I feel two ways in this, you probably need one voice for certain key tactical decisions, but the fact that everyone feels the presidency is this important in America supports the idea that the presidency has gotten way to powerful. Loosely speaking, the person who is president shouldn’t matter as much as who is in congress.

This is how it works in most European democracies.

The balance between the President, the Prime Minister and the Congress or Parliament is different in different countries. In most of Europe, the President is mostly a "figurehead". The President does the diplomatic stuff, wines and dines with foreign leaders, maybe has the ability to veto laws or pardon people, but it's the prime minister who actually runs the government and appoints the cabinet.

There's also the constitutional monarchy-model we have here in Sweden, where the head of state is fully ornamental, with no power to speak of.

I think this varies varies between countries. Sweden indeed has an almost (formally) powerless monarch. I think the UK has a monarch with some real power but that does not put it to use? And how Denmark, Netherlands, Norway etc fare on this scale would be interesting to learn.

Denmark and Norway is pretty much the same as Sweden.

> you probably need one voice for certain key tactical decisions

I agree. Having a unified vision is the other key thing a president brings. Unfortunately though we barely see the fruits of a unified vision with how divided the two parties are today.

The problem isn't the head of state but the head of government. The solution to that is reduce the powers of the President.

I have been having thought that the office of President should be split. With separate head of state and head of government that runs the executive branch. Another option would be to have triumvirate with command in chief that commands the military. Maybe the President has power to dismiss the others, or there is system than one person can't take over, like the CnC can never be executive.

You could do that with current structure by giving all the executive power to the Vice President, and then President would be left with head of state role. They would run as slate, with the visible, charismatic President, and the unknown, competent VP. If the President dies, the VP loses all his power.

> triumvirate

The two historical examples that immediately come to mind (and explain the Latin term) both didn't end well.

I agree with the rest of the points you make. I think in Europe, the CnC is always a military post and needs to have done officer training and risen through the ranks, whereas the head of government (whether nominal or actual) is strictly a civilian role.

Whether European models would scale up to something the size of the USA is another question.

I mean, which non-extant countries have ended well?

Czechoslovakia splitting into Czech Republic and Slovakia is the best example I can think of.

I've said that the US needs an elected king. The guy you want to have a beer with, to throw out ceremonial first pitches, even to welcome other heads of state is the king. The person who runs the government and balances congress is the president and should be super boring. I'm imagining George W Bush as idea King material while Gore would have been ideal President material.

In parliamentary republics, the President is the powerless head of state, and the Prime Minister is head of government. There are lots of terms for head of government like Chancellor, Chief Executive, and First Minister. "King" has too much baggage of being inherited.

Most limited Presidents have fixed terms, but I don't think there needs to be term limits for the figurehead. I was thinking that the head of state would attract those who want the spotlight.

> Is it really necessary to have such a single powerful figure in the executive branch?

As an ignorant outsider, my impression is that the president is only supposed to 'preside' over things. Delegate and appoint people. Sign bills as a ceremony.

The real decision-making should be happening by the people's representatives in congress, while the Supreme court can guard against decisions which would violate the constitution.

But then parties form, partisanship happens, and congress stops making meaningful changes. Blocking anything that the dems put forward apparently gets votes for senators. You don't even need filibusters to prevent votes; just the suggestion of one.

So without a working congress, the President and the courts end up picking up the slack, and wield more power than they should.

I naively wish that there was some way for congress to actually be a congress, and for each member to vote his/her conscience on every single matter.

This is a weird way to formulate the question of how you could better constitute the US federal government.

(because if you were gonna make a change as fundamental as not having a primary leader of the executive branch, you probably wouldn't try to limit your changes to that)