The Presidency Isn’t Broken Because Presidents Are Flawed—It’s Broken Because It Corrupts

I watched The Post, starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, recently, and it hit me in a way I didn’t expect.

The film tells the story of the Pentagon Papers—the classified documents that exposed decades of government deception about Vietnam. But what struck me wasn’t the historical drama. It was the simple, unbearable fact at the center of it:

Multiple presidents knew the war wasn’t going the way they told the American people it was. And they kept sending young people to die anyway.

More than 58,000 Americans died. Millions of Vietnamese died. And behind closed doors, American leaders had information suggesting the war could not be won.

They lied. They escalated. They sacrificed lives rather than admit they were wrong.

And then I realized something worse.

Vietnam wasn’t an isolated failure.

The Pattern

Throughout American history, presidents have expanded their power, concealed information, justified extraordinary actions, and sometimes placed political or institutional interests above the truth.

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War.

Nixon turned presidential power against political opponents.

Reagan’s administration became embroiled in Iran-Contra.

Clinton faced serious questions about executive accountability and the use of presidential power.

George W. Bush led the country into Iraq based on intelligence and claims about weapons of mass destruction that proved disastrously wrong.

Barack Obama, despite campaigning on greater transparency, continued many of the national-security policies he inherited, including expansive surveillance programs and aggressive prosecutions of government leakers.

And Donald Trump has repeatedly challenged institutional constraints, attacked the press, and tested the limits of presidential authority.

Different presidents. Different parties. Different eras.

No one is immune.

For a long time, I assumed the problem was the individual.

Bad president. Good president. Flawed president. Exceptional president.

But watching The Post made me question that assumption.

Maybe the problem isn’t simply who’s in the office. Maybe the office itself changes the people who occupy it.

Power Doesn’t Just Reveal Character

We tend to imagine that someone becomes president and then reveals who they really are.

But power doesn’t merely reveal character.

Power can reshape character.

A president enters the Oval Office and suddenly has access to an enormous national-security apparatus, intelligence agencies, military power, classified information, surveillance capabilities, and a bureaucracy that existed long before they arrived.

Then comes the pressure:

Protect national security.

Look strong.

Don’t give America’s enemies an advantage.

Don’t admit weakness.

Don’t create a political crisis.

And suddenly, principles that seemed obvious during a campaign become much harder to maintain.

The temptation isn’t necessarily, “How can I become corrupt?”

It’s often much simpler:

“Given the situation I’m facing, I have to do this.”

That’s how extraordinary powers become ordinary.

That’s how temporary measures become permanent.

That’s how secrecy becomes necessary, surveillance becomes justified, military action becomes unavoidable, and accountability gets postponed.

Obama is a good example—not because he was uniquely corrupt, but because he demonstrated how difficult it is for even a president who campaigns on changing the system to dismantle the machinery of power once he inherits it.

The same thing happened before him.

And it will happen again.

Unless we change the system itself.

Stop Looking for the Perfect President

This creates a frustrating question:

Are there actually better people? Or are we simply giving flawed human beings too much power?

I think the second question is more useful.

If every president is going to be human—and therefore imperfect—then waiting for the perfect president is a dead end.

We find a candidate.

We convince ourselves they’re different.

We elect them.

They disappoint us.

Then we spend the next four years explaining why the next president will finally get it right.

And the cycle continues.

That’s not a political system.

That’s a personality contest.

The answer isn’t finding the perfect person.

It’s building a system strong enough to withstand the wrong one.

The Free Press Is Part of That System

The Pentagon Papers weren’t released because a president suddenly decided to come clean.

They were released because Daniel Ellsberg decided the public needed to know.

The New York Times and Washington Post published them.

The government tried to stop them.

And the Supreme Court ultimately protected the press.

The system worked—not because everyone involved was noble, but because enough institutions and individuals were willing to resist concentrated power.

That’s the lesson.

A free press isn’t supposed to make the president look good.

