Mrs. Obama and the Language of Presidential Leadership

Quote from fellow Council on Foreign Relations member (with Hillary and McCain), Mrs. Obama:

Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your
cynicism...Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

From The American Conservative:

You have to marvel at the use of so many phrases implying coercion, rather than persuasion: require, demand, never allow. I’m sorry, but in a still nominally free country the chief (executive) of a republic does not make demands of citizens, but enforces the laws enacted by their representatives. That is what the President does, or is supposed to do...It is not he who permits and allows, but, at least in theory, we who permit him to serve us.