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Perhaps if a president like Eisenhower, who came up through the military, warned about a "military industrial complex", that would be some evidence that the power of elected politicians is limited in some real way.

And perhaps "limited in ways that the public doesn't understand" is a better synthesis of the author's point rather than "wields no real power"

That is a very good point, but I don't think corporate influences like the MIC are necessarily limiting the president's power. It's an influence, and a very strong one at that, but they can go against it. It's just one of the many datapoints that a president has to manage.

"Limited in ways that the public doesn't understand" is undoubtedly correct, but I disagree more on the extent. The author seems to think the president has no real control over the policies he sets, at least in some areas. I believe he does have real control, but he is limited by reality being far more complex than in an ideal world.

Or less charitably, candidate-Obama said things he didn't believe in that would get him elected, and elect-Obama acted based on his beliefs.

I agree that the head of the executive and the legislature could change things if they wanted to - the problem is lack of will by the leaders. Even irrational tough on crime / terrorism / communism / the-latest-bogieman rhetoric wins more votes than civil rights rhetoric, at least until the majority feel adversely affected by the lack of rights. In addition, supporting large government transfers to private sectors like defence and national security brings in more campaign funds than supporting rights for natural people.

That also requires serious dishonesty on Obama's part, something which doesn't seem supported by people's accounts before his campaign. Unless you believe he kept up the pretense even years before holding a public office, the evidence is more in line with his viewpoints having changed than with constant dishonesty.

So if I make a promise, and then "change my viewpoint" on it, then I'm allowed to break said promise? Am I understanding your argument there, or is there more to it?

Or, we could go back to the author's point about the public being deluded. Which is supported by them voting the guy in a second time, even after they say him with his "changed viewpoint", and lack of promise-keeping.

You're allowed to break your promise if it turns out it would do more harm than good. If you're unwilling to change your views based on new information, you would be a zealot and unfit for government. I don't know what information Obama does base his policy on, but you bet there's a million factors we (and he in his campaign) don't consider that he now must.

He has enacted positive policy changes too. He did pull troops out of Iraq, he did bring gay marriage equality forward by decades. Whatever you think of the man, saying he broke all his promises and essentially acted like a tyrant is unfair. The same can be said of Bush and others before them. On a related note, getting reelected isn't a measure of delusion. It depends on a lot of things, such as quality of the opponent, general approval, party approval, desire for stability, etc. People also reelected Bush, who had some of the same policies as Obama, and whose approval rating was even worse.

We never said anything about the promises being "harmful". It's also not his place to decide what is/isn't harmful, he was elected based on certain premises and promises of certain actions. Of course, he get's to interpret stuff/meaning, but directly not doing the things he promised without a valid reason to explain is quite immoral.

Now if you want to argue that "he has a good reason, we just don't know it" then you're pretty much conceding that your people aren't really running the country a la democracy. It means that they're picking a president on completely imperfect information, and have nothing but promises and character to go by. Heck, they can't even rely on the candidates keeping/breaking their promises.

Positive policy changes - good. No one is saying that he did only bad things or anything, that's not being discussed at all, and neither is his character or how good of a person he is. That's like saying: "Yeah, sure, my husband beats me... But yesterday he said he loved me, and he bought me flowers. I'm sure he beats me for a reason, and I don't know what information he bases my beatings on."

The example is ridiculous, but it shows the irrelevancy of good deeds outweighing the bad, through extreme points.

> It's also not his place to decide what is/isn't harmful, he was elected based on certain premises and promises of certain actions.

It is his place. We elect leaders, not robots. Elected officials are supposed to govern, not just read popularity polls and enact the opinions they see there.

The U.S. is very purposefully and carefully constructed to not be a direct democracy. We are a representative democracy.

"The people" are kept at some distance from the daily decision-making of the government. We have the power to choose leaders, to remove them from power, and to freely express to them what we think they should do. But while in office, our leaders have broad power to use their own judgment and discretion, within the bounds of the law.

This architecture arose from an awareness of the shortcomings of direct democracy. It's not a mistake.

The article reads a bit like "buy my book to learn more!", but as someone pointed out below, that seems to be the bulk of the source material: http://harvardnsj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Glennon-Fin...

I'll have to save that paper for later and see if he has some decent sources. If he does have proper evidence, maybe the theory has merit. On the other hand, if there was a 'smoking gun', it would be mentioned on the first page and in every article about it.