Thirteen Presidents

I propose that most of this country's fundamental problems could be solved with an amendment to elect thirteen presidents.

Why do we need thirteen presidents?

Well, back when our country was founded there were approximately 2.5 million people living in the thirteen colonies. Today, there are approximately 304 million people living across fifty states. That's roughly 121 times the number of people for the same position to manage.

As our nation has grown, we've adopted impromptu solutions. We've given the president his own cabinet and allowed him to appoint groups of advisors to assist the ever growing problem of population management. Additional team members sounds like a great idea.

The problem is manifest, however, when you notice that presidents have stopped appointing the most qualified personnel to these positions, in favor of putting their old friends and loyalists into positions of power.

Even moreso, these positions have grown in power as the complexities have grown which the president has to face. No longer does the president have time to deal with every matter that comes before him. He must rely on his advisors to tell him what to do. The potential for corruption is inevitable.

By establishing an amendment to elect thirteen presidents, we bring our constitution up to date with modern population requirements. We should allow each president to sit for multiple terms (more than two, established as a de-facto limit by George Washington b/c he didn't want to set up a monarch) and hold elections every year.

Holding elections yearly would take the power away from the media. No longer can they parade around two candidates (out of 304 million?.. really?.. just two) as if it was the super bowl and world cup rolled into one. No longer can they swing the population to their own pick for president, because the population just won't be as interested in the election of any one particular president.

Thirteen presidents provides a check on the president's power. Currently, the president is a mini-dictator, handing out Executive orders left and right and starting sixty day wars wherever the whim takes him. With thirteen presidents, decisions must go to a panel of equally powerful men to be enacted. If one corrupt official gets into office, the others have the power to shut him down. In a country where popular appeal is the primary deciding factor in presidential races, this check stops us from electing the next Hitler... even if he does look like George Clooney :-)

Thirteen presidents eliminates the one-horse cowboy mentality that has gotten us into trouble in recent years. It ensures that we will always have at least a few qualified presidents, able to handle anything from economic crisis to international war. It allows each president to focus on the promises they made during their campaign, instead of having them swept away by all the other responsibilities a president must handle.


Thirteen presidents is a Hegelian anti-thesis to our current solo president. If this idea gains traction, we'll inevitably wind up with six to seven presidents due to the synthesis of the current system and the proposed one. Inevitably, even this would be an improvement to the current system.