Five Lessons on the modern presidency
The Box Score
Lesson #1. Presidents are less powerful than you think. Most Americans think presidents are far more powerful than they are. The difference between perception and reality is called "the expectations gap."
Lesson #2. Presidents attempt to bridge the expectations gap by acting unilaterally. If presidents can't get Congress to play ball, they usually try an end-around. There are several ways presidents can bypass Congress, including executive orders.
Lesson #3. Presidents use rhetoric to bridge the expectations gap. Presidents reason they can strengthen their hand with Congress if they talk the public into seeing things their way.
Lesson #4. Presidents are more powerful in foreign policy than they are in domestic policy. Presidents usually get what they want in foreign policy; they rarely get the domestic policies they want.
Lesson #5. We should think of the presidency and not the president. The individual characteristics that distinguish one president from another don't matter as much as you might think. We can often predict presidential behavior and political outcomes without knowing who the president is or what makes them tick.
The Complete Game
One of the main arguments of 22ZIN is that American presidents have decidedly less influence over sports than Congress or the Courts. That statement may come as a surprise since most Americans grossly overestimate the power of the White House. But presidents are not kings. They're not even NFL commissioners. They are presidents, and they are constrained by a set of rules written over 200 years ago by a bunch of guys in powdered wigs who were, at best, suspicious about the whole idea of a president. But that hasn't stopped presidents from wading into controversies in the sporting world. And it certainly hasn't stopped presidents from turning to sports to boost their popularity. But before we get to all that, we must learn five political science lessons about the modern presidency.
I should note at the outset that some of these lessons are more controversial than others. In particular, many presidential scholars (and most non-political scientists) object to the argument that presidents are less powerful than most people think (Lesson #1). Others disagree with my take that great presidents are more lucky than good (Lesson #5). And while the broad lessons taught in #2-4 reflect a scholarly consensus, many of my colleagues will quibble with the details. For example, all scholars agree that modern presidents use rhetoric to accomplish political goals (Lesson #3); they disagree on whether the White House's communication strategy usually works or fails. In short, although I draw my five lessons from mainstream political science, some points are controversial, even among presidential scholars.
Lesson #1: Presidents are less powerful than you think.
Most people think of the American president as "the most powerful man in the world" or "the leader of the free world." Presidents are certainly powerful, but not as much as you might imagine.
The U.S. Constitution sets the rules of the political game, and those rules put the president in a rather weak position. Congress, not the president, holds the two most important powers that exist in any polity: (1) they make the laws, and (2) they control the money. All other political duties are trifling by comparison. In fact, the Constitution gives Congress so much formal power that it could govern the country on its own.
Presidents, by contrast, have a limited set of formal powers and, try as they might, cannot run the country on their own (at least not legally). Presidents are certainly not powerless; no person with the ability to annihilate all humanity with a push of a button can rightly be called "powerless." But in terms of formal constitutional authority, the executive branch undoubtedly comes in second. This constitutional order is reflected in numbering (the legislature in Article I of the Constitution; executive branch in Article II) and urban planning (L'Enfant designed Congress to be the visual and geographic center of D.C.).
Presidents need Congress to do big things—e.g., cut taxes, change the health care system, or institute a carbon tax—but they have very little control over what Congress does because of the American system of separation of powers. Powers between the executive and legislative branches are separated by electoral independence: we cast a vote for the president, a different one for the U.S. Senate, and still another for a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. This manner of voting severs any direct power relationship between the branches. So, unlike the host of The Apprentice, a president can't just tell Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), "You're fired!" The voters of San Francisco elect Speaker Pelosi; she can stay in office just as long as San Franciscans like, and there is nothing any president can do about it.
