Trump shows how powerful the presidency is and how many loopholes the constitution has.

[drray23]

Our founding fathers likely never anticipated that we could have such an inept treasonous individual for president who would utilize every ounce of power the office of the president possesses to enrich himself and sell the country to foreign powers.

It did not help that on matters like trade, the president has wide latitude to impose tariffs, negotiate or break agreements and so on. It used to be the purview of Congress. Years ago they ceded that to the presidency in order to make it easier to negotiate treaties. It's all well and good until you get a con man in charge.


The remedy , impeachment and removal is wholly inadequate when that president has the help of a complicit congress which until recently was controlled by his party.

[Tracyjo]

1. We're in trouble

Not sure what to do next.

[Perseus]

14. Start educating people, make sure they understand that elections have consequences

I know that I have become a pain in the butt to some of my friends because I am constantly reminding them of the urgency and the necessity to do their due diligence before voting, to make sure that they are in fact voting for the best person and not for the one they can have a beer with, or the one who because of his ignorance in government may be a better president.

Some of the reasons people gave to vote for the orange buffoon...like he is not part of the government, and he is a businessman are so ridiculous, so ignorant, and those are the things that I tell people constantly, if they had done a little research they would have realized the buffoon is a con man, a good for nothing.

Anyway, that is what we need to do, we need to educate people the best we can.

[msongs]

2. dems need to pass legislation to take back those powers trump usurps nt

[triron]

3. Good luck with that!

[Horse with no Name]

4. I have no doubt his Russian handlers have given him

The instructions.

[unblock]

5. i very much disagree that our founders never anticipated a tyrant as president

the rebelled against a tyrant and carefully designed the constitution to try to protect the nation against a tyrant.
the separation of powers, the checks and balances, varying terms of office, etc. it was very much designed to minimize the damage of a tyrant and to make it possible to get rid of one.

what they didn't fully appreciate was the possibility that enough people would put allegiance to party above their own powers or institutional powers of congress, such that republicans in the senate can refuse to remove someone as obviously inappropriate as donnie.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

6. failed to anticipate a nationwide suicidal cult

We have a suicidal cult that has been fed by a billionaire class which prefers very weak or no government at all.

[NNadir]

8. They made no allowance for Parties whatsoever.

No one anticipated a political party at all.

[unblock]

9. yes, but it's beyond that. we did fine with mere parties.

but previously, congresspeople still had to make deals with others and work with others.

these days, politicians feel they can (and even should!) operate in complete contempt of people outside their party.
our media largely rewards this and many voters reward this as well.

[drray23]

13. There used to be a process by which Congress people

Could add line items in Bills (the so called "pork" ).
As bad as it could be, I am starting to wonder if this was not done some sort of relief valve that would allow Congress to cut deals and therefore arrive at some agreement. Right now since it's harder for members of Congress to "bring the pork" home they instead resort on pandering to their most extreme voters to avoid being primaried.

[NNadir]

15. Well, it all worked fine, except for those events around 1861.

Up until recently, the worst President in US history was James Buchanan, a political hack. He did a lot to bring on those events between 1861 and 1865, in which 600,000 people died.

Of course, it can be said that Buchanan inherited the slavery crisis, and didn't manufacture a crisis for his own edification.

[socalsun]

7. Trump is in the process

of wittingly or unwittingly exposing the weaknesses of our political institutions. He is showing us that our system is highly dependent on politicians honoring their oath of office and having respect for the rule of law. When an officeholder has neither honor nor respect, the system is slow to react, and he intends to take total advantage of that.

[FiveGoodMen]

10. And yet, when we have the White House, we keep hearing that the President has very little power

I guess YOHPIYAR (You Only Have Power If You Are Republican)

[drray23]

12. Or if you are immoral enough to take it

No matter the consequences which is what Trump is doing with a complicit congress. A Democrat would never do a fraction of the stuff Trump comes up with because they have a moral compass, a respect for the constitution and care for the country.

[Mr. Ected]

11. I don't know what's more dangerous

A rogue President doing the bidding of a hostile foreign government....or

A media outlet that spews disinformation to echo the rogue President and dissuade its audience from any critical analysis of its content.

[0rganism]

16. how strange to try to imagine this from the framers' point of view

how could they imagine the consequences of global communication at the speed of light? of planet-killing arsenals? the turbulence of postmodern culture? the rise of global economy and global threats caused by our own carelessness? of course they knew con men and traitors in their time, but to imagine the enormous power one might have when gifted with the infrastructural backing of what their little frontier country turned into in a few hundred years... trying to imagine out to the seventh generation, when truly i cannot even fathom what even the next might bring.

even so, with all their flaws and retrograde compromises, they foresaw the need for a balance in which a truly awful executive could be removed, but they could not have understood how quickly that might need to happen to prevent large-scale catastrophes.

we are trying to solve 21st century problems with 18th century methods, it may prove too slow and inefficient.

[triron]

21. You have hit on some wisdom here.

Maybe we need a fresh start.

[loyalsister]

22. Indeed

The consideration of a tyrant leading a few thousand people in a very young collection of settlements does not adequately address what we are dealing with now.

It's a very scary time as we are watching ourselves and our government trying to figure it out in real time.

[cstanleytech]

17. No, what they did not plan for was a Repugnant Congress willing to assist him in doing it.

I am sure Mitch, Nunes, Ryan and the rest are patting themselves on the back for a job well done though.

[allgood33]

20. THAT!!

[Joe941]

18. Executive power has been incteasing...

For a long time. But only when you get someone like tRump do the problems show. Honestly executive power should be brought back under control, but I don't see that ever happening because who ever is in power wont move to reduce there own power.

[allgood33]

19. NO!!! What the founding fathers never anticipated was a House and a Senate that would

relinquish their powers to an illiterate, self-serving, treasonous, pervert.

[customerserviceguy]

23. It is an awesomely powerful office

Clearly, the Framers did not anticipate the likes of Donald J. Trump.

And he's only just begun to manipulate the levers of power granted to a chief executive by the Constitution. We have yet to see the first Trump veto, and it will be something that rocks our nation to the core.

We have two choices, either let him ruin the United States for the next two years, or make some sort of compromise that will get us down the road for several more months.