"[7] Nelson blamed The Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society for providing "a constitutional cover for this theory, producing thousands of pages in the 1990s claiming – often erroneously and misleadingly – that the framers themselves had intended this model for the office of the presidency.

"[7] Nelson wrote that uncheckable presidential power has been expanded by using executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements—that already allow presidents to enact a good deal of foreign and domestic policy without aid, interference or consent from Congress.

[7] She wrote the unitary executive has been justified by an "expansive reading of Article II of the Constitution" complaining about congressional inactivity or national security.

"[7] Nelson noted that the American Bar Association denounced signing statements as presenting "grave harm to the separation of powers doctrine, and the system of checks and balances, that have sustained our democracy for more than two centuries.

Nelson said in a radio interview in January 2009:The problem with presidentialism is that it trains citizens to look for a strong leader to run democracy for us instead of remembering that that's our job.

[4] She joins a group of academics including Larry Sabato and Robert A. Dahl and Richard Labunski and Sanford Levinson as well as writers such as Naomi Wolf calling for substantive reform of the current Constitution.

He wrote that Nelson suggested that democracy flourished briefly after the American Revolution but that "enhanced democratic embodiment" declined after ratification of the Constitution, and argued that "behavioral habits that dispose the citizenry so that they take an active role in the ongoing affairs of government" were more extensive during the Colonial epoch than afterwards.

[6] William Greider of The Nation wrote "Dana Nelson argues provocatively and persuasively‚ that the mythological status accorded the presidency is drowning our democracy.

"[2][10] David Bollier wrote "If democratic practice is going to flourish in the United States, the American people are going to have to roll up their sleeves and take on the hard work of self-governance.

"[11] She wrote that Nelson's book "makes the case that we've had 200+ years of propagandized leadership, which has systematically stripped away the checks and balances put in place by our nation's forefathers.

"[11] Critic Alexander Cockburn described Nelson's work as a "useful new book" and agreed that the "founders produced a Constitution that gives the president only a thin framework of explicit powers that belong solely to his office.