Whether the glass is half full or half empty is a matter of perspective. The same can be said of the half of Americans who oppose the idea of allowing presidents to rule unilaterally – an exercise of monarchical power favored by only a fifth of us. I like to look on the bright side, so I consider it a victory that those who oppose unbridled executive power far outnumber those who favor it. However, it would be better if, in a republic founded two and a half centuries ago, more than half the population agreed that turning the country into a dictatorship would be bad.
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Opponents of the dictatorship outnumber supporters
“About half of the public thinks it would be a bad idea if the next president were able to act on major policy issues without approval from Congress or the courts,” reports the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research on the results of a survey study of 1,282 adults conducted March 21-25. “Only 21% think it would be a good thing, and about 30% think it is neither good nor bad.”
In the poll, 48% overall oppose unilateral presidential rule, including 58% of Democrats and 45% of Republicans. The 21% in favor of the idea includes 17% of Democrats and 26% of Republicans. Support for unbridled executive power rises to 39% among Democrats if Biden wins in November, and to 57% among Republicans if Trump wins.
Interestingly, the AP-NORC results are nearly identical to those found by the University of Virginia Center for Politics in 2021. At the time, pollsters reported that “about 2 in 10 Trump and Biden voters strongly agree that that it would be better if a president could take necessary actions without being constrained by Congress or the courts.” presidency).
In 2020, the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group noted, “In three annual polls, about 24% of Americans say a ‘strong leader who doesn’t have to worry about Congress and elections’ is a good way to govern a country.”
The good news is that polls find that a fairly sizable minority, only a fifth or a quarter of Americans, favor giving up all this separation of powers in favor of dictatorship. This is a fraction of the population that seems firm in its crazy beliefs, but doesn’t seem to be growing.
The bad news is that citizens of a democratic republic that has existed for 250 years are so lukewarm about the country’s system of government that only about half of them can resist the idea of unilateral government. The fact that nearly a third of respondents believe that unilateral presidential rule is “neither good nor bad” is not clear support for the system. On the other hand, most don’t think the system works.
The system doesn’t work if my team doesn’t win
“About half of the public, regardless of partisan identification, say the system of checks and balances that divides power between the president, Congress and the courts is not working well these days,” AP-NORC adds. Only one in ten say it works extremely or very well.
This reflects frustration with institutions that are in the hands of political opponents. Among Republicans, 46% believe the presidency has too much power (16% of Democrats agree), while 58% believe federal agencies (currently under the control of Democratic President Joe Biden) have too much power ( 20% of Democrats agree). 58% of Democrats believe that the Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority, has too much power (25% of Republicans agree). At 37% and 38% respectively, nearly identical numbers of Democrats and Republicans believe a divided Congress is too powerful.
In January, Gallup reported that “a new low of 28% of U.S. adults are satisfied with the way democracy is working in the country.”
This matches a separate AP-NORC report, released April 3, that found “only 3 in 10 think democracy in the United States works well, while about half say it is a poorly functioning democracy.”
“Generally, partisans were more satisfied with the way democracy works when a president from their favorite party was in office,” Gallup added.
It is not unreasonable to interpret poll results as evidence that too many Americans think the system only works well when it is under the control of their political faction. Unless they can push their preferred laws and policies onto their like-minded neighbors, they call the system a failure and look for alternatives. Fortunately, only a small minority is willing to go so far as to support the abandonment of the entire system in favor of a real dictatorship by their elected officials. the boss. Unfortunately, the presidency is moving in the direction of catering to that minority.
The presidency is already almost an elective monarchy
“Over the past few decades, as our politics have taken on an almost religious fervor, we have conducted a dangerous experiment: concentrating vast new powers in the executive branch, making ‘the most powerful office in the world’ even more powerful,” Gene Healy, vice president of Cato Institute and author of The cult of the presidencywrote for ReasonIt’s the May issue. “Fundamental questions of governance that were once left to Congress, the states, or the people are now being resolved, in a winner-take-all fashion, by whichever party wins the presidency.”
Only a small minority of Americans actually support turning the presidency into an elective monarchy, but we all get it done anyway. That’s because many people are asking too much of a government originally designed to be limited in its role and hampered by checks and balances. As the most recognizable face of that government, they expect the president to meet unreasonable expectations and grant the position ever-increasing power so that current officials can give it a shot.
“Recent presidents have used their enhanced powers to impose forced solutions on highly contested and morally challenging issues that Americans should be free to disagree about,” Healy notes.
Much of our political discourse focuses on the specific flaws of individuals vying for high office, as if getting rid of Orange Mussolini or Bumbling Brandon would solve America’s political problems. But the danger lies less with the candidates than with voters who use politicians as vehicles for their dire expectations and frankly authoritarian agendas.
It is encouraging that the majority of Americans do not want to live under a dictatorship. If only they would stop acting in ways that are bound to cause one.