ABSTRACT
American politics today is almost completely focused on the presidency. Every day during the corona virus crisis millions of Americans watched President Trump tell them how many would live and how many would die. Because of the expansion of presidential power, so much significance and even fear are now attached to the results of America’s presidential elections that competing political elites are barely prepared to accept an adverse outcome. Those out of power are no longer willing to wait until the next election to depose the other side’s president. American politics is polarized because it has become the unrelenting struggle of an imperial state, rather than the more civilized politics of a democracy.
