Comment by fastball
9 days ago
The checks and balances come after the Executive branch (or any of the three branches) oversteps. They can't come before. If all three other branches refuse to do anything about it, how is that not the system working as intended?
I don't know why you were down voted this is exactly correct. The system is not working as intended though; it was designed to be adversarial with each branch expected to want to keep its own power. The whole system falls apart when the other branches of government simply abdicate all their power.
Congress didn't _abdicate_ their power. Trump stole it. One of his first actions in office was to free the violent mob he sent after Congress last time they exercised power against him.
There's a much stronger argument that Trump's personality cult in the current GOP legislature is doing the same.
Threatening primaries and social media tirades against his legislative opponents chases any Republican willing to check him out of the party.
I mean, Christ, only 2 fiscal conservative Republicans had an issue with deficit spending greater than what the House had passed? And a debt limit increase?
The real problem with Congressional GOP independence is that enough of them don't decide something is too much at the same time. Ones and twos are easily picked off.
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We're way past that point. The Trump regime is currently prosecuting a Congressmember on fabricated charges in retaliation for opposing his immigration policy. We've seen the same dynamic on the tariffs; a substantial majority of Congress knows the tariffs are bad and does not support them, but the Trumpists would never permit it to come up for a vote.