roosevelt expanded war powers further by interjecting into the Russo-Japanese War and committing the US military to support Japan. When he was told that doing so without Congress was unconstitutional, he simply disagreed, and that was that. Roosevelt claimed that the powers implied in the Constitution – “He shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” – was both vague and broad enough for him to do as he pleased. All these instances had the president decide that he had more power than previously used, institute that power, and wait to see if he could get away with it. Once he did get away with it, the executive overreach was no longer overreach. It became the norm. The Constitution is only a document, and what the Constitution meant in theory but only be found in practice. In other words, various presidents throughout the years determined themselves what powers the Constitution gave them by exercising implied powers and seeing if those powers remained after initial use. Moving to more contemporary wars, when Richard Nixon ordered the invasion of Cambodia, it normalized the commander-in-chief's authority to invade and bomb even neutral countries during a time of war or peace. In 1969 and 1970, Congress voted to deny funding for US ground troops in Cambodia as well as Laos and Thailand. Nixon signed the bills into law but also stated that doing so meant nothing, remarking that his signature “...will not change the policies I have pursued and that I shall continue to pursue toward this end.” Congress passed the War Powers Act to stop Nixon, which he vetoed, which Congress finally was able to override. Nevertheless, the damage had been done, and the War Powers Act contained enough loopholes to be effectively worthless for future presidents. No president has accepted the constitutionality of the War Powers Act, claiming it violates the separation of powers and the president's authority as commander-in-chief. However, others would argue that unilateral war powers are the actual violation of separation of powers and that the War Powers Act merely reinforces language already in the Constitution. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court, nominated by the President, has reaffirmed the commander-in-chief as having final authority. In 2000, the Supreme Court turned back a challenge brought by Congress that US intervention in Yugoslavia violated the act. In 2001, after some international back and forth over the legality of threatening war over a matter of extradition, the administration asked Congress to pass The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists, a resolution that allowed the US military to attack Afghanistan. However, in Congress' haste, it gave George W. Bush and future presidents a blank check to wage war, order drone strikes, and commit to bombings of any nation suspected to have terrorists, which covers, broadly, any nation. Section II of the AUMF explicitly states that this does not replace the War Powers Act, but AUMF has made the War Powers Act even more toothless than it once was. When a president wants to avoid the deadlines for congressional authorization outlined in the War Powers Act, the president simply says that the military intervention in question is not a “war” but some other action distinct from a war – a defense sometimes used by the Barack Obama administration. Arthur M. Schleisinger, author of The Imperial Presidency, wrote: “The Founding Fathers made a deliberate effort to divide the control of the war powers. They vested in Congress the authority to commence and authorize war, whether that war be declared or undeclared. At the same time they vested in the Presidency the conduct both of ongoing foreign relations and ongoing war as well as the right to respond to sudden attack when Congress was not in session. This division of powers was inherently unstable. ...the presidential power to conduct diplomacy and the congressional power to authorize hostilities had each the potentiality of overwhelming and nullifying the other. If the President were to claim all the implications of his control of diplomacy, he could, by creating an antecedent state of things, swallow up the congressional power to authorize hostilities.” And that is exactly what has happened. The president does whatever he wants, drone strikes whoever he wants, and even if Congress disagrees and finds this unconstitutional or otherwise unlawful, the aforementioned limitations of impeachment provide little recourse. [IV. Vetoes, Executive Orders and Federal Departments] One power granted to the president is the ability to choose the heads of his federal executive departments, filling them with those of similar ideology or his political cronies. This is another example of presidential powers increasing over time because even though these appointments are within his rights, the amount of federal executive departments and the scope of these departments have both increased in the past two centuries. Congress set the date that the Constitution went into effect as March 4th, 1789, and later that year the State Department, Treasury Department, and the Department of War were officially established, but everything else came about later. Department of Interior in 1849, Agriculture in 1862, Justice in 1870, Labor in 1913, Commerce in 1937, Department of War changed to Department of Defense in 1947, Health and Human Services in 1953, House and Urban Development in 1965, Transportation in 1967, Energy in 1977, Education in 1979, Veterans Affairs in 1989, and Homeland Security in 2002. Furthermore, the president appoints the heads of other organizations that did not exist during the time of the Founding Fathers, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, established in 1908, the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947, the National Security Agency in 1953, and so forth. In short, though the president always had the authority to make such appointments, the amount of appointments did not exist until later on. These new departments and the president's influence on said departments has given the president increasing power and control over the centuries. These departments can (and have been) weaponized to serve the president and his political goals. Presidents direct these departments through “executive orders” – an authority that only exists in the Constitution because presidents have consistently said it does and because their Supreme Courts have largely accepted this. The Constitution does not contain the words “executive orders” – instead, presidents cite the “take care that the laws should be executed” part, which is an extremely broad view. Some scholars believe that “take care” certainly does not mean create but enforce federal law. Executive orders were uncommon in the early