Yes, this is a key insight. I’ve been thinking about it lately and the different ideas of what a president is, so this helps me. Outside America, to the rest of the world, the President acts like a unified face on government and projects the image that is almost King-like. This occurs because America is a “super colonizer,” that is is have about 800 military bases in just over 153 countries, a majority of the world allows American military occupation through “leases.” This means America has more military forces and weapons located on the soil of other countries than any other country in human history, about three-quarters of the world countries. So the president represents America and must project a benevolent force, which Trump did not. Other countries don’t kick us out, and since we don’t call it ‘occupation’ or ‘colonization’ but ‘partnerships’ they allow us to stay, usually though without the will of the people. Most of them are autocracies or aristocracies, not true democracies, so little choice exists for their population to vote them out.
In the US, the president seems like the person to drive “policy.” That is misguided, as only Congress passes laws. It misleads people into thinking change can come when it can’t. For example, there has never been a national law passed protecting a woman’s right to choose, preventing forced child marriage to protect children from 9-15 who are forced to marry adults even in states like California where 10 year and 11 years olds have been married in the last ten years. It happens. There is no national law protecting ‘gay marriage, LBGTQ+ and trans rights, self gender identification, the right to identify as Intersex which is a physical not a ‘mental’ category determined by birth as a scientific fact. There’s no national law preventing the government from enslaving humans in 2024, which the government does federally and in states, leasing out black and brown people to US and foreign companies. The government can’t pass a law recognizing healthcare as a human right. This is by design, since permanent division was enacted in 1787. Before that, Congress did pass a law in 1778 freeing black enslaved humans and recognizing healthcare as a human right for those freed blacks it paid owners for. This ‘constitutional compromise’ created a permanent division to prevent such national laws from being passed again, mitigating the ‘threat’ of abolishing slavery and granting human rights as federal protections by national laws. We don’t remain ‘polarized’ by Trump, but by design from 1787 onward.
There is an Abolition Amendment that is was introduced into congress by Congresswoman Nikema Williams and supported by Senator Cory Brooks and Markley. Few people know of it. Think of that. Google it. Few Americans know or care to pass an amendment to end slavery in America, nor enfranchise over 10 million US citizens, even after “Jim Crow.” Ignorance isn’t bliss, it’s autocracy disguised with voting and labeled with democracy.
