What is the role of the US federal government?
Very subjective, isn't it?
I wouldn't say so. If we go by the Constitution, which is what we should be going by, the federal government's powers are supposed to be pretty limited; in fact, I think it's safe to say that the Founders intended for individual states to be much more powerful than they are, and much more in charge of their own fate. This is why decisions such as Roe are so terrible from a constitutional perspective: The Supreme Court took a matter that should've been left to the individual states and decided it for the whole country. And there have been lots of instances like this over the last 200 years, giving more and more power to the feds and less and less to the states.
When you use words like "supposed to", "intended", & "should've", you're speaking to the very essence of subjectiveness.
And we're not going to go down the path of Roe on here.
I didn't bring up Roe to debate the content of the case, which I'm fully aware is against forum rules; I only brought it up as being a clear example of the federal government usurping constitutionally delegated state power. But there are plenty of other examples. Either way, the issue is the same: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." (Tenth Amendment) Does the Constitution give the federal government the power to decide issues of family and sexuality? No, it clearly does not. So those matters should be left to the states and the people.
And I disagree that those words I used are subjective. If a law says "The government shall not do X," but the government goes ahead and does X, then when I say the government isn't
supposed to do X, that's not being subjective; that's stating reality. Or if I invent something and say "This invention is intended to do X," that is once again stating objective reality.
RR -- does it say in the Constitution that the bully pulpit isn't to be used to inspire, guide and lead? That isn't about power to formally change things, but the power to use words to influence based on being the primary leader of the country.
I may be misunderstanding you, so correct me if I am, but you seem to be looking to the Constitution for a definition of what type of person or leader the president should be, and the Constitution doesn't say anything like that, because that's not what the Constitution is—other than the preamble, which is quite short, the Constitution is not an aspirational document, simply a framework for the federal government. I'm sure we all agree on the general type of person we want our presidents to be—honest, ethical, inspirational, courageous, etc.—but that has nothing to do with the Constitution, which, as far as the president is concerned, simply defines the president's powers and responsibilities and charges him/her to carry them out to the best of his/her ability.