This part of the system - executive power grabs - is supposed to be curtailed by the courts first and congress second in the US system.
this is just not true. For example, all under the Obama administration
* the closure of Guantanamo Bay and other black sites, the prohibition of torture as an interrogation method including updates to Army Field Manual and mandatory access of Red Cross to any POW, all represented a significant reduction in executive power in how we treat detainees.
* following the Snowden leaks there were several actions taken to curtail executive power in applying surveillance programs to both US citizens and non-US persons. these also rolled back several components of the PATRIOT act (passed under his predecessor we all know and love, Dubya)
* the signing statements reform meant the executive no longer had an effective line-item veto
* the AG under Obama implemented a new DoJ policy limiting the use of "state secret" privilege during litigations.
Of course perhaps he couldn’t. Congress needs to do that, and the courts, and neither seem interested in doing their job. Lower courts sometimes step up but the Supreme Court seems to be on the side of a dictatorial executive for some time now.
What does Congress even do these days? Seems like half crackpot debate club and half hospice care facility.
Obama rejected signing statements on the campaign trail, but his actions in office were more nuanced: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signing_statement#Obama_admini...
Eric Holder, notable AG under the Obama administration had a very mixed record, and did not support limitations of his power, or oversight of his actions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Holder#Tenure_as_Attorney...
remind me, who reopened it?
literally a century ago
>> mentions long term history impacting modern federal powers
>... not like that!
George Washington also increased the power of POTUS substantially, from 0 to 1, but I don't think he's relevant to this discussion either.
Trying to compare that to what happened in 2025 just feels dishonest. But yes, if I had to sacrifice fast response to crises to not allow a felon executive to destroy the country in the course of 12 months, I vote to limit all the powers.
Meanwhile we're in "weekly Watergate" mode right now. If there's nay overreaches from the Biden/Obama era, I'd happily close those loopholes to never have 2025 happen again.
However, I think fundamental problem still goes back to politics where Congress effectively does not do their job and thus fighting around executive and judicial leave us in worse place. Chevron and lack of it is mostly due to Congress just passing big stuff and then massive fights in courts when Congress could step in and be like "Nope, we are changing our mind, this is happening."
* Unitary executive theory. Congress can't create a federal reserve, except for when the supreme court likes it.
* Major questions doctrine. Congress can't create an EPA and give it open ended authority to regulate its way to clean air
* Qualified immunity. Congress can't stop ICE agents from murdering people
* Historical tradition as regard to the 2nd amendment. Congress can't ban everyone from walking around with military assault weapons.
I don't see how Congress can easily fix this.
We are failing to enforce the Constitution like we did in the past, and that is why America is falling apart.
On the other hand we have federal district court judges in podunk deciding that they have the unilateral ability to stop the president from exercising executive authority. It wouldn’t be so comical if they didn’t ultimately lose in most cases; our judges are the real Constitutional crisis right now.
I have not seen the Trump administration fail to obey a single court order; I just don’t see Trump as a crisis. His policies, you could make a good case. His rhetoric, yes. His official acts, not so much.
Unfortunately the state party operatives have started gerrymandering efforts to make this even more difficult.
Trump has absolutely failed to comply with several court orders. The ones I’m aware of relate to Kilmar Garcia’s removal to CECOT.
Who brought him back? Trump
See https://marylandmatters.org/2026/01/16/whats-next-for-maryla...
Had he had been shoved out of a C-130 and parachuted into South Sudan, we'd never even be hearing of the guy because that would have been allowed and been in compliance with the deportation order as well as the order blocking deportation to the one country they deported him to.
The judge in his case literally said the words “you haven’t complied” to the government attorneys in the case. Not sure how much more I can say.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/16/judge-scolds-trump-...
During the ordeal the government attorneys repeatedly claimed that they had no way to bring him back (although clearly that was a lie as he was returned…)
We have crossed the rubicon so far, the fact we even have to nitpick this is absurd.
