From another perspective, Harris's "If Congress does not enact my agenda, I WILL enact it through imperial fiat executive order" campaign promise is not a reassuring thing when one of the biggest problems with the country is the President having too much power.
I don't exactly disagree with you,* but most of the actual problem there isn't the president having too much power per se, it's congress repeatedly abrogating its responsibilities and powers. The presidency being as strong as it has been for the last while has less to do with it gaining new powers and more with congress not exercising it's own. That sort of campaign promise is functionally toothless if congress gets off its collective arse.
Now, if you're expecting congress to continue to just sorta' sit and spin on some subjects (say the GOP keeps the senate, which isn't exactly an impossibility) and refuse to galvanize or fight back against presidential overreach (again), well...
* Though that said, on some subjects it might could be stood if congress isn't going to do its goddamn job. Climate change is absolutely a national and damnably time sensitive emergency, just as a single example. Slopes are slippery and knock-on effects est, but we're running out of time to keep fucking around.
Yeah, it's kind of a combination double edged sword and two-way street, a good deal of the talk is from Congress not doing it's job and not asserting it's own powers while cherry picking just who to fight back against, which sends an extremely confused message, and it's not solely one party or the other, both parties have blame in the issue which started long before Trump became President.
From another perspective, Harris's "If Congress does not enact my agenda, I WILL enact it through imperial fiat executive order" campaign promise is not a reassuring thing when one of the biggest problems with the country is the President having too much power.
I don't exactly disagree with you,* but most of the actual problem there isn't the president having too much power per se, it's congress repeatedly abrogating its responsibilities and powers. The presidency being as strong as it has been for the last while has less to do with it gaining new powers and more with congress not exercising it's own. That sort of campaign promise is functionally toothless if congress gets off its collective arse.
Now, if you're expecting congress to continue to just sorta' sit and spin on some subjects (say the GOP keeps the senate, which isn't exactly an impossibility) and refuse to galvanize or fight back against presidential overreach (again), well...
* Though that said, on some subjects it might could be stood if congress isn't going to do its goddamn job. Climate change is absolutely a national and damnably time sensitive emergency, just as a single example. Slopes are slippery and knock-on effects est, but we're running out of time to keep fucking around.
Ironically enough, a Sanders or Warren win would actually increase the odds of the Republicans holding the Senate, because they're senators from states with Republican governors. That means that those governors get to pick temporary replacements until snap elections, and throwing in another senatorial election into the mix is just one more risk of losing a race that they can't afford to lose. They'd have to resign right after winning the Presidency to trigger those elections before they take power, and that might prove impossible if, say, Trump contests the results.
Let me guess, you also read that 538 article on the Senate? heh. The key word there is temporarily, but they already have an uphil battle from the start to retake the Senate.
Well, let me rephrase- when Trump contests the results.
I have a feeling Florida will come up again, it's been a perennial electoral troublemaker (in the wrench-in-the-works sense, plus it's a swing state with close results) and there is a reasonable place to contest close results. However, given that he contested three million votes even though he won anyway and had no logical reason to contest those votes, I can easily see him trying to contest everything if he loses, or perhaps even if he won.
-quote pyramid trim- (plus I already quoted the quotes that lord shonus quoted)
"Doing nothing" is as much a Congressional right as doing something is. If anything, a "If Congress won't act, I will!" encourages a broken Congress, because it removes the incentives to compromise. The ones that support a measure won't compromise because they're going to "win" by fiat, while congresscritters that oppose the measure won't want to compromise because compromise makes you look weak to the voters and an EO is a lot easier to fight in the court.
But what if the incentive to compromise has been removed via other means before that? It's a chicken-egg scenario. Obama did his EO (though some Dems did say that doing that was too much) because he was frustrated at Congress and Congress was refusing to compromise. I know it's more complex than just not compromising, but theres a feedback effect here since both actions feed off of each other. Basically, what if saying 'if Congress won't act, I will!' is a sign of a broken Congress rather than the other way around? Though I suppose it'd be a sign that both are broken, which comes right back to the chicken-egg thing.
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