Thinking About the Presidency: The Primacy of Power

A s they are with every presidential election, the stakes of 2016 are prodigious. The United States faces extraordinary challenges both at home and abroad, and the two major parties offer radically different plans for the nation’s future. Where we wage war next, what tax rates we pay, whether we make any serious headway on the issue of climate change, and so much more besides, likely depends on whether we elect a Republican or Democrat to the White House.

 In the next presidential election, however, one thing does not hang in the balance. Whomever assumes office in January 2017 will not disavow the extraordinary powers intermittently seized and nurtured by Obama in the last seven years—nor those by Bush before him, Clinton one step further removed, or any of the long string of power-seeking presidents who have occupied the White House during the modern era. Regardless of her—or perhaps his—affiliation, the next president will continue to pursue the expansion of presidential power.