He doesn’t have unlimited executive authority; it makes sense for a judge to be able to determine where that line is. It’s literally their job?
If we can avoid playing word games, the Trump administration has been accused of defying or frustrating court orders at an unprecedented rate, with analyses indicating it failed to comply with approximately one in three judicial rulings against its actions.
Notably in regard to deportations. The administration either acts in defiance of, or appeals until the case is elevated to a sympathetic judge or eventually complies. This is the trend and has been a successful set of tactics so far.
Even the government shutdown is an example of the failure of the US constitution. In most other countries in the world, the inability to pass a budget triggers an election.
Someone has edited it to show the more soporific subtitle...
My main complaint on the constitution, is perfectly explained, ironically by the guy trying to defend it
>>Feldman cited another reason to defend the Constitution: It “has the capacity to evolve and change.” In 1919, he explained, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. “basically invented modern free speech law,” establishing, in a series of opinions, the now- fundamental concept that free expression should be permitted unless it poses a clear danger to others. “He understood that the Constitution had to evolve,” Feldman said.
So there you have it. The reason the constitution is great because judges allow themselves to interpret it in ways it was never intended to be interpreted (sometimes based on loyalty owed to a political faction or) that aligns with the way they want it to be, not the way it is.
That's frankly bonkers. Now i'll get back to my country run by the guys 2/3 of the country voted against, lords, a king and a supreme court run by activist judges with a large portion of our law outsourced to the EU...
This is by design. The United States is exactly meant to be that: states that are united, but independent. The federal government was never intended to lord over everyone's lives. The expansion of the federal government, especially the powers of the executive branch, is the problem everyone seems to dislike (when their favored party isn't controlling this branch), and that's what needs to change
If you have a standing army, that creates a whole rats nest of problems.
And ps, I've talked to people who think we shouldn't have a standing army, and I frankly think they're insane.
So what is next. It seems the only option is to just use the courts to re-interpret the constitution, so that things like growing your own wheat is "interstate commerce" and so that stuff like a post-86 machinegun isn't an arm even within the context of being a member of (by federal statute) the unorganized militia.
Popular election of senators has been a disaster, it essentially turned to the Senate from a deliberative body into a pure partisan body like the House.
Popular election of senators in the senate / upper house hasn't been a disaster there.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Senate
Australia also has political weightings wrt various regions populations.
These flaws have been continually amended. We can vote for Senators, corporations can operate across state lines, you can’t discriminate, etc.
Reactionaries perceive being unable to persecute people or exert their will as being executive overreach. Most rational people don’t share that perspective, which is why undermining the competence of the government and flooding propaganda everywhere has been a key priority for reactionary forces for the last generation.
So here we are, impossibly rich people can now impose their will with impunity. We’re in a new, undemocratic era.
Remember we were freaking out about a year to six months ago? A lot has either been absorbed into legal precedent, quietly rolled back by Congress / courts. But it takes a long time.
Whatever comes out of these years that lasts will probably be because of SCOTUS more than Trump.
If we make it through this intact we need to reel this in. Unfortunately neither party seems to want to do so. They’d rather fight for that office in the hope of leveraging that power.
The issue is a cultural one, where people are looking out for themselves over their country. Where politicians seek to enrich themselves, people just want to get a hand out, and lobbyists write sections of laws.
Where democracy shines is that we can leverage democracy to amend the constitution. If they think that moving to a pure popular vote or something would be better, then get that amended into the constitution, we have a process for this, just get 2/3s of states to vote for it.
How is it different from the majority of electoral votes supporting killing everyone in, I don't know, let's pick a random state, Minnesota.
gnabgib•2h ago
tomhow•1h ago
gnabgib•1h ago
tomhow•1h ago
We don't put the year on an article posted in late December that was posted in January of the same year, that could be over 11.5 months old.
There's no perfect answer for these ones :)
gnabgib•1h ago