Quote:
Originally Posted by
filghy2
What I always find paradoxical about the US is that your country was founded as a reaction against autocracy, and the founding fathers clearly intended a fairly limited presidency. yet you have ended up with a powerful imperial presidency. The same thing has happened in parliamentary democracies to a degree - the executive has increased its power at the expense of the legislature. But the critical difference in a parliamentary system is that it's much easier to remove a leader who proves unsuitable. Leaders are often removed by their own party when they become too unpopular.
The founding fathers seem to have assumed that there would be enough people of good conscience on both sides of Congress to constrain and, if necessary, remove Presidents who abused their power. They did not envisage a situation in which a President's party would largely continue to support him whatever he did. I suspect that may prove to be the fatal flaw in the US system in the long term, and possibly in the short term.
I agree that the founders didn't expect this kind of factionalism. They seemed to discuss at length the bad faith of individuals but did not expect it to be so systemic. One issue that partly explains the strength of our executive is the fact that we had a failed government under the Articles of Confederation, in which our federal government didn't even have the power to levy taxes or regulate commerce and states could coin their own money. It is a surprise that in making the adjustment they would not just create a unitary executive, but one whose power could only be curtailed by removal from office. They provide a mechanism for the removal but not a built-in mechanism to insulate the investigation that would lead to his removal.
There was an entire discussion about whether the creation of a unitary executive was a betrayal of the revolution or whether there would still be enough to distinguish a President and a King but they clearly thought that accountability to the public every four years would be more salutary than it is.
I also think it's a bit paradoxical that they ended up deciding on something that insulated the President so much. They were very clear that impeachment should not operate as a no confidence vote and made both the standard for impeaching the President high (treason, bribery, and high crimes and misdemeanors) as well as the institutional safeguards (bicameral votes of 1/2 and 2/3 respectively). They could not have possibly known that our system would develop the way it did and that the second vote in the senate would be virtually unattainable.
What's interesting is that when the founders were discussing the impeachment process they considered having the impeachment trial in the Judiciary, but thought there was a GREATER chance of the process being politicized given that the Supreme Court Justices are appointed by the President. They did seem to anticipate the types of ways in which a President could abuse his power. Consider this direction by Madison: "if the President uses pardon power in a corrupt way, by pardoning crimes he himself has advised, impeachment is the remedy."
In the end I think you're right. They expected there would be corrupt officials but they didn't anticipate such tribalism, where factions would develop over the best way to run the country, and it would prevent people from performing their duties honorably. They seemed to take for granted that people would behave badly but that Congressmen would see themselves as distinct from the President.
