4 ms·
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 pow
by msabalau 12y ago
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"
- chton 12y agoThat 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.