ABSTRACT
The presidency has in recent decades acquired symbolic power far beyond that of Congress. Television fixes on the president and makes him the main symbolic representative of government. Thus, television places in the president's hands enormous metaphysical powers not provided for in the Constitution—powers over reality, powers over appearances, powers over perception, powers over the imaginative matrix within which issues are presented. Human beings will make the president into a symbol of the nation, will be preoccupied with his personality, will treat him as a sacred figure. Chief of state and president would, indeed, compete in the public mind as symbols of prestige, as establishes of trends, and as directors of opinion. If a president is restrained by symbolic pluralism, the danger of dictatorship is largely overcome. For a president not supported by the citizenry can scarcely intimidate the Congress, the courts, and other centers of opposition.
