Question

The American President is an interesting institution since it is an office elected by the American people, but not directly. The office of the President is determined by the Electoral College in order to give some voice to smaller states in the electing of the President. This was established in the US Constitution due to the fear that if the President was elected directly by the people through popular vote, it is likely that only the largest states would matter in elections and only the interests of those highly populated states would be addressed. The President is to act as a countermeasure to Congress. While Congress’ role is to create law, the President can veto that law and is to enforce the laws that are passed. It is also important to remember that Congress and the Supreme Court are meant to act as a countermeasure to the President; the US Constitution was written to make every attempt to keep the President from becoming too powerful and being able to act on their own. The office of the President as we know it was established as a compromise because it was clear one was needed with the failure of the Articles of Confederation. Yet, modern presidents are far more powerful than the earliest presidents. Is this a problem? How should we judge a president? By their accomplishments, how they handled crises, by their character?

Answer 1

Step-by-step explanation:

Modern presidents being more powerful is a problem because if the president is not kept in check than if a bad president is put into office than they might become unstoppable. We should judge a president on all three.