Executive branch is overpowered partially because the senate refuses to do its job. The original intent was for the senate to be slower moving and "cool" house legislation leading to slower moving governing structures. Over time, the executive branch was given additional power to "get stuff done", and we find ourselves in the situation we have today.

> the senate refuses to do its job

It's not really the Senate's fault. Opposition parties almost never vote with government parties in any democratic legislature, so you shouldn't expect them to in the US.

The real problem is the outdated system that is set up to (1) only allow two major parties to exist, so a European-style coalition government isn't possible, and (2) require both major parties to agree in order to pass any legislation.

Why outdated? Coronavirus stimulus pckage became law on 27th March in both the US and Germany (Europe’s model democracy). So it’s arguably a good thing, consensual things happen quickly, controversial things take a long time.

The laws may have passed on the same date, but they were not the same laws. In functioning democracies, laws passed in response to health and economic emergencies have something to do with health and economics. In USA, Congress just unanimously (well, except for Thomas Massie) gave rich people trillions of dollars.

Look at the COVID-19 statistics in the US compared to almost every other country in the world and tell me that we have a functional federal government.

On the other hand.. the overreach of the executive branch is a response to the political deadlock in the legislative branch.

If we end up in a situation where neither branch can respond quickly and effectively, that may be worse than what we have now.

I don't think most of it is "overreach" as more often than not Congress is explicitly ceding authority to the executive branch.

That isn't to say there isn't "overreach".

> the overreach of the executive branch is a response to the political deadlock in the legislative branch.

Disagree. The political deadlock of the legislative branch is by design. Only things that are truly broadly supported should pass through the legislature.

The overreach of the executive branch is a response to complete and utter inaction by the states to reign in the federal government.

and apparently, direct election of senators in 1913's 17th amendment was supposed to be the patch

now we are just out of solutions and too divided to get further patches in

If I understand correctly, this was always the policy, and they just took a few months longer than they should have to make an adjustment removing the rule for special pandemic circumstances.

they had already made an exception for F1 students to attend remote classes at the start of the pandemic. They were planning to end the exception for the fall semester, hence the outcry.

At least we haven't had a govt shutdown for a while, can't be long until the next one.

These only happen when Democrats have the Presidency and Republicans control a chamber.

Just like the last one in 2018-19, under Democrat President Trump.

That's a unique case of the executive shutting itself down.

Do the 1 under Bush and 3 under Reagan not count as well?

> How do we get past this?

Reform the entire election system:

- 4 year term length for House elections instead of 2 so that representatives can get stuff done instead of having to spend every second year in election campaigns

- reform campaign financing to a government funded model like in Germany (and entirely ban PACs) so that the influence of big money on government is eliminated

- if possible, get rid of the Presidential election by the population and have the President elected by Congress to prevent the situation of having a President without his own legislative majority

- get rid of FPTP and introduce proportional voting to reduce polarization and create more diversity in politics

- get rid of voter suppression and gerrymandering, make Sunday a voting day (or alternatively, a federal holiday), enforce universal mail-in voting across states

Some would say having Presidents without a legislative majority and a legislative majority without a President is a feature, not a bug.

Same with 2 year cycles for the House. If the newly elected government acts in a way that the public doesn't like, we can partially replace it pretty quickly.

Four year cycles for the house would mean we would have no way of changing course for four full years (other than impeachment, and we've seen how ineffective of a check that is if the president's party controls the Senate)

I would also have a single 6-year term for the President. No more re-election campaigns mid-presidency.

> Is this ADD-style, whoever yells the loudest, social and political system working well for anyone? How do we get past this?

As a guy with inattentive-subtype ADHD, I've long suspected there are fairly strong curb-cut benefits[1] to re-structuring organizations to work better for ADHDers. Might this be true of American political life? Initial suspicions:

1. Reduce the interface-complexity of government. Improve encapsulation. This may mean that government does _more_ in certain domains. I moved from the US to the UK in 2016 and the impact that a cross-cutting interface simplification like the NHS's "free at point of care" has just astounding. Income taxes over here are also much more clear, even if you are running a 1-person small business but especially if you are just an employee. I think is worth paying some higher monetary taxes if government can impose a lower tax on Working Memory.

For more on the idea of "Interface Complexity", see A Philosophy of Software Design by John Ousterhout.

2. Improve baseline health outcomes with some more wholistic (yet still evidence-based) interventions. A broad swath of Americans are stressed and often sleep-deprived. This is not conducive to thoughtful decision-making. Or epistemically-sound interpretation of information.

