You're voting for a leader. Not a checklist.

CA politics seems to have trouble with referendums. I want the President to feel like they have a duty to make unpopular decisions sometimes.

The POTUS should not be considered a leader any more than the speaker of the house. He shouldn't be leading "the people" to do anything, according to the Constituional role. But in the movies, he's a standup guy every time so we get this weirdly quasi-religious idea that he's some special person by virtue of the vaulted position. A position which has been wildly perverted in an incestuous political feedback machination. Patriot Act still in place? Yeah, now imagine the other cancerous beginnings of the Federal Reserve, Social Security, the IRS, the FCC and on and on. The POTUS isn't a leader, it's a political tool that affects society when hardships (usually financial) arise and congress is too slow and inept to handle it, so the executive branch acts and 1/3 the legislative is too busy vying for the next election cycle to take a stand, leaving the acts in place the vast majority of the time. No matter how well or poorly conceived.

I find it utterly staggering how frequently US politics seems to be in "election mode"... 2 years away from the Presidential Election that race gears up meaning that the president is only really 'focused on the job' for half the time and campaigning the rest, then there's the senate, half term senate elections because what the hell do you need to alternate back and forth so frequently for, its the same term for each election you've just made it twice the political mess with this half term election nonsense...

I live on the other side of the world in Australia... and I am STILL getting BOMBARDED with this constant cycle of election crap going on in the USA due to how much the US media drives advertising.

Its just crazy... You guys have way bigger problems than the whole "the people think POTUS is in charge, but congress is actually meant to be in charge", it starts with the fact none of your politicians have enough time to do their fucking jobs due to all the campaigning.

House Rep terms are really kind of stupidly short. Two years means they are constantly on the hamster wheel of campaigning.

Now, there could be the argument that being a professional politician was never supposed to be a thing, but any hope for that is dead and gone, probably before Washington set the precedent of stepping down after two terms.