The President is the most powerful person the in entire world. But in a democratic state, what purpose does the President serve? Is he or she supposed to be the servant to the people, following their every will, or the Master of the Nation, a leader who commands public policy? Both views of the function of the President have dangerous attributes, though both have highly beneficial aspects as well.
The President cannot possibly behave strictly as a public servant, as this amounts to mob rule. There is a difference between democracy and rule by the mob. A democracy in which the people are sovereign has order, security, and structure to it. In mob rule, though the people still technically retain sovereignty and freedoms, anarchy and unstable government prevail.
On the other hand, the President is elected by the people; by being elected, he or she promises to execute their will. There are still problems with this view, however. "The people," especially Americans, are extremely diverse and, as such, have diverse wants and needs. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the President is elected by the majority, and is only bound by the majority's will. Alas, this view too is far from perfect: is everyone else to be disenfranchised?
Clearly, then, despite the fact that we live in a democracy, the President should not answer exclusively to the people. Perhaps the President is meant to be a master, who leads his people and bends public policy according to his own personal whim.
This, in turn, has its own problems: is the President merely an elected dictator? The Romans used this idea; in times of crisis they elected a single man and vested all executive power in him. They called him Dictator, and we derive our modern word from this title. The Dictator was required to step down after six months and return power to the Senate. The most famous of the Roman Republic Dictators was Cincinnatus, who refused to serve the full six month term of his post. He was so effective and well liked that a major American city was named after him. Is this such a terrible idea for times of American crisis? Abraham Lincoln was the virtual dictator during the Civil War; he suspended habeas corpus and defied court orders attempting to restrain his power.
There is another danger to giving absolute power to the President. If the President is not fulfilling the people's will, whose will is being fulfilled? Special interests or corporate America? We see this problem with our current President, who flies in the face of public opinion in order to advocate an enormously unpopular war. Who wanted this war (the people certainly opposed it)? Some will argue that special oil interests spurred Bush to invade Iraq, and there may be the remote possibility that these people are correct.
This brings up another question: what if the President (such as George W. Bush) commits to an unpopular action for the good of the people, because the people do not know what is in their best interest, anyway? Unfortunately, this may be partially the case in America today, since we have such a closed government and little accountability. In modern times, the people may not know what is truly going on; therefore, how can they know what is truly in their best interest? For example, President Harry S. Truman decided, without the democratic input of the people, to deploy atomic bombs on Japan (after all, the people had no idea the atom bomb existed). To this day, it remains a controversial and unpopular decision, but it was the right one. Truman had the courage to decide, unilaterally, to end the war for the sake of the people. Still, it is obviously dangerous to vest the power to decide what is best for the people in one person's hands.
The Constitution is vague regarding this topic. It merely says, "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America" (Article II Section I). The difficulty comes in defining exactly what "executive power" entails: servitude to the people's will, or sole decider of national policy?
One can only conclude that a combination of both perspectives of the Presidency define the president's function. The President is, paradoxically, simultaneously the National Servant and the National Master. This idea of the contradictory purposes of the President is reminiscent of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's social contract: the people, possessing sovereignty, give their permission to the President to make decisions for them. If the President fails in this duty, the people will ensure he or his supporters are not reelected.
Hail to the Chief: our Master and Servant.
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Very nice blog with interesting questions. Your blog would be a good forum topic.