====== President of the United States ======
Also abbreviated to POTUS, because ALA.((**A**mericans **L**ove **A**cronyms)) The elected executive leader of the [[USA|United States of America]], also sometimes called the "Leader of the Free World".((NASA has been searching for this mysterious "Free World" since 1961, in the hope of enforcing the President's claim to lead it before the price goes up)) The President is elected for four-year terms, in modern times limited to two, thanks to the 22nd Amendment (brief summary of text: //"Fucking hell, FDR was president for **how long?!!**//"). 

Since the 1860s, the President has always been from either of the two dominant American political parties, the Republicans and Democrats (formerly the Democratic-Republicans; adjective-based party names are a bit thin on the ground in America). Up until the 1960s, the Democrats were the conservative, reactionary, southern-focused party and the Republicans were the liberal, progressive, northern-focused party. They then decided to trade places for complex reasons including an obscure subclause to the U.S. constitution which mentioned musical chairs, the need for roof repairs to the Capitol, and the Protestant Reformation. Both are economically right-wing compared to the standards in most other countries, this being because allowing socialism into the American political system would wreak havoc with the colour scheme.

Strictly speaking, the president is not directly elected, but voters instead vote for //electors// who cast their votes in an //electoral college//. Sounds similar? [[alternate history:Holy Roman Empire|You bet.]] In fact, [[wikipedia|some have argued]] that this decision was deliberatly taken because lots of Americans come from German stock and yearned for an unnecessarily complex political system as in the old Empire [[wikipedia|(citation needed)]].  Occasionally an elector may be 'faithless' and vote for someone other than the candidate they were asked to vote for, but this has never altered the result of an election. By tradition, the alternative candidate is either crazy or Ronald Reagan.

Thus far there have been 44 presidents, the first being [[George Washington]]. The two most recent are [[George W Bush]] and [[Barack Obama]]. Others include:

  * [[John F. Kennedy]]
  * [[James Earl Carter]]
  * [[Ronald Reagan]]

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==== See Also ====

**[[American Politics]]**

**[[offtopic:2008 US presidential election]]**

**[[offtopic:2012 US presidential election]]**

**[[pods:United States Presidents|United States Presidents Points of Divergence]]**

**[[alternate history:President Anybody]]** - An [[alternate history:alternate history cliches|alternate history cliché]].

**[[alternate history:President Cliche]]** - An [[alternate history:alternate history cliches|alternate history cliché]].

==== Navigation ====

**[[USA|United States of America]]**