North Korea and the informal powers of the presidency

Richard Neustadt, after serving as an advisor to the President, felt the need to convey the reality of the presidential power. He felt many Americans over-exaggerated the Presidents formal power, and I’d like to explore the informal powers and their influence in our lives. Fortunately we have a strict system of checks in balances that prevents the President from taking full control, and this is the primary reason as to why the President doesn’t have significant power. A growing issue today is the bellicose rhetoric our President is spewing out towards the rogue state of North Korea. Many people today are worried the presidents actions will result in a war. In reality the President can not formally declare war without the consent of Congress, however he can most certainly instigate one. Trump may very well be “kicking the hornets nest” with his onslaught of insults towards the North Korean leader. Trumps words have caused increased military build up along the demilitarized zone of North Korea, and as commander in chief he ordered a carrier fleet to be deployed right of the coast of the rogue state. There is now a very real possibility of armed conflict be it nuclear or conventional, and a primary source is the presidents reaction to the growing nuclear threat. Whether or not his actions are appropriate or not is of no consequence to the issue being discussed. We can see very clearly that by simply making a few comments very real actions take place. The increased tensions allow us to see how the President acts as a key diplomat. By touring through Asia and talking tohis peers across the ocean Trump has increased relations between several Asian countries. Simply by visiting he is able to bring diplomatic change. He is responsible for how other nations perceive us which could change anything from our economic status to whether or not we have allies in a potentially very bloody conflict. This power doesn’t derive from the constitution, but from the informal power the President carries. He’s what Americans elected to be a key representative. He’s someone the United States feels best reflects their beliefs. He’s shown the entire world the he, along with the rest of the nation, will no longer tolerate increased aggression and will meet any such aggression “with fire and fury.” The world is left to believe that we as a nation completely agree with his statements. The international community sees the entire nation not because of our policies, but just by the presidents way of speaking. His incredibly informal tweets may be what sends the world into a third world war where millions of lives are to be potentially lost. Several nations would be engulfed in a bloody and vicious war if his statements were to provoke an aggressive response. Earlier this week Trump made inaccurate comments about the United States nuclear arsenal. He claimed we had hidden nuclear silos(there’s no reason, once the missles launch it doesn’t matter from where they launch) and that a standard Air force bomber was capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Unfortunately those bombers are used frequently in exercises along the Korean border. There is a very real possibility that North Korea would see this as a possible nuclear attack and war would break out almost immediately. Every word Trump tweets is heavily analyzed and the possibility of misconstruing his statements is very high(or just taking them too seriously). Trumps words have increased tensions and turned up the heat on international tensions showing that by simply making statements the President receives an informal power that can be used to make real changes.

Young Voters: The Epidemic of Inefficacy

In light of the recent election, the attention on millennial (ages 18-35) voters is more palpable than ever. Millennials make up 31% of the voter population, about 69.2 million people and outweigh the Silent Generation (ages 71 and up) and Gen X (ages 36-51) by about 30 and 10% respectively. This means they hold an immense amount of power in their hands. Last year’s election saw an influx of young voter turnout, with nearly half of those 69.2 million millennials making it to the polling stations

But, those numbers have not always been so high. Since 1964, the data for young voter turnout was at a steady decline. They have consistently voted at incredibly lower rates than all other age groups. There have been spikes in the participation of young adults in certain presidential elections, such as those in 1992 and 2004, but they were short lived and never surpassed those of other age groups. So, the question is why?

According to The Economist, it isn’t the often heard rhetoric of “young people are lazy”. In fact, they explain it may have nothing to do with laziness at all. Instead, they provide the claim that young people feel as though they don’t provide enough of an impact to make their vote worthwhile, also known as efficacy, or that there is not a candidate worth voting for. With more and more people searching for futures in their career rather than in their relationships, the interest in having children and owning a home has decreased. As a result, interest in places in their communities where they would see an immediate impact such as schools and hospitals has, too, decreased. Thus, young people see no reason to vote, so, they don’t.

However, in the 2016 election, there was an important difference- for the first time, essentially all millennials were eligible to vote. This prompted the presidential candidates to promote their campaigns on social media. But, despite Bernie Sanders having a clear lead against his rivals, he ultimately dropped out of the running. So, how are you supposed to win?

