# Is the US President really the top man in charge? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 29, 2014, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-president-really-the-top-man-in-charge/689547 "2014-05-29T08:45:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2014, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-president-really-the-top-man-in-charge/689547/21 "2014-06-01T10:49:50Z")
Douglas Adams putting words into the mouth of Arthur Dent (HHGTTG) “All through my life I’ve had this strange unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world, something big, even sinister, and no one would tell me what it was." “No,” said the old man, "that’s just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that.” ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2014, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-president-really-the-top-man-in-charge/689547/22 "2014-06-01T11:03:13Z")
So, first, [Bigfoot is real](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=17422993), and now there’s a shadowy, vague conspiracy behind the president who “really” runs things. Right on schedule. Any predictions for what’s next? Fluoride is evil? Antivaccination? We’re all living on the inside of a concave Earth? My money’s on 9/11 trutherism. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-president-really-the-top-man-in-charge/689547/23 "2014-06-03T12:51:24Z")
Shhhhhh. It’s the Stonecutters ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-president-really-the-top-man-in-charge/689547/24 "2014-06-03T15:08:21Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > > [@Stringbean](#): > > > > I don’t know why you’d get that impression. Obama ran for office as a war-monger who wanted to shred civil liberties. > > Warmonging, shredding civil liberties, _and_ reforming health care - don’t forget he had three goals. He had five: warmongering, shredding civil liberties, promoting Islamic socialism, reforming health care, and reducing CO2 emissions – the five points of the Pentagram of Evil as foretold by Nostradamus. 😉 > [@Urbanredneck](#): > > … areas such as the truth behind the JFK assassination to what really has been at Area 51. … or the truth about how a warmongering liberty-shredding Kenyan Muslim could rig the elections to make himself President! But to get back to sane reality for a moment: as already inferred by several posters, as the head of the executive branch of government, the President is analogous to the chief executive of any other very large organization. Any large organization will have skunkworks projects and renegade groups, but to suggest that these secretly have greater executive authority than the President is ludicrous conspiracy theory. If that were true, a lunatic like Curtis Lemay would have started World War 3 many times over. The real power over the Presidency is the same as the real power over Congress and it isn’t some secret Illuminati cult, it’s right in your face in the most public and obvious way: the special interests and lobbyists who control them both. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-president-really-the-top-man-in-charge/689547/25 "2014-06-03T15:22:47Z")
Even just in official, constitutionally-granted powers, Congress has a lot more power than the President. The difference is that Congress is made up of hundreds of individuals, to just one President, and Congress does not have hundreds of times more power than the President. There is certainly at least one group of people with more power than the President, and there may well be others… But there is no single individual in the country with more power. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-president-really-the-top-man-in-charge/689547/26 "2014-06-03T15:38:33Z")
Or you could say that there are wealthy and powerful “conspirators” running the nation, but they’re doing it really really openly. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-president-really-the-top-man-in-charge/689547/27 "2014-06-03T15:40:15Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > If there was some shadow organization calling the shots and making all the decisions behind closed doors, you’d think they could get a lot better results than what we’ve been seeing the last few decades. Do not discount the possibility that they have gotten exactly the results **they** wanted. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-president-really-the-top-man-in-charge/689547/28 "2014-06-03T15:42:21Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > He is the _President_. He _presides_ over the political/constitutional apparatus (of the Federal polity). He is not God-Emperor. Once you are past a certain level of complexity you have to rely on a distributed organization with the different components doing their jobs properly. But, obviously, the thread is not about that. ---
**Author:** ![MrKnowItAll](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrknowitall/32/87_2.png) [@MrKnowItAll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrKnowItAll)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-president-really-the-top-man-in-charge/689547/29 "2014-06-03T15:45:30Z")
To expand on Chronos’ post… The President isn’t in charge. He never has been, although most Americans who didn’t pay attention in Civics class don’t realize it. There’s “checks and balances” in this country. We have a president, because in some situations it’s better to have a single individual calling the shots. But Congress has more power than the president when it comes to passing laws and representing the people. And SCOTUS is there to make sure that everyone plays by the rules, aka the Constitution. And they all have ways of overriding the others if necessary. Ideally, no part is more powerful than the others. This system also makes it much more difficult for outside people and organizations to subvert the government. Getting control of the President isn’t enough. You also have to get control of several hundred congressmen, who are unlimited in the number of times they can run for office, and control of the Supreme Court who are appointed for life and don’t have any fear of losing their jobs. You may think, “Well, we’ll get control of the Speaker of the House which will give us control of all the representatives,” but he has to run for re-election just like everyone else, and if the other party gets a majority he’s out of a job even if he does get re-elected. The whole system is basically much too chaotic and shaky to subvert. Push any part of it too hard, and it will just fall over and be replaced by someone else. The presidency, being limited to only two terms, is the _most_ precarious of all of them, which helps offset the large amount of power available in the position. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-president-really-the-top-man-in-charge/689547.md?page=1)