This Needs Fixin'

Well, lots of really stupid things. And even more stupid things have happened after it got there.

There is one stupid thing that matters more than all the rest.

Trump seems to genuinely think that he’s a king.

To be fair, a whole lot of these idiots seem to think that about the Presidency, and many of them have been pushing that idea since Bush the Second was President, so he’s not really out on his lonesome in this.

His defense in the Senate has almost exclusively been that whatever the President wants to do is fine, and Congress (and the courts) have no power over him. Since he’s, ya know, the king.

That attitude is obviously incorrect.

I mean, really obviously incorrect; as in “we have written documents where the dudes who wrote the Constitution said the President is not a king” levels of obviously incorrect.

Well, it’s historically incorrect anyway. We’re about to find out whether it’s still legally incorrect.

And hoo boy are we gonna be in trouble if turns out they’re right.

This can’t go on.

We can’t let the Presidency keep expanding this way. Even if it turns out the Senate isn’t willing to go along with it this time, they’ve already let it get bad enough that the President and many of his staff seem to think it’s already a done deal.

That should never have happened; the Presidency should never have gotten so powerful.

Presidents need a constant reminder.

They need something grating up against their power constantly, so it’s always present in their thoughts that they are not, in fact, kings.

That there are limits by which they must abide,

By which they can, and will, be forced to abide.

We could make them wear a silly hat that says “Not A King” on it?

Yes, we could do that. It’d be funny for a while, sure.

But it’d be more useful to split the Executive branch.

I described this suggestion in one of the first posts on this blog (Failed Constitution Check: Executive Oversight) and discussed some other ways it would’ve helped in the buildup to the current impeachment recently (Impeachment: How’s That Goin’ For Ya?) : separate off all of the oversight offices and powers of the Executive branch, and make the second-place finisher in the presidential election the head of that part.

In a split Executive, the President would always know that they were not all-powerful; that there was an equally powerful office watching everything they did.

One with all the powers of the Executive, including arrest, indictment and imprisonment.

One that had direct access to all the data systems of the Executive branch.

One against whom there were no claims of “privilege” at all.

And that the head of that office was a member of a different Party.

That would be kinda stressful.

Well, good Presidents would have nothing to hide. Right?

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