The president has long been the face of the government to most citizens. The most noise and commotion is caused for the presidential election and it can become more of a popularity contest. Who can win the hearts of the people and who will best represent the public become central questions. But is it truly the president’s job to follow public opinion? Technically no. Nowhere is it listed in his duties to follow the wishes of the public. Yet to more successfully fulfill his duties, public support is required. The president is not obligated to follow public opinion while in office, but he should always take it into account to. The president is not obligated to follow public opinion as outlined in the Constitution. The job and the duties of the …show more content…
If public opinion is completely ignored, presidents lose support and backing of their actions. It’s been seen that, “The people are the arbiters of access to and retention of presidential power,” (). To be effective in any of their endeavors, presidents need some sort of public approval, and public approval comes from following public opinion. It is not an obligation, but it is a tool for success. While studying citizen oversight, it was found that, “news reports of presidential policy successes and failures were correlated with higher and lower levels, respectively, of Gallup Poll-tested public approval of presidential approval,” (). This government was made to be for the people, so it only follows that government leaders are most effective when listening to the voice of the people. In essence, the president is not obligated to follow public opinion while in office, but he should always take it into account to. While it is nowhere written out that the president must consider public opinion, it is written in histories accounts of previous presidents. The government’s role and power is constantly changing. It may not always matter if the president obeys this unspoken rule, but it has been an important factor for years. The president represents the American people, so they better know their people
Firsts of All, The President is suppose to help our country and make it a sastainable and healthy place for
The powers of the president have long been debated in our country, starting at the founding and continuing to now. How much power should the president be given? How much is too much power? All these questions have been explored numerous times by numerous people. In our Constitution, the President is given expressed, inherent, and delegated powers. These powers have been used by Presidents in many different ways. The study of the way Presidents use these powers is explored in the book by Richard Neustadt: “Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan”. Neustadt discusses how modern presidents wield
A president should view the constitution with a strict interpretation, due to multiple reasons. To illustrate this point, one can use Alexander Hamilton and his national bank situation. This idea created conflict in the whole government, as the democratic – republicans thought it shouldn’t be allowed, and the federalist thought it should. George Washington, the current president at the time, ended up creating a bank, relenting to the Federalist’s wishes, and it ended up becoming a large success. For instance, they were able to pay off the war debts and raise government revenues. If they had used a strict interpretation,
so the president must mobilize the electorate to pressure Washington elites to submit to the president’s leadership.
This book is a bold work by George C. Edwards in which he shares his views of the political system in the US and how it has evolved over time. He has touched almost every president since the 1930s and brought to light some interesting details about how presidents have followed patterns and used their own style of actions to meet their unique objectives. The book describes in detail the attitudes of presidents and reflects his views on presidency. For instance, he has expressed three premises about presidential leadership: public support is used as a social resource by president, presidents must take interest in the problems of the people in order to actually garner support rather than just delivering speeches, and the public can be mobilized successfully by permanent campaigns.
The article, “How Presidents Shape Their Party’s Reputation and Prospects: New Evidence,” explains previous presidents and their popularity. There are five main questions that are stated regarding presidents’ popularity. Gary Jacobson, the author of this article, explains where he acquires his statistical research and his use of it throughout the article. Regarding the previous statements, there is a detailed description about the results that are found from the research. By the end of this review, the reader understands my overall opinion on this article. With this being said, what is the question the author hopes to answers, what method does the author use to answer the question, what is the answers found, and my thoughts on the article
The presidency has been titled the most prestigious executive position in the United States of America, yet it is the most restricted. Presidents possess vast formal powers, nonetheless these powers are restricted due to constitutional check and balances. Article II of the constitution contains the constitutional powers of the government, which delivers the method of election, and provide a permanent four year term. When reading the 2nd Article of the Constitution, many are struck by how much attention is given to the process of the presidential election, and the slight attention paid to the powers of the president once in office. Factually, several presidents have taken a restrictive view of their duties, and the process through which a president is nominated and
In American politics, public opinion is mostly a latent force that typically has no important bearing on national decision making unless citizens become unusually attentive to politics. Many citizens are uninformed, which leads to inconsistent opinions. In Tides of Consent, there are many factors that shift public opinion. Some changes are fast and responsive, such as spikes in presidential approval, and some changes are slow, and occur in increments that may be overlooked. Public opinion in American politics is meaningless individually, but aggregately, public opinion is meaningful.
