I wonder, when we look back at this crazy time in U.S. history, how we will describe it. As far as I know, this is the only time in our nation’s 240 year history when an administration tried to simply dismantle the checks and balances that make this a functioning democracy.
Nixon and FDR both tried to push the bounds of executive privilege. But at the end of the day they both did so within a fundamental understanding that ours is a three-part government, where the power of each part is necessary to balance the power of the other two.
That doesn’t seem to be what is happening here. At least right now this feels like an existential threat to the very structure of our system of government.
Let us hope it doesn’t turn out that way.