I think it's funny how much faith people invest in the Office of the Presidency [View all]

[YoungDemCA]

For example: claiming that "We need a new FDR!" or "If only we had a TRUE progressive Democrat!" It's also ironic that many of these same people will routinely cite people like Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky, et. al. None of these thinkers had (or in Chomsky's case, have) any illusions that the US Presidency was ever even close to being the primary vehicle for social change in the US. The President is far too aloof/removed/distant from the general population to do that. And he (or she) is constrained in a lot of ways by many laws and norms-formal and informal-which tend to lend into supporting the overall status quo in society.

If you think just changing the person in the Oval Office is going to fundamentally alter the system...well, a lot of us thought that with Obama, and look at all the disappointments and feelings of betrayal since then! The individual personality in the Oval Office really doesn't matter in terms of the overall, systemic issues with all of the major institutions in the US.