No one “serves” the President – you only “serve” monarchs or dictators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The presidency is an office<\/em><\/strong>, not a person, and “loyalty” (if any) is only due to that office, not to a specific person. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The President is not the highest power in the land – the people are. All government authority in this country derives from the people. (“We the people…”)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The President is not even the highest authority in government – he is explicitly<\/em> answerable to Congress (through the process of impeachment), and no amount of crying “executive privilege” is going to change this fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The President isn’t really meant to be a leader, he’s meant to be an administrator<\/em> – his duty is to faithfully execute the laws that Congress passes with the money Congress grants. In this way, the President kind of serves Congress (which itself serves the people) – and not the other way around. (And this is how it should<\/em> be – unless you personally enjoy dictatorships.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The President is only really a “leader” of his own party, and only has “authority” that his party grants him, through their control (or lack thereof) of Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you want to think of it as a business (which it is not, but for the sake of argument we’ll make the comparison), the President is the CEO, Congress is the Board of Directors, and the people are the shareholders. A CEO may be “in charge” of the company, but he’s answerable to the board, and needs the board’s approval for major decisions. And if a CEO does things that decrease the value of the company and hurt the shareholders, he – along with the board of directors, if they went along with it – is going to rightfully find himself in very hot water with some very angry shareholders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh, and the President absolutely cannot pardon himself. That is the logic of a 5 year old. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A mini rant on what “the President” actually means, since so many people seem to have forgotten.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,10],"tags":[412,19,385,413],"class_list":["post-5282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-rants","tag-america","tag-government","tag-politics","tag-president","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-1nc","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6280,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2025\/02\/11\/oathbreaker\/","url_meta":{"origin":5282,"position":0},"title":"Oathbreaker","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 11, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Talking about sworn oaths and the people who break them.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6230,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2025\/02\/03\/executive-fiat\/","url_meta":{"origin":5282,"position":1},"title":"Executive Fiat","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 3, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Presidential power has been slowly but steadily increasing, and especially so in recent years, but now it's gotten dangerous - and I worry that we've passed a tipping point and the \"checks and balances\" of our government are no longer able to compensate.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1454,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/10\/31\/get-ready-to-vote\/","url_meta":{"origin":5282,"position":2},"title":"Get Ready to Vote","author":"Keith Survell","date":"October 31, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm sure I'm not the only one you'll hear saying this, but in a few days when the election comes: GET OUT THERE AND VOTE. Don't forget that in many places you're not just voting for the President - you're also probably voting for one or more senators or representatives.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":268,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/10\/08\/enemy-combatants-and-the-war-on-terror\/","url_meta":{"origin":5282,"position":3},"title":"“Enemy Combatants” and “The War on Terror”","author":"Keith Survell","date":"October 8, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been conflicted over the idea of the President of the United States being able to declare a U.S. Citizen an \"enemy combatant\" and hold him\/her without the \"Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus.\" It bothered me so much that I decided to look into it myself.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6262,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2025\/02\/04\/quid-pro-quo\/","url_meta":{"origin":5282,"position":4},"title":"Quid Pro Quo","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 4, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"How can corruption be so obvious and yet go so unchallenged by anyone?","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6296,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2025\/02\/19\/a-dictatorship-by-any-other-name-is-still-a-dictatorship\/","url_meta":{"origin":5282,"position":5},"title":"A Dictatorship by Any Other Name is Still A Dictatorship","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 19, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Unitary Executive\" = \"Dictatorship\" - call it what it is.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}