Saturday, April 16, 2016

The Presidency is Not What you Think

Yep, sorry. Just a bit more politics for this year for those who are interested. One of the things that I am amazed with in this election is the lack of understanding when it comes to the political system or the rules of the government. In recent months I have listened to Mister Trump discuss how the delegate system used by the Republic National Convention is rigged (Whitesides, 2016) or how unfair delegate distribution is in the super PACs for Mrs. Clinton (Norton, 2016). Either way, the first thing that comes to mind is both parties are complaining about rules they knew existed before entering the contest. I mean, that's the equivalent of playing checkers and then complaining how unfair it is to allow a king piece to go backwards while all the other pieces who are not king-ed cannot. It's the rules of your party, deal with it or get them changed before you run. Of course, I could go in to a long dissertation on this, but that's not my intent for this blog post.

What I want to cover today is the seeming belief that the presidency is going to be the silver bullet that is going to fix everything that is wrong with our country. Zealots on both sides of the aisle are backing their political white knight with this crazed idea that if they are elected they will either secure our borders and economy or finally make jobs perfect and fair all around (among other things). I am sorry to disappoint you, but that is not how the presidency works.

The job of the president is to act as a negotiator between the congress and the courts by his use of the veto and approval of laws. The president is also to engage the people of the congress to try and get them to work together to pass the laws that he believes is best for the country. The president is not supposed to be using executive orders to do all this and make unilateral decisions from his seat in the White House. Do not get me wrong, I understand how much frustration President Obama has been experiencing with a rather annoying congress, but I have to wonder if he has really tried to work with the congress? I see him give rather pointed speeches and then just walk away then when the congress does not do it, he writes an executive order. Even now, these executive orders are being challenged and being over turned as unconstitutional (Slattery, 2014) with his largest executive order on immigration coming up for review by the Supreme Court (Wofford, 2016). There is a good chance that the Supreme Court in June may say that executive orders have no basis in domestic policy and should only be used with foreign policy. If Senator Sanders, Mister Trump, or Missus Clinton plan to use that ability, they could find it severely curtailed by the time they get in.

Now, this next part is personal opinion, but I feel that citizens of our country are trying to fix it the wrong way, by finding the perfect person to sit as president. The problem is that trying to get the president to change the laws is the equivalent of trying to have an football coach teach baseball. The congress is the governing body that makes all the laws we love and hate and if we want to see changes in the bills put forward, we need to start changing who represents our states. If we replace the politicians who are preferring to fight the president instead of taking care of the country with politicians who want to help, if the next president is willing to work with those who opinions differ, we might finally start seeing some improvement overall. No one person's opinion is paramount over another and that is what everybody needs to start realizing.

If this does not change, I do not see any hope for anyone who takes office as he will simply inherit the mess that President Obama has been fighting and in case of some who are hated by the congress, they'll find themselves facing even harder odds to do anything effective in their term. Our Republic and democratic process is not the place for single minded, unilateral decisions of personality, but what is best for our country. If people do not start getting that, things are only going to get worse.


References

Norton, B. (2016, April 12). This system is so rigged: Outrage as undemocratic superdelegate system gives clinton unfair edge over sanders | salon.com. Retrieved from http://www.salon.com/2016/04/12/this_system_is_so_rigged_outrage_as_superdelegate_system_undermines_democracy_giving_clinton_unfair_edge_over_sanders/

Slattery, E. (2014, June 26). Supreme Court Rules Obama’s Recess Appointments Violated the Constitution. Retrieved from http://dailysignal.com/2014/06/26/supreme-court-rules-obamas-recess-appointments-violated-constitution/

Whitesides, J. (2016, April 12). Trump blasts 'rigged' rules on picking republican delegates| Reuters. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-idUSKCN0X81HE

Wofford, T. (2016, January 19). Obama's immigration executive orders to receive supreme court review. Retrieved from http://www.newsweek.com/obama-executive-orders-immigration-scotus-417386