This constitutional arrangement—a strong Congress and a comparatively weak presidency—would be fine if Americans didn't expect so much from their presidents. But we do. Political scientist Theodore Lowi noted that all presidents face an "expectations gap,” where Americans want more of their presidents than they can possibly deliver. Part of the reason for this is cognitive. It is far easier for people to equate the success or failure of government with a single president than it is to understand political outcomes as a complex process involving 535 members of Congress, nine Supreme Court justices, 3,294 federal judges, over two million employees of the federal bureaucracy, and 50 state and 39,044 local governments. Our cognitive limitations mean that presidents—like quarterbacks and coaches—get too much credit or blame (usually, blame).
A more significant cause of the expectations gap is elections. Serious presidential candidates must make outrageous promises they have little chance of fulfilling once they make it to the White House. Of course, overselling on the campaign trail wouldn't be a problem if voters weren't so willing to buy. But imagine a presidential candidate who told the truth:
My Fellow Americans. Budget deficits are not necessarily a bad thing, but the size of current deficits provides some cause for concern. We need to address deficit spending with across-the-board tax increases and spending cuts, both to defense and entitlement programs. Unfortunately, fiscal policy is Congress's domain, and here, my hands are tied. I'll do what I can, but I'm not hopeful.
To those of you who claim to want honesty in American politics, would you vote for this candidate? Neither would I.
So, presidential candidates keep promising the moon, and American voters keep buying these moonshot promises. This creates unrealistic expectations of what presidents can and cannot do and inevitably leads to disappointment when presidents fail to live up to their campaign promises.
But presidents do try to keep their campaign promises. And therein lies the rub:
Presidential candidates promise a lot.
The American public expects presidents to follow through on these promises.
Presidents usually don't have the constitutional power to follow through on these promises.
Therefore, modern presidents continually search for extra-constitutional powers to realize their promises.
The story of the modern presidency is the continual search for power to bridge the separation of powers and overcome the expectations gap. The following two lessons describe two presidential power-seeking strategies: unilateral action and public rhetoric.
Lesson #2. Presidents attempt to bridge the expectations gap by acting unilaterally.
Presidents usually resort to unilateral action when Congress is unable or unwilling to act. The Constitution may not give the president much formal power, but it does give them considerable wiggle room.
Article II of the Constitution says: "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States" and that the president "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." You're not alone if you don't know what "executive power" and "take care" mean. From the Founders to modern-day constitutional scholars, few people agree upon what "executive power" means or how presidents might "take care" that laws are faithfully executed. For their part, presidents usually take these two clauses to suggest that they can do whatever they want to do—at least until the Courts call foul or Congress reasserts its authority.
There are several ways that presidents act unilaterally, but we'll focus on executive orders here. Executive orders are presidential instructions to federal departments to carry out a law in a particular way. When Congress writes a law, it cannot, or chooses not to, write in every detail of how that law should be implemented. It is then up to executive agencies—like the Department of Education, Department of State, or Department of Defense—to write in the details. An executive order is a president's way of writing in those details, and the political devil is always in those details.
Most executive orders are legalistic, bureaucratic, and as interesting as watching paint dry. However, some executive orders make significant policy changes, including the abolition of slavery (the Emancipation Proclamation or Proclamation 95), the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II (E.O. 9066), and the desegregation of the U.S. military (E.O. 9981). It is important to note that executive orders must address existing laws and statutes; presidents cannot pull orders out of whole cloth.
There are two important things to note about executive orders in contemporary American politics. First, they have become more critical as Congress has become more gridlocked. Indeed, some of the most significant policy changes in recent years—e.g., from Trump's immigration ban to Biden's Covid vaccination requirements—have come via executive order. Second, executive orders tend to be short-lived. When a new party takes over the White House, the incoming president issues a raft of executive orders overturning those of his predecessor. If a president truly wants to cement a legacy, they need Congress to pass a law.
Lesson #3. Presidents use rhetoric to bridge the expectations gap.
