Kate - If you served in an advisory role to President Biden what realistic direction would you give him? I ask because I think we overplay the actual power of the President (this is critical to our own belief that we do live in a democracy and our votes matter) - and we underplay how much his decisions are actually cabined by material conditions and bureaucratic intransigence. I suppose the President *could* order the Pentagon to shut down and abandon all US military bases in the middle east but the backlash/intransigence would be so fast and furious that no President would ever try it.
My point is that I wonder how much the President can actually do besides simply shifting rhetoric in a different direction and hope that this opens up space for incremental changes. This is NOT a defense of Biden at all - it's rather a deep indictment of our entire system of government.
As always, if you have any questions for Kate please get them in within the next couple of weeks, after which the comments will be closed.
Kate - If you served in an advisory role to President Biden what realistic direction would you give him? I ask because I think we overplay the actual power of the President (this is critical to our own belief that we do live in a democracy and our votes matter) - and we underplay how much his decisions are actually cabined by material conditions and bureaucratic intransigence. I suppose the President *could* order the Pentagon to shut down and abandon all US military bases in the middle east but the backlash/intransigence would be so fast and furious that no President would ever try it.
My point is that I wonder how much the President can actually do besides simply shifting rhetoric in a different direction and hope that this opens up space for incremental changes. This is NOT a defense of Biden at all - it's rather a deep indictment of our entire system of government.