Throughout history, president's have faced the decreasing approval ratings over their time in the White House. We see that when going into election voters tend to lean more to the individual persuading them things that seem like they are going to make the nation great again. However when elected president, over the years presidents have failed to meet the promises they have made. To win for the presidents is the "power to persuade," but when they lose the confidence of the people, they lose the ability to lead. This causes the next election process, to become very difficult because citizens do not see the right to put in another president who is not going to fulfill their job and promises. However, when the president's approval rating is
While some would argue that the framers of the Constitution did enough to limit the power of the President because of actions carried out by the leaders of the past, the more valid perspective is that these actions were made based on personal goals, and that judgements on these actions are justified based on opinions—not facts. From this, it can be concluded that the authors of The Constitution of the United States have placed enough rules, regulations, and checks to successfully limit the power of the President. In this modern American world, social and governmental society is continuously developing and evolving over time; important decisions that drive this evolution are made everyday by people of great importance. One of these important
This paper looks at the question in reference to “Should the President Be Required to Have Served in the Military?” in reference to be allowed to why the candidates should serve the officer before being considered for president. It also looks at the point given by some who argue, the President Be Required to Have Served in the Military they believe it will help the citizens respect your opinions and authority more. The government may have reasons to why the President Be required to have served in the Military. This paper highlights why the President Be required to have served in the Military and the opposing side to that right.
For example the Gun Show Background Check Act of 2013. This Act came up after the Sandy Hook School Massacre in December. The Act would expand the background check on the sale of firearms as well as military weapons. The Act was said to have nearly 85% of American support. Unfortunately the Senate voted against the bill in a 54 to 46 vote short of the 60 vote majority. This was very shocking to a lot of American citizens not only because of what happened previous with the school shootings, but because of the people who signed on with the bill who also had an A rating with the NRA (National Rifling Committee). The NRA lobbied against the bill, and even stated after the bill failed that the bill would have “criminalized certain private transfers of firearms between honest citizens”. The executive director of the NRA Chris Cox also stated that “we have noted previously, expanding background checks, at gun shows or elsewhere, will not reduce violent crime or keep our kids safe in their schools”. Now the bill might not have reduced violent crime or schools shootings drastically but it would have had some type of impact. This is one of the biggest examples of how the President can have overwhelming public support for a bill, and the bill still not pass the Senate. The Presidents spend a lot if their time gaining the support of the public opinion. This is mainly for the purpose of gaining influence with Congress. Many times this is hard to do because the President can be from one political party while Congress holds the majority in the other political party. This means the President will have to face more obstacles to get the legislation passed. In this case this is what President Obama did and greatly succeeded. Unfortunately Congress still holds the lawmaking authority and with the Gun Show Background Check Act 2013 Congress did vote
Those who disagree claim that the president should have all the power to make decision that are hard to make even if his people don’t agree.
The presidency occupies a unique position in all systems of government including the American system of government. The formal powers and the constitutional position occupied by the institution of the presidency are at the core of all national and international politics (Alexandrova & Timmermans, 2013). The President can serve as Commander-in-chief, nominate and appoint ambassadors, just to name a few of the powers of office. However, there is another power that is often overlooked by most, the power of agenda setting. The Constitution does not directly state this power, but it is heavily implied. This paper scrutinizes the institution of the presidency in line with agenda-setting literature. The agenda setting process relates to a series of streams, circumstances, or activities within public policy institutions and processes. The agenda setting process has three streams that incorporate the problem stream, the policy stream, and the politics stream. The problem stream relates to potential policy problems that may have different magnitudes attached to them. The policy stream associates with an agglomeration of potential solutions to policy problems (Eshbaugh-Soha, 2010). Additionally, the politics stream links to those policy issues and solutions that
The president serves as an advocate for many political policies. We as American citizens blame the president when things do not go the way we visualized, but we fail to recognize that the president is only but a minor part of the process. The Constitution defines the relations between the national and state government. Additionally, the Electoral College plays a significant role deciding whom the next president may be.