The Presidency.

Prez Lowbar is #44.

On 42 previous occasions, 'power' has passed from predecessor to successor, without violence, civil unrest or rebellion--Lincoln's 1860 election being the exception.

We're the envy of the political world, for our constancy, our peaceful--'bloodless' is the term often heard--transitions of power.

But it implies something important to recall: There is an essential constancy in the 'institution' of the Presidency. So far, since 1860, nobody has ever won the office who posed a serious challenge to the bedrock assumptions about the power of the owners and oligarchs. And no future President can be expected turn over the traces, either.

The Presidency is NOT a succession of unique individuals, it is a continuum of like-minded, similarly predisposed, educated, and experienced place-holders, installed to give the appearance of legitimacy to the system which upholds privilege, and weath at the expense of every other attribute of 'culture.'

The apparent ease with which power apparently transfers actually signifies how little of it actually changes hands.