Are we the boss?

I would love to bring in Brettschneider’s conception of democracy as collective self-rule, and its implications for how we understand the presidency and broader government accountability. 

In Shiffrin’s work, she emphasizes that the president cannot say everything, not because it contradicts a supervisor, but because it defies their commitments to the constitution: “This constraint holds even of those officials, such as the President, who preside at the top of the chain of managerial command. Their speech denying the First Amendment’s protection does not defy a superior official’s directive, but the speech does defy the commitments of the Constitution itself” (Shiffrin 1007).

However, if we incorporate Brettschnieders understanding of democracy, I think we could go further and argue that the president is in fact defying his supervisor. Brettschnieder's theory reorients power away from top-down hierarchy and toward the people, arguing that “citizens are not merely subjects of law but its authors,” and that legitimate democratic authority rests on the recognition of each person as a “free and equal ruler” (Brettschneider, Democratic Rights, 24). If democracy is, in part, defined by the people’s status as “free and equal rulers,” then even the president must be understood not as a superior authority, but as a servant of the people, accountable to them as their employee or agent. The president is not our superior---he's the employee of the people.

This reframing, however, introduces a deeper challenge: how do we determine what the “boss” (the people) wants? It's not always easy to know what the people want. The will of the people is diverse and often contested, and beyond simple majoritarian view or visible protesting. I believe that’s why the president can’t just claim to speak on our behalf, he has to demonstrate it, justify it, and earn it. As Brettschneider puts it, legitimacy depends on “policies and decisions being justified by appeal to values that respect each person’s capacity for autonomy and reason” (25). And we have the right and responsibility to question him when he doesn’t. 

This also reinforces our role as citizens. If we are indeed co-rulers in a democracy, then we not only have the right but the responsibility to question the president when he fails to reflect shared values and needs. As Shiffrin reminds us, democracy is “a system of self-administration,” where institutions must hold themselves accountable to constitutional principles(999).