Commander in chief

     "US Representative David Cicilline will take center stage this afternoon as an impeachment manager in the trial of former President Donald Trump, the only commander-in-chief in American history who has been impeached by the House twice."

            Boston Globe

Stop.

We have a president of the United States. We don't have a "commander-in-chief "of the United States.

The distinction is important, and the Constitution is clear. It reads: 

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.

The president has command power in a limited arena, directing civilian control of the armed forces. In most areas of government, the president has powers he shares with the Congress, the Judiciary, with the rights of citizens, all constrained by the laws in place.

The language matters. The words we use to describe the office sends subtle messages to Americans about what we can expect from a president and of a president. Biden cannot fix America. He cannot make the stock market go up, he has limited influence on employment. He cannot make laws. He can be frustrated, and hindered, slowed, and outright stopped cold. 

He doesn't command very much.

Commander in chief

How to talk and think about presidential power is not merely theoretical or academic. The U.S. senate is in the thick of it now. Trump wanted to stay in office, and voiding the election was the mechanism. Republican senators are well aware that Trump appeals to a great many Americans. He appeared to operate with confidence. He said he got things done. He said he built the wall. His post-election response to losing was in-character for Trump. He wasn't going to let irritating little obstacles get in his way. He thought he could tell a Georgia Secretary of State to find votes. He thought he could tell his Vice President to void electors out of hand. He is a do-er.

If Trump's actions come to be seen as firmly transgressive, we can expect the disappointed loser of the 2024 election to concede promptly, even if the election is close. Americans may end up thinking about this the other way. It is possible that gaining and retaining office by any means possible will be seen as smart hardball politics. It is what people fit for the role of "commander" do. They don't accept defeat. They don't play fair. They win. Politics is played by cage fight rules, not golf ethics. Americans may expect a decisive president who projects a can-do attitude and who takes what he wants because no one dare stop him. The leader. The commander.

Dick Plotz

College classmate Dick Plotz, now a retired pathologist who follows politics closely, noticed the increasing use of the phrase "commander in chief" relating to the office. I had noticed it myself but did not register its potential import until he pointed it out. The increasing use of the term "commander in chief" to describe the presidency is consistent with the longer-term drift toward centralizing presidential power, and the diminishment of Congress' role to make laws and control the federal purse. If Congress is too gridlocked to deal with an economic crisis, the Fed will step in with monetary policy.

The command of the armed forces is the area where a president has the most latitude to exercise his will. The Pentagon bureaucracy is well known for being adept at confounding presidents, but this generally takes place outside public view. On high-profile military matters, presidents grab center stage. They publish photos of themselves in the Situation Room. They describe how they courageously made the decision to approve some Seal Team action. They announce missile strikes. Being commander is good optics. 

A commander-president represents the will of the people, without the filter and intermediaries of others. He is the protector. He has status: The man on the tall horse. Daniel Goodwyn of San Francisco, a self-identified Proud Boy, was inside the Capitol on January 6. He had tweeted to friends that they should be showing up at state capitols and "Await orders from our Commander in Chief." Jennifer Ryan, the real estate agent from Florida who flew to DC by private jet, and was later arrested said, "I thought I was following my president. I thought I was following what we were called to do. He asked us to fly there. He asked us to be there. So I was doing what he asked us to do.”  Christopher Grider of Texas, seen on video in the Capitol, explained, "The president asked people to come and show their support. I feel like it’s the least that we can do, it’s kind of why I came from central Texas all the way to DC."

When the president says it's OK, it is OK. 

Possibly in fifty years Trump's presidency will be understood to have been the apogee of the trend toward concentration of political power in the Executive branch. Trump was center stage, always. His personality fits the media moment. Maybe Trump's foibles--and the attack on the Capitol--broke the spell and enough people will want a retreat from Trump-ism and conclude Trump was, in hindsight, a mistake.

Journalists, pundits, talk show hosts, and news anchors are making decisions about how to describe the presidency. Writers want strong, active sentences--a task made easier by describing strong, active behavior. Presidents are an easy focus; Congress is hard, complicated, and gridlocked by multiple voices all vying for attention. The president as "commander in chief" is a slippery linguistic slope. 

Biden is no Trump. He is old. He was a lifelong member of the senate, the epicenter of slow, grinding process in the American system. It is possible that a Biden presidency, combined with Trump exhaustion, will remind America's media that the legislature is Article One, and the president operates with limited powers. He has the power to persuade--if he can.  America doesn't have a commander. We have a president.