Comment by AnthonyMouse

In significant part it's because those checks were removed.

Laws are supposed to come from Congress, but by volume most rules the public is subject to now come from unelected administrative agencies in the executive branch. That's a clear violation of the separation of powers.

Members of the US Senate, which laws are supposed to have to pass through, which confirm federal judges, and which do the impeachment trials, were originally appointed by the state legislatures, i.e. represented the states, until they were changed to be directly elected. The public's direct representatives were intended to be the House -- and House districts were intended to be small, until the number of seats was capped. So now the states have no representation in the federal government, and neither House districts nor state-wide Senate seats have small enough constituencies for individuals to be meaningfully heard by their representatives.

Juries have the right to do jury nullification and it's one of the most powerful tools against bad laws. If you're on a jury and you think that it's the law which is wrong rather than the defendant's actions, you are not required to convict them. But defendants are essentially prohibited from telling juries that, so it almost never happens. Likewise, the list of procedural safeguards that were meant to protect people against abusive government prosecutions have been eroded to such an extent in the name of expedient mass incarceration that the freedom of any given person is down to the inclination of the government to charge them with something. Which in turn allows the government to govern through threats and demand things they have no right to demand, since they now have the ability to charge anyone with something else if they don't do whatever the government wants, regardless of whether the law requires them to do what they're being pressured to do, or even whether it's constitutionally permissible to make someone do that.

This is all very bad but it's also not new. And it's what enables a tyrant when one comes, which is why it has needed to be fixed for some time now. But the best time to bolster checks and balances is before you remove them and the second best time is very soon.