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Has failed. Has failed. Has...
You'll catch up. Whatever.
Edit:
Well, I dont think there are any shortages of checks, to the corrupt politicians.
And there certainly is balancing going on, the balance of billionaires bank accounts going up.
There you have it. The world famous checks and balances in america.
"Famed"? Lol
It can only work if the government wasn't partisan. Kinda impressive it took this long for the facade to fall off.
Supreme court, July 2024: "the president is the god king, and cannot be beholden to laws of mere mortals"
The Guardian, July 2025: "i don't know guys, checks and balances seem to be failing, don't you think?"
checks and balances were already fucked but whatever was there was finally shot dead and thrown in a ditch like a Noem family pet a year ago, dickheads, what the fuck are you talking about
No shit. It’s a fascist regime. Not exaggerating.
famed
Uhmm
Yeah, more like infamous. Basically all other Western democracies have looked at the US system and thought "yeah, we are going to do something else", except for the ones who were militarily pressed into adopting something akin to the US constitution.
*Failed, past tense
The AskHistorians podcast called it, in the aftermath of January 6 riots. They did not explicitly compare January 6 with the fall of Roman republic, but explained why the republic fell. The institutions got too corrupt in spite of checks and balances. The concept worked many times and was threatened before, until the breaking point had been reached. Brutus proclaimed he saved democracy after assassinating Caesar, but the crowd booed and heckled him because Caesar was popular and could actually get the job done, unlike corrupt politicians who typically make excuses not to do what the people want, because the elites would not want to ruffle their feathers of their patrons and their own interests.
People are not dumb. If politicians are doing what the people want, populism would never be a thing.
If politicians are doing what the people want, populism would never be a thing.
Populism works to get politicians elected because it is nothing more than politicians telling the people what the people want to hear.
Populism has nothing to do with actually doing what is in the best interests of the people, it's about making the people believe that their interests are going to be served.
Populism is getting a bad rap, but more often than not, it is triggered when people feel under pressure from worsening cost and standards of living. If we follow Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the base requirement of security of food and shelter has to be addressed first, before more conceptual self-realisation needs and other abstract ideas are thought of. If you are constantly worried about how to put food on the table, or how to pay the rent, you would not have sufficient time to think more abstract ideas like exploring the nebula, algebra, democracy, rule of law, checks and balances, etc.
Demagogues rile up populism to get into power, because there is genuine frustration among the people on not having their basic needs being met. Needless to say, populism is still democracy. Here in Europe (or in anywhere really), experts have already repeated numerous times that in order to prevent the further rise of far right, just build more houses. But of course politicians don't want that, because they themselves are landlords or have financial stakes in keeping property and rent prices high. Unfortunately, demagogues twist the genuine concerns and frustrations, and exploit the desperate situation people are in to gain power.
I spent the first 3/4 of my adult life listening to all politicians and deciding who I thought had better ideas for the issues that concerned me. The last 12 years have taught me that there are simply to many fucking republicans. That wouldn't be a problem but every single last one of them are worthless pieces of shit, more interested in cruelty than accomplishing anything decent.
The last 12 years have taught me that there are simply to many fucking republicans.
So many that they've been bleeding into the Democratic Party.
Felt like I was taking crazy pills when Kamala Harris spent the back half of October leaving her very popular VP candidate on the side of the road while doing a whirlwind tour with... Liz fucking Cheney. Between that, importing all of Keir Starmer's UK campaign staffers, and letting Michael Bloomberg manager her social media, it's a wonder she didn't do worse.
That wouldn’t be a problem but every single last one of them are worthless pieces of shit
Waking up every day and saying the Pledge of Allegiance on a pile of Ayn Rand novels will do that to you.
It broke the minute Trump exposed the fact that the Constitution says exactly nothing about what to do if anyone chooses to violate it, and the answer to the question of "What are you gonna do about it?" was essentially "Nothing."
It's really been a broken system since Marbury v. Madison (1803). The lesser known finding of that case was that SCOTUS can declare something to be illegal or a violation of the law but can't do shit beyond that. It took over 200 years for a President to fully understand SCOTUS has no real teeth. If you control the enforcers of the law, you ARE the law.
It's not that it took 200 years for a President to understand that, it's just that all Presidents since then and until trump weren't demented sociopath rapists who couldn't be arsed to think of the good of anyone else.
Using the law enforcement arm to specifically commit national crimes against citizens was more often than not considered what it was; treason.
Andrew Jackson already did that, but we acted like checks and balances still worked because Jackson defying the supreme court only resulted in the Trail of Tears.
Vigorous enforcement is necessary, but there's that whole "in group, out group, protect, bind" thing.
Checks-and-balances rely on:
Voter interest in civic participation
Careerist politicians and bureaucrats
If voters have no civic interest and prefer masturbatory prejudices to serious consideration of civic duty, and if 'careerist' politicians are given immense power and wealth for stepping aside (either by retirement or by simple non-action when in office) thus rendering self-castration of their office personally meaningless to their career path/personal fortunes, checks and balances don't mean shit.
All systems are reliant on a population's willingness to obey and enforce their rules. We in the US, apparently, have very little appetite for that anymore.
It's sad to realize that there never really were any "checks and balances". It was all based on an honor system, that relied entirely on no one trying to cross any boundaries.
As soon as Trump pushed even slightly against those so-called guardrails, they simply fell over.
It relied on voters actually caring about corruption and imposing a cost on corrupt behaviour. Unfortunately, Americans gonna American.
Caring about corruption impartially. They may care about it if it is the opposing team doing it, but are perfectly willing to ignore it if it is their own team. And with "they" I mean the Republicans.
All systems are honour systems at their core. If no one respects the rule of law then laws don’t matter.
Some systems, though, have actual mechanisms for enforcement attached to them. But apparently none of that was included in the legal framework that the entire country is built on.
"Hey! You can't do that! That very clearly violates Constitutional law."
"Oh, yeah? What are you going to do about it?"
(checks Constitution) "Oh...uhhh. I guess nothing?"
Mechanisms of enforcement still need enforcers who respect the rule of law. If the enforcers stop respecting the rule of law and prefer to play power politics then the won’t help you.
Enforcers are part of the honour system. If they aren’t honourable then the system breaks down.
I mean, who would think that independent branches of governments would WILLINGLY cede their power to other branches of government?
Our government is completely populated with cowards who don't even want the responsibility of the power of their positions. And our civics education is so poor that they know the only thing the masses pay attention to is the president. So everyone can collectively fuck off with their jobs and face no backlash.
Every country which went into dictatorship had checks and balances. US checks and balances were not unique.
*has failed.
**completely and totally
***repeatedly
The Guardian. When news breaks, you can guarantee they'll say something about it in five to fifteen years.
Someone writes the checks to tip the balance.
No shit Sherlock.
Say it with me, kids. "We're fucked!"
It's not a check and balance when the Executive has gone rogue and the Justice Department operates under the Executive.
There is no check. There is no balance.
Remove the Justice Department from the Executive branch and place it under the Judicial branch.
Similarly, there's no check and balance on the Supreme Court either.
Make it so that the House and Senate can over-ride a bad Supreme Court decision without having to pass an Amendment to do it.
It's rock-paper-scissors, guys. President can veto the House and Senate, the Judicial should hold the executive accountable, and the House and Senate should be able to over-ride the Supreme Court.
Someone just noticed this?
Oft mentioned is different from famed.
*failed
Failing? Tbh I feel like they’ve already completely failed.
We ain’t had “checks and balances” since Allen Dulles and Curtis Lemay had JFK and RFK killed. We’ve been feeding off the husk of America like spider crabs.