Pros And Cons Of A President

I have always contended that the President has little or no power. Or maybe a better way to say this is that he has the powers the US Constitution allows him to have, checked by the other branches of government and he can exercise them with the blessing of the US citizens. So his powers are very limited.

For example, the president is the "Commander in Chief" so you would think this means that the Armed Forces answer to him. But image what would happen if he tried to take over the country by military force. A lot of the commanders would disagree with him and fight him for that - even if he is their commander in chief. Many of the enlisted men would do the same. Imagine how many people he would have to convince to support him to have

But no president can take over the entire Supreme court. There are always some justices sitting that have been appointed by other presidents - usually with very different political views. And even if a justice was appointed by a president of a certain party, he can vote his own mind. It would be very difficult to force even one justice to vote a certain way all the time, much less controlling a majority of them. But let 's say a conspiracy formed and killed all the Supreme Court justices and the sitting president tried to appoint 9 new justices that all would do whatever he said. The Senate would never approve all of them and Congress would probably start impeachment proceedings against the President. At the same time, law enforcement and other branches of the justice system would be investigating the mysterious deaths of the Supreme Court justices and once they connected the president to them, he would be arrested and thrown in jail. If by some impossible way he managed to avoid either arrest and/or impeachment, it 's entirely possible that citizens would demand he

Under the guise of calling for patriotism and support of the troops, presidents have managed to put top down pressure on the population with some success. Usually in these extreme situations the president can get Congress to pretty much fall in line and approve almost anything that looks reasonable. They can also do a lot in secret using "National Security" as a cover. This tactic also worked quite successfully for GWB after 9/11. In WWII and the Civil War eventually the "good guys" won and things pretty much went back to normal, though there was fallout. For example, no one can run 4 times for president anymore. Unfortunately Lincoln was shot and he had an extremely ineffective VP to fill in for