ellected by an small amount even

The system wasn't designed to allow for tyranny at all, elected or otherwise. Which is probably the unitary executive "theory" always been a theory. Bc its logical result would be an unchecked, powerful executive, which wouldn't fit the original design of divided Govt power among coequal branches.

Certainly not one who’s a malicious moron

Nor around foolish, gullible people.

It is absolutely certain that the men who designed this system conceived of the presidency as a vastly smaller thing than it is now, that they thought the president far more subservient to the will of Congress

It’s in the name—he just presides!

RETVRN

But a powerful president is easier for the media to write about so we all just have to pretend suddenly that it’s a thing.

The First Congress created customs officers that were appointed by, but not directly controlled by or responsive to the President And federal district attorneys in the small federal criminal prosecution system weren’t answerable to the attorney general

U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president today; was it ever not thus?

IIRC the Judiciary Act of 1789 simply doesn’t say. It does say US Marshals are removable at the President‘s pleasure but never said anything about USAs and tbh I’m not sure the framers ever really decided

Huh!

Chief Justice Taft discusses 1789 the removal power debate in Myers as though the 1789 vote to make the Secretary of Foreign Affairs removable at-will to be a conclusive constitutional answer for all time, but Taft’s account makes it seem much more like the 1st Congress was hardly agreed at all

And they probably couldn't imagine a Congress totally abrogating its responsibility as a branch of government.

No, they thought legislatures had a tendency to be overbearing

Seems like a silly belief, given history tells of hundreds of examples of tyrants and what, maybe one overbearing legislature?

To be fair they were used to that legislature.

On the historical scale of oppression, it was still pretty light

Oh sure.

they were particularly upset with parliament so some of it makes a tiny amount of sense.

🤷‍♂️

Their legislature had executed their king in the not too distant past

Parliament being overbearing to the Stuarts is a feature. I wish it had been as struct with the Tudors, Plantagenets and Normans.

~~struct~~ strict

It’s also true that there is a long “history and tradition” of presidents acting without or on the margins of law, alas

Just bringing Carl Schmitt to my Thanksgiving table

And maybe the countries that regularly overhaul their constitution might have something there, so we don't end up with some group of partisan hacks playing magic 8ball with "Well what did they mean by that"

The Constitution wasn't designed for to protect democracy from an elected dictator because they couldn't 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦 of a scenario where that would possibly succeed. What would a rouge President do to garner support? Send out 𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘭 using the fastest means of communication of the day, by horse or boat? 🤷

rouge president: uses too much make-up and is color-blind in the wrong way.

As someone born with 10% vision I can truthfully say from experience that eyesight is 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘭𝘺 overrated and sometimes more trouble than it's worth. 😎

It certainly falling short checks-and-balances-wise!

Originally it has designs of a a placeholder for someone intended to be one who “presided” aka the president

the SC decided on 7/1/24 that we shldnt have a gov of laws, not men, when they granted the potus presumptive immunity for crimes committed in office the culmination of a 15yr project by the Roberts court to undermine liberal democracy Citizens United Shelby County Rucho Anderson Trump v US

25. Started with Bush v Gore. Roberts clerked for Rehnquist.

yeah gop domestic policy has served 2 primary objectives over the last 50yrs & both were incompatible w liberal democracy Reagan’s project was transferring wealth from the poorest Americans to the richest Bush 43’s project was transferring power from voters to corps & pols both have succeeded

Combined with Trump, the GOP has succeeded in transferring America’s future into foreign hands.

The ONLY way we end of salvaging this nation (provided we make it out of the Trump era w/o a civil war and are able to elect a Dem Congress and POTUS) is to specifically amend the constitution to undo all of these rulings and SEVERELY curtain executive authority. And I’m doubtful that happens

Keep cooking man

Turns out ... I mean, gosh. Who knew. Do you ever wonder if T has ever even read the Constitution? I can't imagine it -- even the Reader's Digest version ...

Canadian: yeah! That’s OUR thing!

I always wonder how our structure as a 50-state coalition will make dictatorship real tough. As opposed to countries without that unique structure. I’m sure that’s in a book I should read somewhere.

The Trifecta. Add Do Nothing congress adamant to yield decisions of their domain to executive over decades, and current SCOTUS, who hate the outcomes of melting pot classic liberalism more than kings.

The first guy set the bar and the limits.

This is a big swing, and I do *not* know US history well, but how much of the US's political dysfunction can be traced back to the fact that, for all the lofty ideas, the country was built on the assumption that the white majority agreed on their own "superiority" to other "races"?

If we remove that racist "consensus" from play, does the country tear itself to pieces?

Congress was supposed to maintain a sense of pride in their power but instead its abject fealty and encouraging continued contempt of their own powers

It WAS designed to stop one -- but not when every single institution with the power to act, simultaneously fails to do so.

The Constitution depends too much on honor and love of country. It did not account for the shamelessness we see today.

Turns out the constitution failed, folks. When we get another chance, it’s inspiration at best. We must think differently. No more scriptura sacra or ‘it’ll take decades to undo’, start thinking how we architect the next great experiment and how quickly we implement it.

