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- Sep 13, 2010
For or against him, it's curious that people want Obama to do so much. In the formative years of the country, the office of the president was largely a ceremonial one. It wasn't actually until the Depression that the president (Roosevelt) stepped things up. States, compared to today, largely had an anti-federalist stance and it was the norm that states solve their own respective problems. With the Depression, though, states quickly went under from the massive strain and suddenly everyone was looking to the federal government to save them. Cue Roosevelt with his massive welfare initiatives, infrastructure programs, and the next couple wars.
From then on, the powers of the presidential office have grown progressively more and more extensive.
It's to the extent now--again, love him or leave him--that Obama now seems to be expected by most to magically fix everything HIMSELF without any consideration by said Americans of opposition in the form of lobbyists, the Senate, the House, the Supreme Court, his own staff and advisors, American foreign nationals, foreign rulers, government agencies, and so on and so forth, not to mention the independent corporations and their shareholders who have huge financial sway over the course of events in this country. How much? Anyone who thinks America is a democracy is either uneducated or in denial. America is a plutocracy with democratic tendencies.
So what is anyone to do? What does NT think? Will the executive office continue to amass more and more clout as time goes on? Will there ever be any solid constraints? Considering how ineffective the houses of congress are (before the 70s, there was roughly only one filibuster used per DECADE) and how out of touch they are (how many could find their way out of a youtube channel?), should there be?
What do?
From then on, the powers of the presidential office have grown progressively more and more extensive.
It's to the extent now--again, love him or leave him--that Obama now seems to be expected by most to magically fix everything HIMSELF without any consideration by said Americans of opposition in the form of lobbyists, the Senate, the House, the Supreme Court, his own staff and advisors, American foreign nationals, foreign rulers, government agencies, and so on and so forth, not to mention the independent corporations and their shareholders who have huge financial sway over the course of events in this country. How much? Anyone who thinks America is a democracy is either uneducated or in denial. America is a plutocracy with democratic tendencies.
So what is anyone to do? What does NT think? Will the executive office continue to amass more and more clout as time goes on? Will there ever be any solid constraints? Considering how ineffective the houses of congress are (before the 70s, there was roughly only one filibuster used per DECADE) and how out of touch they are (how many could find their way out of a youtube channel?), should there be?
What do?
