For decades, the left was effectively in complete control of the US government. Of course, there were short moments when the right managed to take temporary control, but even there, the left still maintained sufficient power to severely retard the right’s efforts. They spent that all of that time constantly increasing the power of the executive branch while abdicating legislative responsibility. They did this because legislation requires time, effort, and compromise, while a captive executive, given the power to effectively make law simply by announcing it, is faster, easier, and much more easily influenced by special interests.
For thirty years, a few of us have been screaming that they were building the machinery of dictatorship. We pointed out that at some point, “the other guys” were going to be in charge, and did they really want to give that power to them? Well, now the right, as predicted, is in control, and has instituted an actual dictatorship, violating both the law and the Constitution both blatantly and daily.
Am I saying “I told you so”? Yes, yes I am. I’m also repeating the warning to the right that I gave to the left. You are in charge now, and you are attempting to arrange for your stranglehold on power to last for an extended period. You may succeed or you may not, but either way, eventually the other side will come to power once again, and will inherit an executive expected to exercise full dictatorial power.
Is that your ideal result? Are you ready for the “woke” (what does that actually mean to you anyway? ‘Cause from your actions, it seems like it means “anything that disagrees with you”) to be shoved down your throats as much farther than ever before as you are currently shoving your own antidemocratic, authoritarian policies down everyone else’s throats?
We’ve been on a death march toward the complete disintegration of every principle that ostensibly animates our democratic republic for decades. Both sides have helped keep us on the path. Now, we’ve arrived, and the grave-pit is already dug.
Both parties (all parties, but here in the US there are only two that ever “take power”) fail to remember the rule for splitting dessert: one person cuts, the other one picks which half to take.
The difference is, neither the Rs nor the Ds seem to care about four years from now. Let the executive have unilateral power when it’s “our” guy? Awesome. Unilateral power for “their” guy? OMG we don’t have a country any more.
This gets combined with the effed up thing that happens in every conflict: no one exercises power proportionally; they always escalate and justify the escalation with the prior escalation by the other side. This has been blatantly true with every president from GWB to Obama to Trump to Biden to Trump. Probably true before then going back to Teddy Roosevelt but I think it’s been different in this millennium.
Regardless of when this “started” the real problem is that there’s no pushback from Congress when the Legislative and the Executive branches are held by the same party. So Congress has been abdicating for a long time, and voters don’t pay enough attention to their representatives to really hold them accountable for not holding the executive branch accountable.
So *sigh* yeah I’m with you here and echoing your thoughts is just making me angry and depressed.
Here’s my plea: we have to take nearly all power away from the Presidency. Not this President, but the Presidency itself. Right now Trump is in the White House so saying this out loud means so-called conservatives will be outraged by this suggestion. But I can’t emphasize this enough: anyone who believes the Constitution should be interpreted the way the words were intended to be read when they were written — that used to be a defining characteristic of conservativism — should be firm in their conviction that the job of the President is to faithfully execute the laws enacted by Congress.
Let me say that more plainly: the Executive Branch was never supposed to be supreme over the other branches. It was never even supposed to be a “co-equal” branch. The President’s job is to do what Congress tells her or him to do. Nothing else (except for a few limited and enumerated exceptions.)
Of course as with other things neutering the Presidency wouldn’t fix everything. But boy, would it help.