Comment by mindslight

The President's power to command the Guard, when called into "actual service of the United States", by Congress. Being called up by a state governor would be in service of that state and would not qualify, right? Hence the constant threat of invoking the "Insurrection" Act.

> if a governor used the national guard against federal agents, that’s open civil war

When state police arrest a fedgov employee for breaking state law, is that a "civil war" ? I would call that enforcing the rule of law under a system of shared sovereignty.

> The reform needed is that congress takes back constitutional powers they’ve delegated to the President

If wishes were horses... Congress failing to exercise their powers for the past several decades is a big part of how we got into this situation. And sure, at any point technically they could retake them. Except it seems that the Republican congresscritters are content with the plausible deniability, while they would be more hesitant to stick their own necks out and positively affirm what's going on.

But the context of reform I am talking about is if the Democrats regain control of the Presidency and Congress. What can be done to make it so that after 4 years of relative sanity regarding separation of powers, people won't just get frustrated and start craving the simplistic answers of fascism again?

A big part of this is the many broken and unjust things about our society, but trying to fix a sizeable number of those in 4 or even 2 years is a tall task. Hence why I'm trying to focus on a kernel of the least possible required to stop the hemorrhaging, so that it might have a chance of getting done before the buntings change again.

> That’s only useful in a situation where the President has effectively captured Congress

Look at the current state of things - Congress doesn't appear to be fully captured, just immobilized.