Dan Schawbel of Quartz lays out the guidelines to winning the millennial vote in BLANK simple steps. One, focus on issues millennials relate to, and provide real solutions to them. Two, be completely transparent and as factual as possible (who likes being lied to…). Three, engage with their hometowns and their communities. The president is many things, but to most people, the way to relate to him is viewing him as Chief Citizen. The best way to accomplish that is to come to them and reach out to their homes. Four, and maybe most importantly, get the parents on board. Millennials are mostly, although, being a millennial, I hate to admit, children still. Children will look up to their parents’ experience with voting and political engagement and take after them.

As a millennial myself, I don’t know what the real solution to depressingly low young voter turnout is. Social media, all of Schawbel’s solutions, and general education about the voting system are all viable ways to reach us, but they’re not working. The only way young voters like myself will be motivated enough to put our vote into a candidate is if we are sure the affects will be swift and palpable. A candidate who makes promises that they know are realistic and do-able will win the hearts of millennials and other age groups alike. Until then, we will just have to, as Hilary Clinton so eloquently put it, “chill”. 

Image source: http://www.freedomworks.org/

Four Years a King

In the beginning, America was founded as a nation free from tyrannical rule. Escaping the injustices that once plagued them by spreading the power that the monarch had across three branches of the government and into the hands of the people. The Executive branch of government is definitely the most attention grabbing in the nation. The role of the president and the power the president is a constantly evolving discussion involving much more than the reality of the office’s control.

In the Constitution of the United States, Article II addresses the powers of the executive branch. The powers of the president described in Article II, Section 2 include, “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States”. From this description the power of the president involves a lot of military duties and responsibilities. The executive branch in a lot of ways ensures that United States Citizens follow the laws. They are in charge of enforcement. They have a say in approving laws, but they don’t make the laws, they can’t guarantee that what they want to see in the American Government is possible.

With all of this said we still treat each election for the president’s chair like we are putting a new king into office who will decide the fate of our country. Individuals and parties win campaigns based on the things they promise. They win the next campaign by theoretically reflecting on what they got done in the past four years. We often forget the bounds of the President’s direct power. The idea of one person controlling the government seems counter productive to America’s founding political philosophies. Obviously the office doesn’t hold all the keys to total control of a country, yet presidents make promises that they could only be made into a reality with total control.

The role of a president today is much different than it once was. Today it seems president’s serve as a median between the people and the government. This role is extremely important. The current Trump administration is definitely one of the most interesting cases of the loose definition in what sitting in the oval office means. Of the 44 presidents proceeding Trump has been at the forefront of redefining how people see presidential power. Donald Trump made it into office because of his resilience and strongly opinionated voice. However he should’ve played his cards a little closer to his chest. His totalitarian mindset seems to have put him in between a rock and hard place. With the inability to deliver even a fraction of what he seems to believe he could get done; he has lost the faith of both his supporters and his party. This isn’t his fault however, this is the way our government was designed, to protect the best interest of the people.

The lack of productivity in his first term so far seems to be a result of his mindset. One of Trump’s objectives is to defund Planned Parenthood. This is an excellent example of why the presidential seat is such strange limitation of power. Trump has said, “I would defund it because of the abortion factor, which they say is 3 percent. I don’t know what percentage it is. They say it’s 3 percent. But I would defund it, because I’m pro-life”. Setting aside biases on this issue this quote demonstrates a president making a claim on their own personal belief. This is where the line between president and wanting to be a King is drawn. Bring the ideas of a party into office is not by any means a new thing. However a king would make changes to the state of a country based on opinion. A president should make changes based on the good of the people.

The system is set up so ideally what is best for the people will happen. This raises questions about what it means to be president at the same time. Did Trump just promise too much? People seem to almost be keen to the idea of one person making all the decisions for the country. Do our presidents today still symbolize what they once were? Do we want a king? In a time of political change and presence of information among the population is it any surprise that the unfulfilled promises are to be expected? The next four years onward will be vital in defining the role of the leader of the free world.

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Should people remove the “old fashion” electoral college?

Electoral College is a voting system for nowadays’s election. However, there are a lot of argument about whether the system should be abolished or preserved.

