The following is a summary of material available in our short course on the presidency as a branch of the U.S. government and how it has changed over time. It is not about any one person.
In Part One of our course, you will learn that the framers of our Constitution had a lot of trust issues. Among these were whether the presidency could be trusted to serve the common good rather than a favored faction and whether the president could be trusted with enough power to deal with the problems of the day without tyrannizing the people. You will learn they tried to overcome their trust issues by creating a presidency with constrained powers and autonomy that would be accountable to Congress. They also attempted to insulate the presidency from the politics of faction through the invention of the Electoral College.
In Part Two, you will learn that, contrary to the framer’s intentions, the presidency was politicized when the state legislatures required their electors in the Electoral College to represent the popular vote in their states. In so doing, the presidency gained a power base and accountability to the voters in addition to accountability to Congress. This shift in power and accountability can sometimes motivate populist or partisan presidents to try to weaken constitutional constraints that get in the way of their ambition.
In Part Three of this course, we will review how the powers initially assigned to the presidency were deepened and the implications of those changes. We will review three powers in particular: war-making, treaty-making, and supervising the federal bureaucracy.
As in the times of the framers, one debate today is whether the presidency as a branch of government can be trusted with enough power to deal with the problems of the day without tyrannizing the people.
You can see our full list of courses here: https://cffad.org/topics/
