
Issues of leadership are important for all Presidents – including those at Mount Rushmore.
United States presidents have found the exercise of effective leadership a difficult task in recent decades. For Obama and Trump, the impediments have proven numerous. To lead well, a president needs support or at least permission from federal courts and Congress, steady allegiance from public opinion and fellow partisans in the electorate, backing from powerful, entrenched interest groups, and ideological accordance with contemporary public opinion about the proper size and scope of government.
That is a long list of requirements. If presidents fail to satisfy these requirements, they face the prospect of inadequate political support or, as defined here, “political capital,” to back their power assertions. In recent years, presidents’ political capital has shrunk while their power assertions have grown. Trump and Obama are the latest examples of this pattern, which can make the president a volatile, frustrated player in the national political system.
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