Legitimacy of the Office of the Presidency, The

The American public's thinking about the office of the presidency has become detrimental to the office. Accusations about current President Obama's birthplace to comments regarding former President Bush's intelligence point to a lack of respect for the office of the presidency. Americans now increasingly view the president as a figure to be mocked instead of revered. This trend could be correlated with the expansion of presidential powers, but little research has been done on the correlation between the decline in the popular view of the presidency and the overuse of presidential powers. In my research, I looked for a correlation between trends brought about by the extension of presidential powers and whether these trends have effected popular perception of the president. I have not found a direct correlation between the expansion of power and the decline in the public's view of the president, but I did find some loose correlation showing that expansion of powers and the decline in the popular view of the president are linked. Further research is needed to determine what effects the expansion of presidential powers has had and will have on the future of the United States political system.