The Reality of the Modern Presidency is one of Vulnerability not Strength” Discuss.

Article II of the United States Constitution grants the president a set of powers; the founding fathers intended the presidential role to be the most limited office of state, due to the American fear of tyranny following colonial rule. Here official checks and balances placed on the president through Congress and the Supreme Court, as well as unofficial checks such as media scrutiny and public opinion can leave a president quite vulnerable. However, this limitation is mostly in the domestic sphere, internationally, the president as ‘commander in chief’ of the army, has considerable strength- as far as to call it an ‘Imperial Presidency’ (Schlesinger). Furthermore, given to circumstance and the character of the President, the strength of this office does vary.
The United States Constitution outlines many checks on the president’s political power by Congress, therefore it is often it is the relationship between the president and congress that determine the strength of a presidency. Though the president can negotiate and sign political appointments suggesting strength, they both need the advice and consent of the Senate. Furthermore, the State of the Union address can epitomise the idea of the president’s power merely being one of persuading Congress to follow his/her legislative programme. In reality, therefore, the strength of the presidency in the domestic sphere is dependant on the levels of partisanship within Congress. For example, in periods of divided government due to hyper-partisanship, the president’s powers are extremely limited for example the federal shutdown of 2018 after Trump’s proposed repeal of DACA. However in Obama’s first term during which the Democrats controlled both the House and Senate, he vetoed only two bills- suggesting that his presidency was influencing the domestic legislative programme, which implies that in periods of bipartisanship, a presidency can be a strong office. But the fact that Congress also holds the power of impeachment suggests that the president is always vulnerable when there is a political conflict between the two offices. When Nixon was forced to resign by Congress as he stated ‘I no longer have a strong enough political base in Congress’. One could argue that the fact that Nixon was made to resign is proof that there is no ‘imperial presidency’, at least not domestically. This suggests that even concerning matters of the legitimacy of the office of the president (and not just legislation), the relationship between congress and the president is key in determining the strength or, here, the vulnerability of the presidency.
The strength of the modern presidency has undeniably grown in the 20th century. The president is constitutionally the ‘commander-in-chief’ of the army and his/her codified powers allow them to be somewhat unchecked in the international sphere. Importantly, critics have argued that there is an ‘Imperial Presidency’, where this office is too powerful since F.D Roosevelt and the aftermath of Pearl harbour in 1941 and declaration of war on Japan. This ‘imperial residency’ in the international sphere is seen through the fact that there does not need to be congressional sanction for military action since FDR, for example, Kennedy’s involvement in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1961 or more severely Nixon’s bombing of Cambodia without Congressional knowledge. The strength of the presidency increased, even more, the Vietnam war as Congress gave Johnson ‘carte blanche’ or ‘blank cheque’ under the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution to take ‘all necessary measures’. Though the War Powers Act (1973) attempted to limit president's’ use of troops unless Congress declared war or gave ‘specific statutory authorisation’, suggesting attempts to limit the international power of the president, shades of ‘imperial presidency’ still exist in the post-imperial era. For example, Obama’s action with Syrian drone strikes. Furthermore, Adam Shatz points out, the office of the president will always hold strength because of it has sole authority of nuclear weapons, and here Trump with North Korea tensions, like Reagan and the Soviet before, uses this power to show the dominance of the Presidential office. Here, one can argue that the office of the president is one of utmost strength and in fact proves the vulnerability of both Congress, through circumventing checks, and the vulnerability of the international sphere.