The second way presidents try to gain power is by talking to the American public. Early presidents rarely made public speeches because they thought doing so smacked of demagoguery and usurped Congress's rightful place at the center of American government. But as expectations ratcheted up, presidents started viewing the American public as a power source. Presidents reason that if they can get the American public on their side, they have a better chance of getting what they wanted out of Congress. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of the modern presidency—which begins either with Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, or Franklin Roosevelt, depending on scholarly interpretation—is the increased importance of public rhetoric.
(Before I get to how presidents use rhetoric to achieve political goals, you should know my view is that presidential rhetoric rarely works. All modern presidents try to change the hearts and minds of Americans, but few succeed. In this way, presidential rhetoric is like football teams continually turning to the wildcat formation on short-yardage downs: it seems like it should work, but it usually doesn't.)
There are a lot of different genres of presidential communication, which I explore in The Sports Talk Presidency, but here, let's consider two: instrumental and constitutive rhetoric.
Instrumental Rhetoric. Presidents use instrumental rhetoric as the means to a specific political end. There are several instrumental tactics presidents might use, but we'll focus on going public and political position-taking.
Going Public. Perhaps the most critical presidential communication strategy is going public. The gambit works like this:
The American public expects a lot of presidents.
Despite these high public expectations, presidents are politically weak and need Congress to accomplish their goals (see Lesson #1).
Because of the separation of powers, presidents can’t force members of Congress to do what they want (see Lesson #1).
But if presidents can change public opinion, and if members of Congress are responsive to their constituents (i.e., act as delegates), then presidents can indirectly affect Congress.
When presidents go public, the ultimate goal is to influence congressional behavior. The American public is just the means to that end. Visually, going public looks like this:
Of course, the $64,000 question is: how effective are presidents at going public? The surprising answer is: "not very.” For all the hyperbole about the “bully pulpit,” presidents usually can’t move the needle of public opinion much, if at all.
Why? The simple reason is that those most attentive to politics are usually not very persuadable, and those most persuadable are not very attentive. Political polarization is the defining feature of contemporary American politics, especially among the politically aware, and partisans are rarely swayed by what an opposing president says. This leaves political independents as the “persuadables,” but there are not many of them and they tend not to be very interested in politics. This creates a frustrating scenario for presidents: the people who listen to a president’s pitch don’t change, but people who might change don’t listen.
I examine presidents going public on sports in “Out of Left Field,” “The White House Strikes Out,” and “Back In Out of the U.S.S.R.”.
Position-Taking. Sometimes, it is advantageous for politicians to simply take a position on an issue, no more and no less. Being on the right side of an issue is usually more important to politicians than winning. In the Jim Crow South, for example, racist politicians like Alabama Gov. George Wallace promised: “segregation now, segregation forever.” Fortunately, Wallace lost and the South was integrated. But Wallace wasn’t seen as a loser by his white constituents. In fact, his popularity soared. In 1968, Wallace ran for president, carried the Deep South, and was the last third-party candidate to receive an electoral vote (45 of them, to be exact).
More recently, Republican politicians tried but failed to overturn the 2020 Presidential Election. But for most of them, overturning the election wasn’t the most important thing. I’ll even bet that many Republicans who peddle the “Big Lie” don’t believe what they’re selling. That doesn’t matter either. What matters to GOP politicians is signaling their loyalty to Trump because not doing so means looking for another job. In short, politicians who hope to be reelected or seek higher office stake out politically advantageous positions because siding with voters matters more to them than a policy win (see Ted Cruz).
I examine presidential position-taking in “Get That SOB Off the Field.”
Constitutive Rhetoric. Many observers understand rhetoric as the art of knowing what to say, when to say it, how to say it, and who to say it to. From this perspective, presidential rhetoric is important beyond easily measurable and immediate outcomes, such as a change of public opinion or congressional action. Instead, rhetoric is more conceptual, formative, and symbolic.
If instrumental rhetoric is the attempt to win a political game, then constitutive rhetoric sets the rules of the game and specifies who is on the team. It tells Americans who they are, who they are not, and how they should conduct themselves. For presidents, no job is as important, or as difficult, as shaping a national identity.
