It has been said many times, but saying it appears to have no consequences: our system of checks and balances is failing. The US supreme court allowing the president effectively to abolish the Department of Education only reinforces this sense; Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent, explicitly wrote that “the threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave” – but she did not explain how to counter the threat.
The picture is complicated by the fact that what critics call “the stranglehold the checks and balances narrative on the American political imagination” has prevented positive democratic change. Hence it is crucial to understand where the separation of powers itself needs to be kept in check and where it can play a democracy-reinforcing role. Most important, we need counterstrategies against the Trumpists’ usurpation of what should remain separate powers.
