alt Hacker NewsAnd I'd argue that it should.
He opened the door, and I find it very, very unlikely that either side will close it after this. Dems and Reps will both use this to take control in ways that would have been unthinkable prior to Trump's first election. The only way to restore any measure of that trust would be to pass laws that prevent this kind of abuse, and there's no way that politicians will give up power they've gained.
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Passed laws don't seem very constraining. Between simple disregard and disregard plus eventual compliance after lengthy court review, there's a lot of time spent under unlawful orders and regulations. There's no personal liability for (most?) of these unlawful actions and Trump doesn't seem to care about continuity of government or having a legacy of doing unlawful things.
Impeachment could be a check on his power, but impeachment is a kangaroo court with a political jury, so he would need to piss off a lot more Republican senators than he has.
A few presidental impeachments over unlawful acts ending in conviction would change future behavior. But it seems unlikely that we'll get there.
The ideal would be that a new president is elected who uses current powers to reverse/rebuild what Trump has torn down and have their "one big bill" that Congress seems to pull off per president be a reforms package that locks in additional checks and legislative powers against the Executive. The Unitary Executive theory is the most dangerous attack on our Constitution in a long time.
On the other hand, a right-wing Supreme Court may try to block any reforms that check the Executive. The Legislature's ultimate oversight power of the Exec is impeachment, and they have decided that no amount of corruption or crime or destruction should be checked as long as it "feels right".
They had the laws to stop him but since congress stopped legislating, it gave the supreme courts wide discretion to approve executive actions. Strong executive isn’t a flaw of the system, it’s the inevitable consequence of years of media illiteracy and vast sums of money in politics enabled by citizens united.