The problem is that the executive branch controls enforcement and the actual disbursement of money, so the other branches are really only a check to the extent that the executive branch fears dissension in the ranks or being overthrown if they ignore the law.

We say things like “no one is above the law” but that is very clearly untrue just based on the pardon power. The entire executive branch is above the law, and by design.

It’s tough, because you do need one of the branches to control enforcement, and whichever one it is, that’s really the branch that’s in charge. If you gave the legislative or the judicial branch the final say, there would be a different set of risks.

I read the parent as saying that a plurality of voters voted to circumvent the constitution and dismantle the republic, and therefore, a resulting despotism would just be democracy in action, so to speak.

Caesar was elected consul. Hitler was elected chancellor. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and Hamas in Gaza, came to power democratically on a platform of 'one election - which will be the last election'. Since the beginning of democracy, democracies have regularly voted themselves out of existence. It's a buggy feature. But democracy isn't the norm at all in history, and the likelihood here seems greater that America is regressing toward the mean than that it has something in its fiber capable of withstanding a hostìle takeover that no previous republic has had.

> I read the parent as saying that a plurality of voters voted to circumvent the constitution and dismantle the republic, and therefore, a resulting despotism would just be democracy in action, so to speak.

From an outsider's point of view, that was not the people voted for.

When repeatedly pressed on Project 2025, Trump distanced from it and reassured the American people those were just vicious rumors to denigrate him. The campaign was centered on how Biden was old and senile and responsible for every problem ranging from egg prices to Trump's retreat from Afghanistan. Trump's promises were that inflation would be eliminated, jobs would be created, and minority rights would cease to be a part of the US government agenda.

What the Trump administration is implementing bears no resemblance to his program, and looks like a complete dismantlement of the United States of America, including a complete rejection of it's core values.

It is, unfortunately, not illegal to lie endlessly to get elected. Anybody who did vote for him and expected different is a fucking idiot who wasn't paying attention and was too entitled/arrogant to listen to the people who were paying attention.

The people who oppose you disagree and see it exactly the opposite. That's why we vote--to see who wants what.

If I could be certain we can vote again in 2 and 4 years to undismantle the government, undo all the damage that these folks have done, I would be fine with that. For those of us who are educated and read history, we know these acts are stupid and will fail badly, leading to a recession, and pandemic, WWIII, perhaps all three at once. I will hold all of you personally responsible for your deluded vote if and when those things occur.

Please see a psychologist - you're seriously deluded.