What you fail to understand, is the POTUS is the only elected office elected by indirect voting.
So?
Do you not understand federalism?
A federation is a power-sharing arrangement between sovereign States and a central government.
A unitary State is a power-sharing arrangement between the people and a central government.
A unitary State is successful if and only if it has a homogeneous population.
The US was never homogeneous. Even before Europeans, who are not homogeneous, arrived, you had 567 different tribal groups, each with their own language, their own shared history, their own mythologies, their own gods, their own heroes and their own oral traditions.
Since a unitary State could never work, that leaves only a confederation, which was tried and failed, and a federation.
So, you have 50 sovereign countries, and a federal government, and under your framework, those 50 sovereign countries agreed to forfeit certain powers inherent to a sovereign State in order to speak as one voice, namely, the power to print money, the power to declare war, the power to engage in diplomacy and the power to enter into treaties and agreements.
Even so, the Senate was created specifically to represent the sovereign States, which is why the Senate and only the Senate can ratify treaties, and why consent of the Senate is required in addition to the consent of the House to declare war.
In what sense?
I mean, it's been quite a long time since I so much as skimmed the decision, but how is it just about statutory construction alone?
Well, some people are verbally and mentally limited. They think a statute must be worded in the exact way they
believe it should be worded in order to be effective.
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
Does the Constitution expressly forbid the government from creating a State religion? I mean, does it say, "
The government shall not create a State religion"?
No, but that's exactly the effect achieved by the statutory construction of the 1st Amendment.
You don't have to list or identify every possible vehicle by name if you want to ban them from a certain area, you can just say "motorized vehicles" and be done with it.
Likewise, you don't have to list every possible action a corporation could take in order to bar it from taking those actions.