I’m from Turkey and recently we had a referandum to have a more “American” style of government which, in the end, just made Erdogan a lot more powerful. I’ve heard from Turkish opposition that presidents in USA are still bound by the law and have to abide it. Unfortunately in our situation Erdogan has become the law itself.
Like, for example, when Erdogans grandson was going to enter the national highschool exams he just changed the system so that anyone could pay money to enter one of the top schools. A lot of people are expecting him to also change the University entrance exams, too. I was wondering if American presidents were also as powerful as Erdogan.
6 comments
Short answer: No, they are not.
They are still bound by laws and our system has a series of “checks and balances” to ensure that no one governmental branch or individual gets too much power
We have executive orders, which unfortunately have been abused by the Obama and Trump administrations. Other than that, we have a systems of checks and balances so that the president doesn’t have that much power. And tbh, judges can block executive orders if I can recall correctly.
They are way more checks on power here than in Turkey
The U.S. President’s power is not as absolute as Edorgan’s. The President is the Commander-in-Chief of the US Military, and is charge of the Executive branch of the government, which consists of the President’s Cabinet Secretaries and the various departments they run – Department of Defense, State, Energy, Justice, etc., and nothing more. The President has no unilateral legislative or judicial power. Bills are written and constructed by the Legislative branch – Congress, AKA the House of Representatives and the Senate. The President has the power to sign bills into law or veto them, but only after Congress has negotiated and voted on a final bill. IIRC the President isn’t even allowed on the House and Senate floors. The law is interpreted at the highest level by the the Judicial branch – the Supreme Court. The President does nominate Supreme Court Justices and federal Judges, but they are only seated after a vote from Congress. In summary, the U.S. President’s power is mostly exercised through the Military, foreign affairs, and the Executive branch of the federal government.
Our day-to-day lives are mostly affected by our respective state and local governments, which the President has no power over.
However, a sitting President cannot be indicted, as we’ve learned from the Trump Administration.
American presidents don’t have petty power like that. Though I am sure they can pull strings and work their network to get their kids in pretty much anywhere for school.
American presidents on the other hand do have the power to near instantly kill a few billion people.
American democracy has remained stable not because of words on paper but because the American people revere those words. But there’s increasing fear that reverence for the Constitution and belief in government institutions is fading.
All it would take is for one President to subborn the military and the U.S. could slide into totalitarianism. And if the American public continues to lose faith in the Constitution that could even be seen as a popular move.