For what it's worth, neither he nor his party won a particularly decisive victory. He didn't win 50% of the national popular vote and barely won enough seats in Congress. And their policies are bad. Things might be more chill if they actually represented the will of the people.

Drumpf and the unAmericans have to be stopped. The electorate has a unitary response ! He throws out the rule book so why not throw it back at him ?

When you have 5 or 6 SCOTUS judges approving of dictatorship, and both chambers of congress with majority of members pro-dictatorship, and an elected dictator president, then there is nothing left to hold up the constitutional order.

And Gov Pritzker could not have been clearer that our constitutional system isn't elected dictatorship We have a Supremacy Clause but it doesn't authorize absolute power And a vesting clause that doesn't legitimate arbitrary rule (and is clearer than D French described it, cf Mortenson articles)

I always tell people visiting DC that they should pay attention to which building is most prominent (Congress) and how the White House is not even at the Mall proper. It was never intended to be a strong office.

Considering the whole root of the title is to "Preside" not "Rule" you'd think that'd be an easy conclusion to reach.

Consequence of the Legislature not wanting to fucking do its job. I sometimes wonder how much of this can be blamed on making the Senate elected by the people rather than state legislatures or governments appointing them. (Course then we'd probably be in a different problem right now)

I honestly want to turn it into a museum. The office of president, as it exists, needs to be done away with imo.

Yup

completely agree.

I keep inviting people to read this and talk about ideas therein, but honestly it's starting to feel like people are allergic to reading something more than 300 characters long at a time. Or I'm an idiot and need to do something to allow discussion on substack. If so PLEASE TELL ME. I'm new to it.

You can have an elected ceremonial head of state like they do in Germany or Ireland, but actual executive power needs to be accountable more than once every four years. What’s the point of an elected legislature if it can just throw bills over the wall and take no responsibility for the results?

The Congress just needs to do their job and also we need to reform the Senate to be more democratic

We need to eliminate the senate entirely. It's an outdated institution that lends itself to quasi-aristocrats beholden to whomever bribes them best. A single legislative body with far better representative math would be superior at this point.

The legislature needs to be supreme, and should hire and fire individual managers to serve as department heads. Secretaries of departments should be salaried civil servants. The presidency is an abomination, transparently royalist bullshit that is an embarrassment to free people.

I'm torn between the ideas of the president as a figurehead (an upright person authorized to represent us in public events and world meetings) and an administrator (someone with great organizational and analytical skills who can coordinate responses to issues that come up). 1/2

George W. Bush's claim to be "the decider" was never why he was elected, he just decided to appoint himself. Trump's claim to all power over everything is psychotic and un-American and everyone who enables this delusion is complicit in our destruction. I like your word "abomination". 2/2

This but there is also a fun lil telegenic guy who knows how to throw a good party and shake hands with Emanuel Macron or whoever. Maybe have it be on one or two year terms and voted on more like American Idol or how everyone just agreed that we love Dolly Parton, and less like a political thing.

Hopefully I have help editing it soon, but feel free to skim through it. The actual government part is about halfway in at the moment I believe. It's kind of rambling for now, but is broken into sections at least.

Needs an editing pass or two, but nothing in there I disagree with in broad strokes.

I appreciate it! That's literally the first response anyone has given me lol I really want to workshop the ideas with more people. Our next attempt at all of this has to be open for all to at least examine before we finalize it.

My editorial advice is to imagine presenting it as a speech and let that guide your organization of the document. It'll help with a through line, mid document summation, etc.

I can see that. It's really a proposal at this point, a finished blueprint will require more details and input from many more people. I've been working on it separately from the posted one for a bit, but haven't done s full pass edit. Thanks!

That's actually a core part of my concept. The executive branch has no single leader, the legislature is unicameral "ABOLISH THE SENATE" and many other changes.

There's a large mix of meritocrac administrators with representative legislation. The Judicial branch is designed to be as apolitical as possible, and all federal law enforcement and.the DOJ is moved there as well. People really don't understand how much Fed LE there is. Talk about bloat. Yeesh.

It certainly is not a political under the fascist rule of Donald Trump

Yep. Many things need to change, and we need to be discussing them and really working together to figure out how to make them real.

Why should the judiciary *also* enforce the law

Because, right now, we're seeing that a federal judge's power is nonexistent if the DOJ doesn't listen to them.

Almost as if Westminster parliamentary systems are more successful than the American experiment...

Westminster systems are explicitly designed to neuter the power of their own monarch. The US system was designed to neuter the power of another country's monarch.

Honestly the American system was built by quasi-aristocrats, who couldn't really conceive of the system without something similar. It was also built for a VASTLY smaller nation, both in population, and geography.

Yes. The US was an early experiment in popular democracy, based on an elected monarch. There have been massive advancements since that time, most of which have improved upon the original model. Almost no Western democracy empowers the executive branch as much, even excluding current abuses.

I wonder what Washington said about this? PS: I think it would have been better had Adams and Jackson been hanged.

It was supposed to prevent it! But that assumes everyone plays by the rules and they’ve thrown them out and gone to unadulterated Calvinball

We can always count on the courts to intervene if the Unitary Executive does something beyond the pale. Like forgiving student debt.