Morning Must-Read: Ezra Klein: The Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency, Explained
Ezra Klein: The Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency, explained: “Presidents consistently overpromise and underdeliver….
Obama… didn’t just promise health-care reform, a stimulus bill, and financial regulation. It also promised a cap-and-trade bill to limit carbon emissions, comprehensive immigration reform, gun control, and much more. His presidency, he said, would be change American could believe in. But it’s clear now that much of the change he promised isn’t going to happen–in large part because he doesn’t have the power to make it happen. You would think voters in general and professional media pundits in particular would, by now, be wise to this pattern. But they’re not…. The criticism is always the same: why can’t the president be more like the Green Lantern?… The Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency is “the belief that the president can achieve any political or policy objective if only he tries hard enough or uses the right tactics.”… The Reagan version, he says, holds that “if you only communicate well enough the public will rally to your side.” The LBJ version says that “if the president only tried harder to win over congress they would vote through his legislative agenda.” In both cases, Nyhan argues, “we’ve been sold a false bill of goods.”…
The Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency… denies the very real (and very important) limits on the power of the American presidency, as well as reduces Congress to a coquettish collection of passive actors who are mostly just playing hard to get…. The Green Lantern Theory isn’t just false. It’s often backwards. The basic idea is that more aggressive and consistent applications of presidential power will break down opposition. But political science research shows the truth is often just the opposite…. Elections are zero-sum affairs. The more the American people perceive the president as successful the less likely they are to vote for the opposition in the next election…. The Green Lantern Theory also infantilizes Congress…. This kind of thing both lets Congress off the hook and confuses Americans about where the power actually lies in American politics–and thus about who to hold accountable….
Why do so many people believe in the Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency?… Even as the US executive is structurally weak he’s perceptually strong… dominates culture…. Both in fiction and in reporting American politics is a drama that is told through the character of the president…. Obama can do a good or bad job within the actual limits of the presidency. The problem with the Green Lantern Theory is that it focuses so much attention on the presidency that it lets everyone else off the hook–and thus makes it harder for voters to hold elected leaders accountable…. The executive branch is a big and powerful that manages programs of enormous consequence to Americans–and it’s often run quite poorly. That’s something the president really should answer for. But political reporting in America tends to focus more on new laws that are being pushed through congress than on… implementation…