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< | It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted. |
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< | -- By DavidGiordano - 19 Feb 2021 |
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> | Hail to the Speaker |
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> | -- By DavidGiordano - 19 Feb 2021 |
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< | Section I |
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< | Subsection A |
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> | Politics is at a disconcerting fever-pitch in America. The storming of the Capitol is a haunting window to the passions our political system invokes, and our civil war reminds us that the aftermath of a presidential election can also get much worse. But why is it the president that receives so much passionate focus? A short answer might be that the President is the head of state – our highest office. Fair enough, but the Constitution’s congressional provisions in Article I are, well, in Article I and it is far more expansive than the President’s Article II. Is this passion misplaced? A broad strokes reading of the Constitution’s structure suggests that Congress, not the President, is the more natural fit for a head of state. |
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> | First, some basics on terminology. It’s easy to forget that a state and its government are distinct. The state houses the wants, passions and desires of its constituents. The government serves the state in furthering these desires, but there are extra-governmental ways to advance a state’s will. |
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> | This division is reflected in other governments of the world. It is the Queen’s government, and when it dissolves, the state does not collapse, but rather a new government is commissioned, as though the Queen had taken a trip to the government store in need of an upgrade. It is this head of state (perhaps the Queen, perhaps a president) who represents the nation and its identity to the world. The head of government enacts, but does not necessarily create, policy in contribution to that vision. |
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< | Subsection B |
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> | In the United States, the head of state and head of government are nominally the same person: the President. But, an executive that carries out policy, though they may be a head of state on paper, is ultimately still in service to the writer of the policy, and Congress is the heuristical writer of policy. In so doing, Congress is best positioned to script for our nation who we are as Americans and who we want to be in a way befitting of a head of state. |
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> | There is no doubt that the passions of identity and culture wars are raging in American politics in 2021. Partisan rancor feels as though it is at a generational high as in election after election voters battle for the soul of the nation in the ballot-box. If Congress is where we get to express our soul as a nation in the form of acts, policy, and resolutions, we seem to be expending a lot of effort tasking the President with forging our identity. MAGA hats and highway caravans speak to the expressive power a presidential candidate, and virtually no other American political figure, can generate in 2021. |
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> | As elections for president seem to be more focused on their capacity as head of state than head of government, this style of election has produced presidents that try to lean into the head of state role more, and consequentially assume more of the functions of Congress.
As such, Presidents frequently campaign on promises that are not entirely in their wheelhouse. The 43rd president had to go through Congress because a president cannot simply will an overhauled healthcare system, and if a president could, I suspect they would not choose Obamacare as the system of their dreams. |
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> | It’s no surprise Presidents have increasingly turned to executive orders as the normal-order way to legislate, to their effectual peril. Donald Trump relied heavily on executive orders to deliver on his populist campaign promises, and Joe Biden was able to wipe out many of them the moment he held the office. By day 3, 30 executive orders had been signed halting the travel ban, succession from the Paris Climate Accord, the infamous wall, and other scraps of conservative identarian red-meat. |
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> | Perhaps it’s further no surprise that the Electoral College feels evermore outrageous. When the Presidency is perceived as the expression of the national identity that can deliver legislative promises, it is quixotic at best to have a system that enables a minority to select their representative. |
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> | Might the creation of a designated, Congressionally-based head of state soothe some of these structural tensions? |
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> | If we’re going to have an electoral contest that enables us to represent our state in a single individual, placing that individual in Congress (and directly electing them by all voters in the Union) seems most prudent. Residential proximity in the visionary branch is a greater cradle for identity than its current home in the branch that carries out what the legislative branch writes. |
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< | Section II |
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> | Such a direct election would also create the first single action that all voters in the United States can perform together. The current presidential context is more akin to 51 separate, but simultaneous elections as states are under no actual obligation to have a popular election – this congressional contest would be one event. Such a singular event is fitting of such a singular embodiment of our state. |
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> | As for the President, with less “legislative” mandate he or she would have less pressure and expectation to rule by the weak, executive order. Presidential campaigns could then look more like the election for a head of government only. It’s hard to envision the dynamics of such a presidential election, but presidents might feel less need to promise walls and overhauled healthcare regimes, and receive the passion that comes with it. The Electoral College might feel less offensive, as well. |
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> | In reality, I present this as a provocative “wouldn’t it be interesting if…?”. There are critical, and likely dispositive, historical and prudential dynamics left unexamined, as well as what our very own sense of national self would think about expressing itself differently. Nevertheless, this structural paradox does seem to frustrate American political expression and contribute to the agitation of its passions. Is this who we are? |
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