2016 week 39: the power of the Presidency

There were a ton of things I wanted to write about this week, but, as usual, the one I finally landed on comes from a Twitter argument with someone who I generally like and respect. Here, she asserted that it doesn't matter who is President and that it's fine to elect Donald Trump because either (a) it won't change anything or (b) if it does, we will know how things are coupled.

She went on a long screed about how we should burn everything to the ground. Per her, voting doesn't matter, and things are so irrevocably fucked up that the only viable solution is to hit the reset button.

To be clear — I understand where this sentiment comes from. If you're an individual gas molecule in a balloon, slamming into the wall seems to be utterly inconsequential. It's incredibly easy to throw up your hands in despair and ask «Why bother ?». Not only that, but there are many large forces that influence government that the President is relatively powerless to push back against. Her example was that President Obama couldn't close Gitmo. I'd add that he was relatively powerless to stop W's wars or the squandering of trillions on military-industrial-complex projects like the SLS or F-35. He couldn't get a public option in the Affordable Care Act, and couldn't do a thousand other things that he would have liked to.

As President Obama, Elon Musk, and others have said — being President is like being captain of a huge ship with a tiny rudder. The country is designed with many checks and balances to prevent a single individual from exerting too much influence.

All of that being said, she asks — what's the harm in electing someone like Donald Trump ?

There are scenarios where there is no harm. He could even potentially break up calcification in Washington and maybe even accomplish things that others couldn't.

The problem is that while the President can't do everything, they, individually, can do an incredible amount of harm or good. The example I cited (because it was fresh in my mind) was Nixon almost single-handedly prolonging the war in Vietnam to ensure his reelection. Even the start of that war was strongly influenced by President Johnson and President Kennedy's appointee, Secretary of Defence McNamara.

On that subject — the number of Presidential appointments is huge. Those aren't obvious, but each of those exerts significant power that can change things substantially in a thousand ways. Supreme Court nominees, in particular, can cast several decades long shadows, and those are just one of the more visible ways a President exerts influence.

Presidents notably don't have the power to declare war.. but one need only look at the last 80 years of history to see how often we've bothered going through that route. Even if it weren't within their power to execute armed conflicts, in addition to being the chief executive, the President is a diplomat. They have the power to trigger or prevent wars, and to persuade Congress to do things that can get us into quagmires.

This idea that «the President has no power so why not elect Trump?» is grotesquely ignorant of history and of how government works. Her assertion that the President is a pawn — a helpless figurehead with no real influence is dangerous and, almost more than that, depressing. This is a person who seems well informed, but like an anti-vaxer, her knowledge comes from «alternative» sources.

It's taking things that have some foundation in fact, looking at them through a paranoid lens, and completely blind to the places where Presidents can't do all that much, but they can do great or horrible things.

She assured me that Trump couldn't build his wall. This is actually a bit silly because (a) that's nowhere near the real damage he could do and (b) it's actually quite plausible that he could get a wall built — even if he doesn't really want to. Simply by talking about it and setting things in motion, if he were elected, there would likely be significant pressure to get that wall built. It's a stupid waste of money — an ineffective treatment for an imaginary problem — but as far as big government projects go, the bill is shockingly small.

The wall, itself, doesn't worry me (though I do hate the idea of pissing away billions of dollars and labor that could be used to rebuild our infrastructure on a monument to stupidity). One thing related to it that does worry me is the forced deportation of order of ~10 million people. Like the wall, even if he doesn't actually want to do that, there would be significant pressure. If it happens, it'd require significant stepping up of our current deportations. Aside from also being a stupid way to squander lives and treasure, the danger there is that people won't want to go.

It doesn't take much imagination to see that devolving badly. People fight back, enforcement escalates, and deportations devolve into unthinkable things like the worst versions of police states and big holding camps.

That's just one example of how aside from the powers granted in the Constitution and tradition through expansion of executive power over the decades, the President is a thought leader. What they say and talk about actually matters. It becomes a guiding / organising force and informal marching orders to everyone at every level of government.

Another particularly scary example of Presidential power is in prosecution of war. They may not technically be able to officially start wars, but they are the Commander in Chief and can exert considerable control over the missions we undertake. In particular, that means that the President can order the use of tactical nuclear weapons strikes.

We haven't used a nuclear weapon since the end of World War II, but having a bunch of them in MIRVs sitting atop ICBMs and elsewhere in the arsenal is a metastable state. All it takes is the decision to drop one in Syria, for example, and suddenly using them in conflict is on the table for us and everyone else who has them.

This is perhaps (/ hopefully) not likely, but it's certainly within Presidential powers, and Trump, himself, has suggested it more than once. He is by all accounts irrational and short-tempered, and it is something that can not be undone. What's particularly scary about the possibility is that using one once normalises their use and forever more makes limited or ongoing nuclear war possible.

Through the Cold War, Mutually Assured Destruction ensured that using one would have such dire consequences that it'd be unthinkable, and thus far every nuclear power has followed our lead in using them exclusively as a deterrent, but us using one once would give Mamnoon Hussain, Mukherjee, Kim Jong-Un, Netanyahu, or Putin the ability to rightfully ask «if America can do it then why can't we?».

The potential downside of letting that horse out of the barn is so huge that even considering electing Trump is madness. Disturbingly, because it's never been done before, many assume that the President doesn't have that authority — but they absolutely do and can. It is only through sobriety and luck that we haven't done it already. This is again a place where ignorance of history shows because their use en masse was very seriously considered during the Vietnam Conflict.

More than anything, this interaction last night made me deeply concerned that we are doing a terrible job of teaching history and civics. I have run into others saying the same things «we need to burn the whole thing to the ground» and «why not elect Trump?». It's beyond the scope of this writing, but we have the power not to reelect incumbents. We have the power to organise and run for office. Our government, quite literally, is our government. We did that. If you don't like it, you have the power within the system to change it.

Electing Trump out of desperation for change is stupid because the very thing, itself, is evidence that the system works. Despite opposition of the party and people in power, and without even spending that much money, he has come frightfully close to becoming President. Just that that has happened is compelling evidence that they system works. It's possible. Bernie also came within striking distance of the Democratic nomination.

Don't elect Trump or cry and protest by throwing your vote away on Gary or Jill. Take the lesson and prepare to actually win the next Presidential election. Get people in local government. Vote out the incumbants.

The system isn't broken — the people are just too fucking lazy and indifferent. Every time an incumbent is reelected, those are people voting for them, not the special interests. It's so unbelievably lazy and ignorant to think that the only solution is to destroy the system — particularly considering that that would require even more concerted effort and risk than voting and most people can't even be bothered to do that much.

«We can't do it and it doesn't matter anyway, so lets just elect Trump» should be «Trump and Bernie got so far — all it takes is to learn from that for better people to get in next time».