[drzaiusapelord]

This is a good point. We have this fetished ideal of the POTUS as this mastermind, but I imagine a great deal of things are purposely hidden from him or hidden via apathy/politicking/corruption and "lets not involve the president on this," kind of thing.

I'm also curious what would happen if we had a president who was strictly anti-intelligence and anti-military. I imagine that's a quick way towards impeachment or getting deposed. There are way too many powerful people and way too much money in intel/military to just reform it. Can you imagine moving to a military budget on par with Russia? Ever?

If anything, we're a military power first and a democracy last. The fact that we can casually lie about war justifications, end the lives of 130,000 civilians, get into almost 1T in debt for it, and have it considered uncontroversial by American citizens and politicians speaks a lot about our values and our system.