1. A short thread on the executive actions the president signed while I was offline today. I think they’re a very big deal, for reasons that extend beyond their specifics—they expose a weakness in our constitutional system.
2. in the runup to the Revolution, many blamed Parliament for its tyranny, but also the king for his inaction. That diagnosis spurred the convention to give its new executive powers no King of England had even dreamed of exercising in more than a hundred years.
3. When we talk about “checks and balances,” this is what we mean. But presidential systems have a flaw, too—they account for the danger of legislative overreach, but not for the threat of legislative gridlock. And when they collapse, they tend to follow a common pattern.
3. Here’s the pattern: The legislature fails to act in the face of a crisis. The executive steps into the breach. Either they deadlock into dysfunction, or the executive veers toward authoritarianism.
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
5. It’s not just Trump. I wrote about this, at length, in 2015, when Barack Obama was president. The danger of this sort of impasse has been growing for decades, along with congressional partisanship and executive authority.
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
6. So today’s developments are particularly worrying. Because if Congress continues to fail to act, and presidents continue to extend their authority in response, we’re all in trouble.
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
