NYT -What Really Saved the Republic From Trump?

[malaise]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/opinion/trump-constitution-norms.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

What really saved the Republic from Mr. Trump was a different set of limits on the executive: an informal and unofficial set of institutional norms upheld by federal prosecutors, military officers and state elections officials. You might call these values our “unwritten constitution.” Whatever you call them, they were the decisive factor.

It’s true that the courts at times provided a check on Mr. Trump’s tyrannical tendencies, as with their dismissal of his frivolous attacks on the election and their striking down of his effort to overturn the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program without appropriate process. But in other cases, such as his anti-Muslim travel ban, the courts have been too unwilling to look beyond form to ferret out unconstitutional motive. More generally, Mr. Trump has tended to move fast, while the courts are slow, and to operate by threat, which the courts cannot adjudicate.

The bigger and more important failure was Congress. Madison intended Congress to be the primary check on the president. Unfortunately, that design has a key flaw (as Madison himself realized). The flaw is vulnerability to party politics. It turns out that if a majority of members of at least one body of Congress exhibits a higher loyalty to its party than to Congress, Congress will not function as a reliable check on a president of that same party. This was what happened with Mr. Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate.

The problem is chronic, but over the last four years it became virulent. Confronted with a president who was heedless of rules, Senate Republicans, in ways large and small, let him do what he wanted. They allowed acting appointees to run the federal government. They allowed him to claim a right to attack Iran without congressional approval. The impeachment process was reduced to nothing but a party-line vote. The Senate became a rubber stamp for executive overreach.
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More at link

[CincyDem]

1. A rubber stamp for exec over reach. McConnell's legacy for sure. n/t

[malaise]

2. Yep

MoscowMitch is as bad as Killa Con

[CincyDem]

3. Through the lens of history, I think we will conclude he was worse.

Trump is a socially inept hater of all things not white male. But...he ineffective, even in the most powerful office in the world. Sure, he’s made things rough but they’re repairable.

In contrast, Mitch has screwed us quietly in a way that is likely generational and far more difficult to rectify.

Trumps the loud mouth oafish bully. Mitch is the coniving weasel chewing away at the foundations of democracy 24/7.

[malaise]

4. Very well stated

It will take a generation to clean up this madness

[Hermit-The-Prog]

7. Longer than a generation -- we have not yet cleaned up from Rotten Ronnie.

[malaise]

8. True

and that's two generations ago

[kimbutgar]

5. As Far as I'm concerned it won't be over until president elect Biden is sworn in on January 20th

I can’t rest until then!

[liberal_mama]

13. Me too!

I'm still worried about Trump pulling something. I will be so relieved when Biden is sworn in.

[abqtommy]

6. "Saved... from tRUMP"? That's a joke, right? All I see is the harm and suffering he's

caused and the years it will take to undo it.

[malaise]

9. All true but he won't be president for a second term

so there's that

[Generic Brad]

10. In a horrible way, I believe COVID has saved the Republic

Had the pandemic not taken over, Trump would probably have been re-elected.

[malaise]

11. You may be right

I predicted that it would take an epidemic or a pandemic to remove him.

[Hekate]

12. Dear NYT: It isn't over & we have not been "saved" yet.

I’m just sayin’

Now to finish reading the editorial.