Lesson: How much power does the president really have?

Conversation

Answer the following questions. You might be asked to write them down or answer them out-loud.

1. Do you like to read or talk about politics? Why or why not?
2. How much power do you think the president of Brazil has?
3. What do you understand when it is said that we live in a democracy? Do you agree that we live in one?
4. What do you like about our political system?
5. What do you dislike about our political system?
6. Do you think voting should be an obligation or a choice? Why?
7. Who are the people and organizations that have power in Brazil?
8. What do you think could be done to improve our political system?
9. How do you choose for whom you are going to vote?
10. Do you sometimes have to compromise? Give an example.

Vocabulary

Look at the vocabulary below. Take time to explore the links for their definitions in English and their translations to Portuguese. When you are done, make a sentence with each word. Ask your teacher if you should write them down or say them out loud.

DT   figure out

DT   distinguished

DT   leading

DT   presidency

DT   trail

DT   sincere

DT   unilaterally

DT   opposition

DT   persuasive

DT   fellow

DT   prize

DT   drawing

DT   policy

DT   fail

DT   leverage

DT   fly

DT   deliberation

DT   compromising

DT   dirty

DT   traitor

DT   work out

DT   condemned

DT   untrustworthy

DT   willing

• The Founding Fathers of the United States

Video

Watch the following video but DON'T read the transcript yet.

After watching the video do this listening exercise.

Reading practice

Read the following transcript then do the associated reading comprehension exercise.

ExpandTranscript:

- A lot of people want the president of the United States to save us from our enemies, from the economy and other really big things. So, we're trying to figure out: what kind of power does the president really have? To answer that question we sat down with George Edwards, distinguished professor of political science and a leading scholar on the presidency.

GE: The president has much less power than people think and they have much less power than you would think from what you hear candidates promise on the campaign trail. And I don't mean that promises aren't sincere because almost always they are. But presidents, once they take office, run into some pretty hard realities. And the first reality is that they rarely connect unilaterally. They share power primarily with congress and congress, often, in modern American politics, is populated with the opposition, as it is right now. And so presidents come in and think that after two years of campaigning they must be pretty persuasive fellows, after all, they won the big prize in politics and they've been basically doing nothing but talking for two years. But that's a bit different because you are simply drawing a comparison with another candidate and that's different than convincing people to support a particular piece of policy. And it's almost always the case that the public doesn't move in the president's direction or it actually moves a little bit in the opposite direction. So, presidents generally fail in their effort to win the public and, therefore, they don't have the kind of leverage that they want in moving congress.

- So, if we can't expect the president to just fly in and save day, how do we get anything done in this country?

GE: The founding fathers, they knew what they were doing, they divided power, they decentralized power, they specifically designed an inefficient system and that forces deliberation and it forces compromising. So, if there's no people in the middle, there's no people with whom you can cut a deal and if compromise becomes a dirty word and you're viewed as a traitor to your party, then there is very little chance of doing something. I'll give you an example, senator Lindsey Graham, a very smart guy and a long time clear conservative. And he found that just by talking to the white house and trying to work out issues on climate change and on immigration that he was condemned by his own party. That's just an example of the kinds of problems that you face when everyone must feel that the opposition party are untrustworthy and, therefore, you can't compromise with them. So, to bring about change, you have to compromise. That's a good thing in my mind. And voters have to support candidates who are willing to compromise. You have to be willing to give up something. You can't argue that I should get everything I want and the other side can have nothing that they want. And you got to support candidates who are willing to talk to the other side sincerely and to compromise and I don't know any other way to actually deal with the kinds of problems that we face.

- All right, thanks for chatting with us.

GE: Thank you, bye bye.

Writing practice

Write a couple of paragraphs talking about our political system, its flaws and benefits. Make sure to use words you learned from the text and try to make it as long as you can.

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