Examples of constitutive rhetoric include John F. Kennedy’s remark that “The American, by nature, is optimistic. He is experimental, an inventor and a builder who builds best when called upon to build greatly.” Or George W. Bush’s first inaugural address when he said “America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens.” Or consider Barack Obama’s final State of the Union Address:
“Our brand of democracy is hard. But I can promise that a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I’ll be right there with you as a citizen — inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that have helped America travel so far. Voices that help us see ourselves not first and foremost as black or white or Asian or Latino, not as gay or straight, immigrant or native born; not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans first, bound by a common creed. Voices Dr. King believed would have the final word — voices of unarmed truth and unconditional love…”
Presidents are uniquely positioned to speak to and for “the people,” but their audience is rarely receptive. We all have multiple identities—partisan, racial, gender, class, religious, regional, ideological, etc.—that can compete with a president’s vision of the United States of America.
The effectiveness of constitutive rhetoric depends on many factors, but let’s consider two. First, it must be spoken at the right time. Like all of our various identities, the salience of “being American” is contextual. Consider how the American public largely set aside their political differences in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 (“we’re all Americans”), only to revive their partisan identity as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dragged on (“we’re Democrats and we’re opposed to the war”; or “we’re Republicans and we support the war”). Second, constitutive rhetoric must be spoken in the right way. It must tap into foundational myths, cherished symbols, and core national values.
In “The Sports Talk Presidency,” we’ll see how sports, perhaps more than any other subject, lend themselves to constitutive rhetoric.
Lesson #4. Presidents are more powerful in foreign policy than they are in domestic policy.
Political scientist Aaron Wildavsky noted that presidents tend to be more powerful in foreign policy than domestic policy. There are several reasons for the two presidencies' thesis, as it is known in the discipline. First, Americans typically care far more about “doorstep issues” directly affecting their daily lives—inflation, mask mandates, or gas prices—than global problems. This general disinterest in matters beyond sea affords presidents greater freedom to carry out foreign policy the way they want to. A second and related reason is that far more interest groups focus on domestic issues than foreign policy, again giving presidents greater autonomy over foreign affairs. Third, Congress has typically exercised its significant powers on domestic political issues but has ceded to the president authority and autonomy in foreign policy-making. Fourth, many foreign policy crises require a rapid response, and Congress is anything but quick. Finally, the American public tends to rally around the president during times of international crisis.
We will see the two presidencies thesis in action when considering Jimmy Carter’s boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games.
Lesson #5. We should think of the presidency and not the president.
It is always good to remember that presidents are never alone in the White House. Modern presidents have roughly 2,500 advisors in the Executive Office of the Presidency and 4,000 political appointees in the Executive Branch. These advisors and political appointees serve at the president's will, provide them with information whenever they need it, and carry out their policies. So, at the very least, the White House’s large and complex organizational chart suggests we should think about the presidency (plural) rather than the president (singular).
But thinking about the presidency and not presidents has a different meaning with far more profound implications. At its core, this lesson asks us to consider what matters: the-president-as-an-individual or the presidency-as-an-institution? Put differently, we might ask: what makes a great president? Are great presidents exceptional leaders or just exceptionally lucky? Now, here comes an argument that most of you will hate: great presidents are usually more lucky than good. I’ll lay out the case for both schools of thought before explaining why the “great man” theory of the presidency is misguided.
The Individual Presidency. It is hard for people to think of presidents in anything other than personal terms. While there are 535 members of Congress and nine Supreme Court justices, there is only one president. It seems, therefore, that the stuff that makes presidents tick must have a significant impact on American policy. So, what makes a good president? Political scientist Fred Greenstein points to six qualities:
Effectiveness as a public communicator
Organizational capacity
Political skill
Vision
Cognitive style
Emotional intelligence
Wikipedia has a great page where you can see how the experts and the American public ranked presidents across these and other criteria. In short, individualist scholars contend that great presidents have some je ne sais quoi.