3. Improve access to mental health care. A whole bunch of Americans are descended from people who...

   A. were so excited by the prospect of extravagant wealth that they would abandon their community and kinship group to live and work among strangers.

   B. belonged to physically (sometimes sexually) abusive households for multiple generations until 1865. And then they got married to people who grew up in abusive households. (some of my own family history)

   C. escaped from abusive & traumatic situations and traveled across an ocean to a land of strangers.

   D. were so willing to break with social norms (or join social-norm-breaking subcultures) that they would abandon most of their possessions and travel across an ocean to a land of strangers.

   E. were so fearful about the prospect of a government, regional, or neighborhood conspiracy that they decided to move across an ocean -- before there was sufficient evidence for most people around them to try to flee!

Those who chose to come here weren't necessarily wrong. My wife's branch of their her broad family has a bias toward distrust and falls into group E. The rest were murdered by a massive German government conspiracy in the early 1940s. Some psychological variation is genetically heritable. Abuse gets passed down from parent to child (My maternal grandfather falls into group B and...yea...). Much of America's demographic history has acted as a giant filter some traumatized and scared people.

4. Reduce the social norms that promote catastrophizing. Currently, those who seek a return to specificity, clarity, or ask "is this reflected by the observable facts" in political discussions are often told they are pedantic, privileged, or tone-policing. We need a culturally-accepted way to return to a calm, measured way of thinking about policy -- not because policy is some intellectual game that doesn't matter. The stakes are genuinely life-or-death, because the stakes are life-or-death and that requires a calm mind with an eye seeking a clear understanding of a possibly-horrifying reality. It is good to be willing to say whatever will return to clarity and fact-focus with conviction and counter those who shame people for saying it.

5. Reduce the incentives to nuisance alarms in the news. Not sure how to do this.

6. Improve the number and quality of resources available for people of many professions to learn honest rhetoric and in particular to learn the how to clearly describe the "why" of their profession's policy recommendations. "Start with why" is the interpersonal version of well-regulated dopamine signals.

[1] https://medium.com/@mosaicofminds/the-curb-cut-effect-how-ma...

The election of the current president is part of a currently-elected congress, and an appointed judiciary, emerging from larger cultural and economic trends, that all play their role in giving rise to our current situation.

This moment was caused by more than the election of Trump; it will need to be resolved by more than the election of non-Trump.

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." - HL Mencken

Banning lobbying which is going to be a difficult battle for sure

“Lobbying” as the reflexive reason for all political ills is tiresome, especially considering aggressive lobbying by universities is likely what caused this reversal.

Exactly. It’s “lobbying” when the other side does it, but “standing up for what’s right” when my side does it.

That it's tiresome does not invalidate the argument. In fact, if the policy change was made because of university lobbying and not because of the public outcry, that's downright depressing. It means we still had no control over this outcome, we're just lucky that some people in power agreed with us here.

One way public outcry is expressed is through lobbying. Honestly, I think the issue here is that people mistakenly believe lobbying consists of shadowy groups slipping bribes under the table to elected officials when in reality it’s just people coming together to advocate for issues they care about.

So you're actually opting into your democracy being a plutocracy because it's tiresome?

Have you ever called an elected official to express support for a bill? Congratulations! You're now an official member of the Plutocratic Lobbyist Upper Class(TM). Branded monocles and top hats are available for purchase on our website.

I'm pretty sure the lawsuits had more to do with it than anything else.

Lawsuits are one facet of lobbying.

Literally no one was "lobbying" for this policy. This was a nativist reflex, designed to seize an opportunity to expel a few foreigners who would otherwise not be removable. It's very much in keeping with the anti-immigration stances the administration has taken in other areas.

Why do you think lobbying had anything to do with this?

I interpreted this as mostly driven by the nativism of Trump et al.

Taking a look at all the agency websites under the Executive branch gives a pretty incredible overview of how out-of-control it's gotten [1]. And the number of czars have been growing [2] under both Obama and Trump (though I guess this administration doesn't use that title)

[1] https://www.loc.gov/rr/news/fedgov.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._executive_branch_...

> And the number of czars have been growing [2] under both Obama and Trump (though I guess this administration doesn't use that title)

That list is "executive branch officials who have been described by the media as a czar of some kind", not anything official or affecting the duties of that person in any particular way.

Thank you for clarifying that