During Presidential elections we hear a lot about the plans the candidates have for what they will do if elected. We want the candidates to have plans and we need to hear what they are, but we also tend to obsess over them a bit too much because for the most part they don’t have direct control over their implementation.
A President needs to get Congress to pass legislation to implement his or her plans. Consequently we gauge their potential success of whether the President’s party has a majority in the House and Senate. Reality is that this rarely happens, and even so there may be members of the President’s own party who don’t agree, therefore what we need to evaluate is how persuasive a candidate is and whether they can lead compromise.
Unfortunately, we really tend to think of our candidates as dictators and that has manifested in Donald Trump. The founders did not intend Presidents to have such power, the representative republic they established vested Congress with job of governing by representing the citizens (House) and the states (Senate). In fact, through the electoral college, the Congress was intended to ultimately decide who is President.