In a letter written to Edward Mandell House, Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote that: "You and I both know that presidents are not elected, but selected by a small group of elites". The fact that this letter was written by the only President, "elected" four times by the people, is a remarkable testimony to the legitimacy for which it stands, that far from elections of Presidents being a democratic process and of the selecting of our National leader being by the popular vote of the population at large, that this individual, instead, is pre-selected and vetted, by vested interests that range from influential leaders of transnational corporations, to the military-industrial complex, along with well connected financial centers, and others of vast material influence, knowhow, and wisdom.
If one was to look at our last ten Presidents, since 1960, six of those Presidents went to either Harvard or Yale University. Out of the four Presidents that did not attend these higher Eastern Establishment institutions of learning, two became Governors (Carter and Reagan), one became the Senate Majority Leader (Johnson), and the other was a former Congressman as well as Senator (Nixon). Politics is a business that requires connections, money, and a certain intelligence, to which those that are behind the scenes are able to recognize at a fairly early age, much like a scout following ballplayers, those that have it as opposed to those that do not. Not too surprisingly, not every high pick, makes it to the big stage, but none that make it to big stage, are either unexpected or unheralded. The so-called truism that in America, that anyone can become President, is fundamentally false, but true in the sense that if you are backed by the elite these things can be made to happen.
Presidential slogans, are eerily similar from one campaign to another, from Carter: "a leader, for a change," to Clinton: "for people, for a change," to Obama: "change we can believe in," it's always the same old pig, just with a slightly different shade of lipstick. The elite make it a point to find bright and new people, fresh and bushy-tailed, that are both charismatic and articulate to sell the illusion to the American people that this time, they are serious, change is really going to come, but in actuality, any changes that do come, are fairly routine, predictable, and pretty much expected.
Those that hold the true power behind the Presidential throne will never voluntarily relinquish it, and that power is so intertwined, so interconnected, so byzantine, that even if the President had the boldness or the audacity to sever those ties, like the Lernaean Hydra, each head that would be lopped off, would be replaced by two more. Too many people, have far too little conception, of how big a country that the United States is; its Gross Domestic Product is estimated to be over $17 trillion dollars, its federal budget is about $3.78 trillion dollars, it has over four million federal employees, so to think that any person taking over the office of the Presidency, can get a handle on all of that, is delusional to say the least. Not to worry though, those that have selected the President, already have in place, the infrastructure and personnel to keep things running just as they have been running, to their benefit, and to the people's loss.