What If The President Is Just a Figurehead?

​By Chris Rossini

If you haven't watched yesterday's Liberty Report on the "deep state," be sure not to miss it. Most Americans live under the impression that The President of The United States is some kind of super-being that has his finger on the pulse of the world. He then uses his super-computer brain to take in vast amounts of information, which he then uses to "run the world," "run the economy" and perhaps someday soon "run the universe"!

Of course, none of this is even remotely true, but government and truth are arch enemies so it doesn't really matter. What does matter is that American citizens believe that it's true. And thanks to compulsory government schools, which bamboozle Americans in their most innocent years, followed by the mainstream media, which picks up the slack after, the belief in a Superhuman President dominates without much challenge.

Fortunately, the Internet is breaking down this matrix. Individuals now have access to The Ron Paul Liberty Report, LewRockwell.com, The Mises Institute and many other places that remove the wool that has been placed over American eyes.

The Internet also provides us with real-life stories from people who have worked with former Presidents, and who are willing to throw the curtain open on The Great Oz. For example, Paul Craig Roberts was a member of the Reagan Administration. He knows how "the system" works.

Roberts spells it out in black and white:

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I have been in White House meetings from which every participant departed with a different understanding of what the president’s policy was. This was not the result of lack of clarity on the president’s part, but from the various interests present shaping the policy to their agendas.

Many Americans regard the White House as the lair of a powerful being who can snap his fingers and make things happen. The fact of the matter is that presidents have little idea of what is transpiring in the vast cabinet departments and federal agencies that constitute “their” administration. Many parts of government are empires unto themselves. The “Deep State,” about which Mike Lofgren, formerly a senior member of the Congressional staff has written, is unaccountable to anyone. But even the accountable part of the government isn’t. For example, the information flows from the cabinet departments, such as defense, state, and treasury, are reported to Assistant Secretaries, who control the flow of information to the Secretaries, who inform the President. The civil service professionals can massage the information one way, the Assistant Secretaries another, and the Secretaries yet another. If the Secretaries report the information to the White House Chief of Staff, the information can be massaged yet again...

Those who think that “the President knows” can test their conviction by trying to keep up with the daily announcements from all departments and agencies of the government. It is a known fact that CEOs of large corporations, the relative size of which are tiny compared to the US government, cannot know all that is happening within their organizations.​

That's a lot different compared to what most Americans believe, isn't it? The President really isn't a super-being that has a super-computer brain that "runs the world". No doubt he wields a lot of destructive power. That's for sure. But the misplaced belief and faith that Americans put into presidents is just flat out wrong.

As promising as the Internet is (and truth is clearly seeping through society) we still have a ways to go. There were oceans of people at the Obama inauguration, with tears streaming down their faces, only to be duped en masse. Today's presidential candidates also criss-cross the country, with their masses believing their every fictional word as well. A president who "runs the world" and "runs the economy" has plenty of believers.

The truth is powerful though, especially when people can communicate like we can today. There are plenty of reasons for optimism.
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