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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   25228 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026

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I love my country, but I’m a strong critic of our constitutional structure.

I believe the assumption was that Congress would be jealous of its own power, in the way that the House of Commons was jealous of its own power in comparison to the King and the Lords, but the issue is that the elected Presidency created a countervailing center of political legitimacy, and blame, that’s independent of and largely unaccountable to Congress. The framers thought impeachment would be a sufficient counterweight, but failed to take account of the fact that removing a President would be a traumatic and partisan exercise, more akin to revolution against a king than the removal of a minister.

After centuries of experience with elected assemblies, it’s now clearer that the means of survival for democratic parties is ensuring that blame for anything that goes wrong rests on the opposition, not in delivering results. As a result, all blame and accountability for anything that happens politically rests on the President, who is quite impotent to accomplish reform, while little to no power actually rests in individual Congressmen.

So people who want to wield power don’t go into Congress, and Presidents are eager to expand their power by any means necessary. The checks and balances fail. I suspect the American system is designed almost for an inverted Whig revolution, where the executive has every reason to accumulate power by taking it from the legislature.

I love my country, but I’m a strong critic of our constitutional structure.

What does it mean to love one's country if one does not love it's constitution?

Associating the constitution with the nation's identity seems a particularly American custom. For most people, the constitution has about as much emotional pull as the tax system. France changes their constitution every 20 years or so.

The view over the hilltops. The taste of Toad in the Hole. The ways and pastimes of a people.

A constitution is a very thin wrapper over the customs of centuries, which is why Britain never bothered with one.

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