The power of the American President is rather overestimated by many people, particularly by those who live outside US & probably cannot understand that political system’s origins.
If we want to understand the President’s rather weak power, then we have to go back to the initial motives of the Founding Fathers who created the fundamental basis of the US political system. The Founding Fathers in 1787 did not want at all something that could be related to monarchy, so they decided that the President’s power had to be
restricted by a second (legislature) body named Congress. In fact, Congress not only can control (to some extent) President’s political actions but also it can dismiss him if he commits serious misdemeanors/crimes (bribery, for example).
So, the American presidential government in fact consists of White House & Congress that
share power. Even in the case that one political party has control over both of them, conflict interests still can exist.
The President’s weak power has been also addressed by various American Presidents, such as John F. Kennedy in 1963 (“
… The President is rightly described as a man of extraordinary powers. Yet it is also true that he must wield those powers under extraordinary limitations …”
.
It is also important to note that the history proved that the American President’s power/actions can be significantly controlled by the advisers who are located in White House.
barbee0715;4174253 said:
The President/Vice President is actually elected by the Electoral College-that's a system the founding fathers set up to compromise between the elections being chosen by the House of Representatives and the actual people.
Every state gets the same number of electoral votes as they do Representatives-Plus 2-each state has two Senators. That's all based on population and changes every 10 years with the census.
The problem is that all states but two have a WINNER TAKE ALL system-so if you lead in the state you get ALL the votes. For example, in Florida Hilary got 48% of the vote and Trump got 49% of the vote-so Trump got ALL the electoral college votes for the state-all 29 of them. Hilary gets nothing.
In the long run more people voted for Hilary than voted for Trump, but it didn't matter. Same thing happened with the Bush/Gore election-which devastated me. I thought back then we would repeal this system, but it's still there.
I would add to what you wrote that the “winner takes all” (in each district) system is an inherent characteristic of the non-proportional electoral systems. The US electoral system is (still) based on the plurality system in which, as you mentioned, the most votes automatically declare the winner in each district (while the loser gets nothing).