Should Electoral College be preserved or removed? This question is not easy to solve. There are lots of problems caused by the Electoral College system. For example, candidates will only go to New York because bigger states have more electors. And also, it is possible that the reflect of the popular votes of the citizens is not accurate enough, and also the minority candidate can be selected in this condition. Actually, the nearest president election, which trump wins, represents the small possibility of the not accurate reflection. In this election, we can clearly see that Trump has less votes than Hillary Clinton in citizens votes. However, Trump got more electors’ votes than Hillary Clinton, which in this case the electoral college system does not represent popular votes at all.

The other negative effect of the Electoral College is that those electors do not vote for their candidate will be called “faithless electors”. Sometimes electors will not vote because they already know the result and they do not think their decision matters a lot. Therefore they might want to give others information by not voting. From my perspective, it is not fair to call someone “faithless elector” although they did not vote for their candidates. People cannot give them extra press through their whole lives.

There’s also positive effect about the electoral college. Thinking about collecting all the votes from every citizen and count the result, I would say that electoral college is easier because they only have 538 votes in total. My personal thinking is that electoral college should be taken out so that the candidates will no longer focus on the bigger states, instead citizens can get more information about the election and each candidates. I also know that candidates can choose states that have bigger population to go to, in this way they can get more votes and win the election. “The Electoral College was necessary when communications were poor, literacy was low, and voters lacked information about out-of-state figures, which is clearly no longer the case,” a quote said by Gene Green. I totally agree with him because technology is developed in USA, people can see and hear what candidates are doing on the television. Therefore everyone should have the right to vote, by voting I mean everyone should have the vote to decide with president they are voting for, not which president they want their elector to vote for. Citizens might get upset if the elector is not voting for their candidate. At least people should be responsible for their own vote.

 

The End of an Era

The ending of DACA is a historical moment in the US which is causing the two political parties to rage war. Trump ended the DACA program which his conservatives’ partners praised him for since he based most of his campaign on immigration. It took him a while to do this even though he pledged to do so at the beginning of his presidential reign. The ending of DACA was coming at some time, which I have a mixed view about. In many ways it could be negative, but we need to look at what we can do to help our students first, not immigrant students. American students are at a disadvantage since we cater to the immigrants and not our own. In order for this country to keep growing, we must educate our citizens first and make the priority above the illegal immigrants.

It seems inhumane for rejecting immigrants that were already in America, but how do you think the average hard working American kid feels when they can not get a scholarship or the same education as an illegal immigrant? Republicans sped up the process of ending DACA since “nine Republicans state attorneys general had threatened to sue to halt the program immediately if Mr. Trump did not act” (NY Times). Republicans were furious about the DACA program that Obama enacted which Trump said it led to a ‘“massive surge” of immigrants from Central America, some of whom went on to to become members of violent gangs like MS-13′”(NY Times). The Republicans see this as the first step in Immigration Reform and ending the influx of undocumented children in to this country.

While ending DACA right now is the smart thing, people who have DACA can renew their permits if it expires in the next six months. Trump told reporters, “he feels compassion for those affected, but ‘long term it’s going to be the right solution” (CNN) which is ironic of him to say since he pushed deporting immigrants so hard during his campaign. He might have ended people from being able to become a DACA recipient, but he gave Congress six months to try to fix DACA and is even setting up meeting with Democrats as well about this issue.

This controversial decision to end DACA has more than to do with just education and immigration, but also with peoples’ views especially the view of anti-immigration. For the Republicans, this is a win for them by ending a form immigration, but on the other hand, the democrats feel that this is the most inhumane thing ever. We must look at this from both sides along with the positives and negatives. We do not really know the negative affects, yet besides the fact we are denying people an education, which we promised them. The one positive is less immigration for six months while DACA is suspended. We do not fully know what this could to the economy in the future, or how much money it will cost to deport all of these people on DACA. This is a battle over political views and beliefs, and it is the morally right thing to do.

I personally do not know if this a good or bad thing completely, yet. I think that we should try to fix it, but at the same time, we must focus on our citizens first. We push our citizens away sometimes and do not take care of them enough. The Washington Post explains that Trump was for the Dreamers and praised them, but then all of sudden, he is against them. He tweeted, “Make no mistake, we are going to put the interest of AMERICAN CITIZENS FIRST! The forgotten men & women will no longer be forgotten” (Washington Post), which contradicts things he had said previously. I agree with him that we must take care of our citizens first, but what is he going to do to help us more. I am not sure if he even believes in this decision or if he is just doing this to get the Republicans praise back. Either way the DACA program is just a platform the two political parties use to fight over their drastic views over immigration.