You've nailed it. I call this the Galadriel Principle and it can be applied to many things: weapons, executive procedures, etc.:

“And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!”

Oppression when Galadriel is on the throne may be better than that for Sauron; it's still oppression.

This is the crux of the issue. Executive power has been gradually expanded since at least the end of WWII, but things have accelerated since the early 00's. Think GWB's "signing statements" or Obama's "phone and pen." Trump I, Biden, and now Trump II have continued to push the limits, in part because of a desire for more power but also because Congress hasn't functioned as an institution in decades. Congress has passed a budget on time only 4 times since 1977, the last time being in 1997.

Presidents are elected based on promises made to various parts of the electorate, and if/when Congress won't act (often even when Congress is controlled by the president's party, nearly always when controlled by the opposition), no one generally makes a fuss if the president pushes through a popular-ish thing by executive authority. Republicans may be happy now but they won't be when a Democratic president ups the ante in a few years, just like Democrats were perfectly happy with Obama and Biden's overreaches but are furious at Trump's.

What you want is a parliament with proportional representation. Parliaments don't experience gridlock nearly as often.

While I agree with the essential point you're making, it's pretty clear this overreach was always part of this administration's game plan. At least until Pence delayed it through validating the 2020 elections.

If you are going to build a machine that can damage you, build it so that you aren't afraid of it being operated by your worst enemy.

> Eventually, and in fact about 50% of the time - the OTHER team is in power.. and may just push the overreach further.

Are you sure this is going to be a fact, in the future? How likely is it, that the next elections will still be (somewhat) fair?

That’s why the current administration is going to make sure the other side doesn’t get in power again.

This is an example of what I like to call the "both sides fallacy". There are several reasons why people try and make a both sides equivalence in US politics. For example:

- As a way of not having to know anything while appearing intellectual or somehow "above it all";

- Genuine and fundamental misunderstanding of the political forces in the US. Example: thinking there's such a thing as "socialism" or "the far left" in America;

- To knowingly deflect from the excesses of the conservative movement.

Here are the two political forces in American politics:

1. The fascist party who has had a 50+ year project to take over and subvert every aspect of government to destroy any aspect of democracy and create a neofuedal dystopia masquerading as a Christian theocracy; and

2. The controlled opposition party who loves nothing more than to be out of power and, when in power, to do nothing. It's why Democrats not in office are suddenly for progressive policies like medicare-for-all (as Kamala Harris was in 2019) but when on the cusp of taking power, they have a policy of no longer opposing the death penalty, capitulating to right-wing immigratino policy, arming a genocidal apartheid state and the only tax breaks proposed are for startups.

Look at how successful progressive voter initatives were in the last election compared to the performance of the Democratic Party. Florida overwhelmingly passed recreational marijuana and abortion access (~57% for, unfortunately you need 60%+ to pass in Florida) while Trump carried the state by 14. Minimum wage increases passed in deep red Missouri. In fact, abortion access has never failed to garner a mjaority of votes whenever it's allowed to be put in front of voters, no matter how deep red the state.

So why if progressive policies are so popular, are the Democrats so opposed to them as a platform? Really think about that. The Democratic Party doesn't exist to abuse power. It exists to destroy progressive momentum at every level of government above all else.

Yeah, it's the higher-amplitude wobbles of a complex system before it snaps and finds a new equilibrium.

> having our judicial branch become openly partisan

A lot of the decisions that have been flagged as "openly partisan" are just the Supreme Court saying exactly what you're saying: the executive branch and judicial branch don't have the authority to write laws and both branches should really stop writing laws and force Congress to do that.

We will see this year and in coming years whether this Supreme Court is partisan or just activist in tearing down executive authority. If they uphold this administration's opinions about executive power, then yes, they're blatantly partisan and have no integrity. If they stand in the way, then maybe they just finally had the numbers to rein in the executive branch like conservatives have been arguing for for generations.

I don't think we have enough information at this point to judge which is more likely (though I know most here will disagree with me on that point).

Having a permanent bureaucracy that ignores directives from the executive only really benefits democrats (look at the Washington DC presidential vote totals). So this executive order is not a both sides thing, or about executive overreach.

Something like the REINS Act, forcing regulations to be voted on by congress, would be something that hurts both sides & prevents executive overreach.