I’ve noticed with increasing frequency that various commentators on the media talk about who runs the country. Many right wingers think that Joe Biden was supposed to run the country but didn’t and, instead, he deferred to a troika who ran the country. Many people across the spectrum think that Donald Trump currently runs the country.
They’re all wrong. No one runs the country.
Think of all the decisions that you make in a day. On how many of them does the U.S. president decide? Close to zero. He can influence your decisions, but he doesn’t run your life. And if he doesn’t run your life and doesn’t run the lives of over 300 million other residents of the United States, how could he run the country?
What people may mean is that the U.S. president runs the federal government. But that’s not true either. Recall your civics class. There are 3 branches of the federal government: executive, legislative, and judicial. The president runs the executive branch and even there, there are executive agencies with some autonomy. Think of the Federal Reserve, for example. So at most the president runs one third of the federal government.
On a related note: People often say that the president is the commander in chief of the country. No, he’s not. He’s the commander in chief of the military, which is less than 1% of the country.
READER COMMENTS
Thomas L Hutcheson
Jun 5 2025 at 7:10am
?? President does not YET run everything, but he’s trying. 🙂
David Seltzer
Jun 5 2025 at 10:52am
Thomas, that’s his fatal conceit.
Ken Costello
Jun 5 2025 at 9:45am
I have taken that attitude in my life: I don’t get too upset about who is President; I am not going to get my blood pressure up or get angry when the federal government does something really stupid — neither party has a monopoly on stupidity, or more accurately on elevating the political consequence of their actions over the public good. My well-being depends largely, as David says, on the countless decisions I make each day. Although always true, it seems that each party spends more effort these days on trashing the other party and excessively alarming the public that what the other party is doing is so bad and detrimental. Politicians are professional liars and spreaders of misinformation. They are really good at that.
I am venting my frustrations because some of that I read in this morning’s newspaper: Trump wants investigations of Biden’s past actions and the Democrats are concerned about the escalating debt under Trump’s Big and Beautiful bill. Come on — who can believe that the “we can’t spend too much” Democrats have ever cared about deficits and the national debt. And doesn’t Congress have better things to do than to waste time in investigating Biden’s past actions. Of course, if the Democrats control the House after next year’s elections, they will conduct hearings on impeaching Trump. What a joke Congress is; how can anyone take this stuff seriously.
Student of Liberty
Jun 5 2025 at 10:32am
The other point that strikes me with politicians these days is that they all seem to be proud in considering themselves world “leaders” and people seem to accept such a concept.
When I studied German, I learnt that “leader” translates into “Der Führer” – slightly connoted and not very much in use since 1945 there…
Craig
Jun 5 2025 at 2:35pm
If nobody then who is responsible? I prefer perhaps a liberally applied joint and several liability theory here myself.
David Henderson
Jun 5 2025 at 3:49pm
You ask who is responsible?
Each of us is responsible for our own decisions. That doesn’t mean that some things aren’t other people’s fault. For example, you’ve started to make your way through an intersection after you have a green light. Someone jumps the red and T-bones you. He’s responsible for your injury.
Notice what I didn’t do: name Donald Trump as the person who’s responsible.
Alan Goldhammer
Jun 5 2025 at 5:13pm
My Occam’s Razor answer: The Heritage Foundation
Felix
Jun 5 2025 at 9:28pm
Paris feeds itself.
I was long gone as an individualist when I read that, but I still remember the shock of such a simple statement.
Monte
Jun 6 2025 at 12:03am
The state, for all intents and purposes, runs the country and trickles down to each of us in the form of rules and regs. The state is presumably a fiduciary of the people or the Constitution, but according to De Jasay:
As individuals, we only have so many degrees of freedom. And even that must be approved by the state. The president is not its master, the president is its slave.
Mactoul
Jun 6 2025 at 12:14am
Doesn’t it violate methodological individualism? What is this State after all? A set of men and associated rules and roles.
Monte
Jun 6 2025 at 12:51am
Not really. Paraphrasing De Jasay, the state is not a person, but it acts as if it were a person with agency because its internal logic incentivizes those within it to act in ways that make it power-maximizing and self-preserving.
Knut P. Heen
Jun 6 2025 at 7:22am
More people should read the story about the Danish Viking king of England.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_tide
nobody.really
Jun 6 2025 at 4:10pm
Hey–I told you that in confidence!
Besides, it’s not as if I do it all myself.
Wait–why NOT me?
Jon Murphy
Jun 7 2025 at 7:33am
I was wondering when you’d drop by the comments section here
Monte
Jun 7 2025 at 10:43am
You must be a descendent of that fellow Nobody who we’ve read about in Homer’s Odyssey. You know, the one who pokes holes in giant’s eyes – kind of like you poke holes people’s logi
Matthias
Jun 7 2025 at 9:09am
I think Scott Sumner had a pretty good post about this.
From memory it went something like: even if the President (of the US) has one million times more influence than an average person, that’s still only 1/3 of a percent of influence over the country in total. (Assuming about 300 million people in the country. My math could be off.)
Please don’t rely on my faulty memory, and try to find the relevant post, if that sounds interesting.
Michael Chapman
Jun 9 2025 at 12:01pm
You are correct.
Joe Potts
Jun 9 2025 at 1:33pm
The bigger the government, the more-nearly-true it is that the president runs the country. Or, at least, the government does.