It isn’t supposed to protect the president’s feelings.

It’s supposed to ask uncomfortable questions, investigate those in power, and tell the public what powerful people would rather keep hidden.

That’s why attacks on journalists and news organizations should concern everyone, regardless of political party.

And Trump’s repeated attacks on the press are particularly concerning—not simply because he’s Trump, but because attacking the press weakens one of the institutions designed to hold the presidency accountable.

And that principle has to apply to everyone.

You don’t have to like CNN.

You don’t have to like Fox News.

You don’t have to like the New York Times.

You don’t even have to agree with the press.

You have to defend its right to investigate and criticize whoever holds power.

Because someday, the president you trust will be replaced by one you don’t.

And when that happens, you’ll want journalists who aren’t afraid to ask questions.

But the Press Has a Problem, Too

Defending a free press doesn’t mean pretending modern journalism is perfect.

I also think the 24-hour news cycle has made this problem worse.

Somewhere along the way, we’ve blurred the line between reporting the news and talking about the news.

We have entire networks built around filling 24 hours with content. And when there isn’t enough actual news to fill that time, we get panels, speculation, outrage, personalities, and endless arguments about what something might mean.

The result is that people aren’t even starting from the same set of facts anymore.

One channel says one thing happened.

Another channel presents a completely different version.

Then each side brings in commentators to explain why their version is correct.

And before we can even agree on what happened, we’re already arguing about what it means.

I think we’ve got the order backwards.

First, establish the facts. Then debate what those facts mean.

There should be things we can reasonably agree actually happened—even if we completely disagree about whether they were good, bad, justified, or what should happen next.

That’s what journalism should help provide:

A shared factual foundation for public debate.

Instead, we’ve increasingly created an environment where the facts we encounter can depend on which channel we watch.

And that is incredibly dangerous for a democracy.

Because you can’t have a meaningful political debate when two people aren’t even starting from the same reality.

The press shouldn’t exist primarily to entertain us, outrage us, or tell us what to think.

Its most important job is to help us understand what actually happened.

Then we can argue about what to do about it.

The Answer Isn’t Better Presidents. It’s Better Systems.

We shouldn’t build a democracy that depends on getting good people into powerful positions.

We should build one that assumes the people in those positions will sometimes make terrible decisions.

That means:

• Real checks and balances that don’t automatically defer to the executive.
• Transparency requirements that don’t depend on presidential goodwill.
• Strong whistleblower protections for people who expose government misconduct.
• Independent oversight that can investigate the administration in power.
• A free and independent press willing to challenge those in power.
• A shared factual foundation from which citizens can actually debate.
• Limits on executive authority that survive changes in political party.
• Institutions strong enough to say no when the president is wrong.

None of this requires us to believe that humans are naturally good.

Quite the opposite.

It requires us to recognize that humans are flawed—and that concentrated power magnifies those flaws.

Can Democracy Survive an Imperfect President?

Presidents matter.

They can protect institutions or undermine them.

They can expand executive power or voluntarily constrain it.

They can tell the public uncomfortable truths or hide them.

Character matters.

But character cannot be our only defense against power.

Because eventually, we’ll elect someone who is dishonest.

Someone who is arrogant.

Someone who believes their own rhetoric.

Someone who thinks the rules shouldn’t apply to them.

That’s not a possibility.

It’s a certainty.

The question is whether the system can survive it.

That’s why I don’t think the fundamental question is:

“Is this person good enough to be president?”

It’s:

“What happens when the person in the presidency isn’t?”

If the answer is that our democracy depends on them being good, then the system is already broken.

We don’t need perfect leaders.

We need institutions strong enough to withstand imperfect ones.

We’re not destined to give power to terrible people.

We’re destined to give power to human beings.

And human beings are flawed.

The real measure of a democracy isn’t whether it can find a perfect person to lead it.

It’s whether it can survive an imperfect one.

So what do you think?

Is the problem the people we elect, or is the presidency itself too powerful?