The nearest modern counterpart to our flag would be the divine Japanese emperor. Our storybook ideas of the presidency are based on Kennedy and the Roosevelts, which is why we call most modern presidents failures and scoff at most nineteenth-century presidents as absurd nonentities. While the state of mind I have described is well-known, I believe I have discovered its principal cause, and a likely cure. It may be as simple as the order in which political concepts are taught in schools. Since people learn about flags and presidents first, and Congress and civil liberties last, they naturally assume that the former are the essential foundations of the republic, and the latter are trivial ornaments.
Most first graders are eager to learn things, and trust their teachers.
They learn the pledge of allegiance and the name of the president, a figure somewhat like the kings in fairy tales. Later in elementary school, they learn about wars and party politics, and might hear congress mentioned. Meanwhile they are learning to value the opinions of their peers more than those of adults. By twelfth grade they believe that school is for children, and that anything they have to learn there is trivia, useless in the real world. At this unpromising moment, they have to take civics, and be told about how a bill becomes a law, and the contents of the constitution.