He's not my President?

Okay, I admit I'm being a little contrary here.  I'm just tired of being bombarded by the constant refrain:  "he's President of ALL of us now" and "is he YOUR President?"  I feel like theSadducees & Pharisees are trying to trip me up by asking if it is right to pay taxes to Caesar.  So I'll try this answer:  The President is who he is.  Or perhaps, he is as much my President as George W Bush was yours.

Actually, to me he is nothing more than the person who presides over the Federal Government.  He is not my President because he does not Preside over me.  If I was a government employee, he would Preside over me and would be my President.  Sure, you can claim him as your President if you wish, that's your silly choice.  

But he was not elected god, or Emperor, or even King, where such an appellation might apply.  He was not even elected by the voters, he was elected by the states, and the electors as they so designated.  Which is to say, the position of President was not supposed to play such a role in our lives.  If it were to, we would vote for him or her directly, as we do our representatives (yet another reason to keep the electoral college, I don't want to have a directly elected President who can claim to Preside over me).

The President is simply a convenient way to organize the executive responsibilities of the Federal Government.  The position has a couple of well defined roles in the constitution, and everything else is delegated to it by Congress through legislation.  Now I grant that over the years Congress has seen fit to delegate a lot of responsibilities to the President that were not its to delegate in the first place.  This has imposed the Presidency on the citizens far more that it should.  So, to the extent that the President's powers have been forced on me beyond the original scope of presiding over the Federal Government, then I have to say, yes, he is my President.

But wait, that brings up a good question.  People keep asking, "is he your President?" or "will you say 'he is my president'?"  That implies a choice, no?  You mean, I actually have an option here?  Is there some other path beyond my attempted semantics to say "he's not my President?"  If you're really offering me a choice, I'll take the "no, he's not my President" option.  But, as I stated earlier, I don't think I really have a choice.

And so, maybe what is really being asked of me is some sort of loyalty test.  Should I say a Pledge of Allegiance to the President?  Last time I checked, my Pledge was to the Republic, not a Man.  As George Washington said, ours is a "nation of laws, not men."  Now I'm starting to feel like Nebuchadnezzer is asking me to swear fealty to him and his statue.

It feels like the President's supporters are looking to either find another reason to castigate those of a different persuasion (from a cynical point of view), or to build bridges (from a generous point of view).  More likely it is somewhere in between, a sort of lack of conficence in their own success.  They won!  Why do they need our support?  Our laws are made by the majority, not unanimously.  Go out and govern based on your ideas, and then we'll see if people like them and their results.  Why should you need our support, just to make you feel better about yourselves?  Is it to assuage your guilt over eight years of utter disrespect for the guy I voted for?

The Presidency is a political position.  If we disagree with the President philosophically, we shouldn't feel like we have to support him, anymore than we support each other as fellow Americans.  Like the "flair" scene from the move Office Space, if they want us to express ourselves more than they should make it a requirement.

So, back to the choice thing.  If asked if he's my President, and I say no, what then?  Or put another way, "What happens if I say No?"  I guess I'd just get called Un-american, for disrespecting the democratic process, even though as I've described aove it's I who am respecting the actual process.

Final thought.  As I've said, the President is elected not as Emperor, King, Dictator, or Tyrranous.   He or she is hired to be a manager over our Federal Bureacracy, not a manager over us.  He ior she cannot fundementally be my President.  At best he or she is my employee, however unwilling I was to hire him or her.  So, do I accept that this individual has been hired by the American Citizens, of which I am a part, to be our employee, the executive manager?  Well, when you put it like that, yes, I suppose so.