JFK in the Oval Office.
The Institutional Presidency. An alternative view says great presidents lucked into some great situation. Institutionalists, of which I’m one, believe that most people behave as they are incentivized to behave. Indeed, behavior becomes fairly predictable given a set of rules and a particular circumstance. So, what makes a good president? Institutionalists point to things like…
Fighting a winnable war.
Presiding over a growing economy.
Having supermajorities in Congress.
Not being a 21st-century president.
Becoming president when the public is sick of the other party.
Note that the preceding five points are all things that are largely outside of a president’s control. Indeed, institutionalists think they can predict presidential “greatness” without saying anything about who the president is, how they think, whether they can communicate, what their political vision is, etc.
We might boil down an institutionalist theory of the presidency into a single statement: great presidents are great because they are lucky (or, if you are so inclined, fated or divinely selected). So, the faces on Mt. Rushmore got there not because they were extraordinary men but because they were in the right place at the right time.
Let Us Not Praise Great Men. I’m an institutionalist. I’ve been one long enough to know that people hate institutionalists, or, hopefully, they just hate our theoretical outlook. But as difficult as it might be, I want you to consider how rules and systems might impact behavior more than personality and character.
The best way to explain institutional political theories to sports fans is to ask counterfactuals. Would Tom Brady still be the GOAT if he was drafted by the Browns? Probably not. Brady was drafted into the Patriot’s Way system, which was full of great players and coaches, instead of to a Brown’s program where good quarterbacks went to die. Brady also got to play because of Drew Bledsoe’s scary injury; perhaps we’d be talking about Bledsoe as the GOAT, or at least a Hall of Fame quarterback, had Mo Lewis not hit him so hard.
To briefly see what institutional theories offer to our understanding of the White House, consider just a few of my predictions for 2032-33. I predict that in the 2032 Presidential Election:
Both candidates will decline public funding.
Both candidates will campaign in battleground states.
After their respective conventions, both candidates will get a short-lived bump in the polls.
There will be some movement in public opinion after a debate, but it too will be short-lived.
Right now, I bet I can correctly predict the electoral outcome in 35 of the 50 states.
The incumbent party’s candidate will lose if their party has controlled the White House for two or more terms and the economy is weak.
In the president’s first year in office in 2033, I predict:
The president will issue many executive orders on their first day in office.
The president’s executive orders will countermand those of their predecessor if there is a change in power. If there is no change in party control, executive orders will be fewer in number and narrower in scope.
The president will have the most legislative success during the first hundred days in office, but…
Legislative success will be limited and underwhelming.
Big legislative changes will only come if the president has a supermajority in the Senate and control of the House, which is highly unlikely.
Smaller legislative successes will occur if the government is unified, but even those laws will be so watered down that few will like them.
God save the president if the government is divided.
There will be many congressional investigations of the White House if the government is divided and few if the government is unified.
The president will try to communicate with the American people. It will not go well.
The president will be blamed for things they have little control over (e.g., jobs, gas prices, taxes, etc.).
People will say, “This is the most polarizing president ever.”
The president will talk a lot about sports.
I could go on for pages, but you get the idea. I made these predictions in 2022 without knowing who the 2032 presidential candidates are or who will win that election.
A final word on institutions, rules, context, and predictions. I estimate that 80 to 90 percent of all sports and politics are predictable if you know the rules and context. For instance, I know that NFL offenses probably won’t punt on third down (Canadian football is a different story). Likewise, the next bill introduced in the House of Representatives has little chance of becoming public law (historically, ~4 percent of bills become law). Political and athletic behavior is relatively predictable given a set of rules and a particular context. However, we watch sports for that 10 to 20 percent of the game that isn’t predictable. And only a fool would argue that it didn’t matter whether Barack Obama or Donald Trump was president. Institutionalist theories explain a lot, but they do not explain everything.