days of the presidency, as the first five presidents signed a total of fifteen executive orders combined. Theodore Roosevelt changed all this, signing over 1,000 executive orders. Since Roosevelt, all subsequent presidents signed over one hundred or in some cases over one thousand executive orders. The lowest was Gerald Ford, who served less than one term, at 169 orders, and the highest was FDR at 3,728. The President does more than choose the heads of departments. He can, and does, control the departments as much as he wants. According to Tara Branum, author of President or King: “The increased use of executive orders and other presidential directives is a fundamental problem in modern-day America. The Constitution does not give one individual an 'executive pen' enabling that individual to single-handedly write his preferred policy into law. Despite this lack of constitutional authority, presidential directives have been increasingly used both by Republicans and Democrats to promulgate laws and to support public policy initiatives in a manner that circumvents the proper lawmaking body, the United States Congress. It would be foolhardy to ignore the danger inherent in this situation, simply because one might like the individual currently holding the presidential pen. It would be hypocritical, as well as dangerous, to seek change when a president from the opposing political party is in power, but to ignore the problem once a president from one's own party has been elected.” When Congress wishes to limit the president's influence, the often find it difficult to the president's veto power and the loyalty of his party. A loyal political party sides with their president far more often than not, making overriding a veto challenging. Every Bill passed by the House and Senate, before it becomes law, must be presented to the President. He either signs it or vetoes it, returning it to Congress. The veto can only be overridden by a two thirds majority in both the House and Senate. Constitutional scholars and apologists for presidential power claim that this is merely a check on the power of Congress, but the veto gives the president – a single individual – more power than as many as 66 out of the 100 Senators. Only at 67 can the Senate have more say-so than the president, and that does not happen all that much. It wasn't until John Tyler, the tenth president, before a veto was overridden, and it wasn't until Franklin Pierce, the fourteenth president, before the president's success rate with the veto fell below 50%. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the thirty-second president, issued 635 vetoes and was only overridden nine times, meaning FDR's success rate with the veto was 97.6%. George H. W. Bush's success rate with his vetoes was similar at 96.6%, Clinton at 94.4%, Obama at 91.7%, and Trump, thus far, at 100%. The only modern president with a more mixed success rate with the veto was George W. Bush, and even he successfully rejected bills most of the time. Generally speaking, if the president does not want a bill to be signed into law, chances are the bill will not be signed into law. In 1974, the president was granted even more power under the National Emergencies Act, which formalized the rules surrounding the president's ability to call for a national emergency. Under the act, the president grants himself over 100 statutory powers. Everything from public health to defense. Obviously, this can be abused by any president, as whether or not something is an “emergency” is his judgment call alone. During the Trump administration, the president declared a national emergency to secure funding for a border well. When the emergency was called to end by Congress, Trump simply vetoed the bill. To put it another way, the president can decide to grant himself significantly more power than he already has, and he is often the one who decides whether or not to keep that power. [CONCLUSION] The pattern of presidential power over the centuries is that the president interprets the Constitution in the broadest possible sense, overreaches his power, and then once his executive overreach is either unchallenged or maintained following a failed challenge by Congress, future presidents continue with this new level power, and perform even more executive overreach. Increasing use of executive orders and vetoes, new federal departments, war powers – all of it came about by a president stretching the limits of power and seeing how much he could get away with. We know it doesn't have to be this way, because it wasn't always this way. Reformists would say that legislative reform or even a constitutional amendment outlining the limits of the presidency even greater detail are necessary. Some reformists go further, citing European examples of the division of power, particularly the Swiss model of government. Switzerland's “executive branch” is actually a federal council of seven people, not one. A kind of collective presidency. The actual “president” is elected by the federal assembly from the federal council, but the office is mostly ceremonial, has little, if any, real power over the rest of the council, and only serves a short one-year term. The nation is organized through cantons and communes, and the people engage in semi-direct democracy. Aaaand some would say that we should go even further and move toward a society without any unjust social or economic hierarchies, which includes not only the removal of the head of state but the removal of the state. I know which one I want. Regardless of whether one wants reform or revolution, it seems so clear, even among moderates, that the president of the United States has far too much unilateral authority. So much power vested in one person can be – and has been – disastrous. Haven't we progressed enough as a society that we shouldn't need to attach our sense of worth, sense of self, and national identity to a single individual? Our lives are our own. We can live in a world with no more presidents.
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Channel: Renegade Cut
Views: 247,521
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: renegade cut, 2020, 2020 election, 2020 presidential election, 2020 general election, president of the united states, donald trump, barack obama, george w. bush, bill clinton, george h. w. bush, president donald trump, president trump, election, potus, president, founding fathers, constitution, united states constitution, articles of confederation, abraham lincoln, america, declaration of independence, george washington, alexander hamilton, the white house, congress, the state
Id: kyk5GHKJLGY
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 36min 16sec (2176 seconds)
Published: Wed Nov 04 2020
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