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Notes -
The larger trend is that representative bodies tend to divest themselves of power and turn to gridlock over time. This is part of the long term political cycle, seen over and over again throughout history. "Democracy" is what Oligarchy is called when it is in political power. "Tyranny" is when the populists, angry at gridlock and elite failure, get the best strongman they can to try to improve things. "Monarchy" is when one of the Oligarchs wins and breaks the "democratic" stasis.
Is this cycle a matter of fact/reality/unavoidable fate (AI tells me it's from an Ancient Greek named Polybius)? There has been moments before in American history where some would think the US is on the path of becoming a monarchy (I'm assuming FDR got a lot of this criticism).
Just the nature of politics given a long enough timeline. The chinese say "the empire long divided must unite, the empire long united must divide". No form of government is stable long term. There is no "end of history" highest form, there is only the waves of politics abstracted through society and available technology.
In the US we can see this trend strongly, and it has to do with the same thing that sunk the Athenian oligarchy and the Roman one. It succeeded. The US went from being a regional power to superpower/international trade guarantor/hegemon in a generation. Since that time, congress has steadily ceded power to the bureaucracy, the courts and the executive. A century and change ago real politicians didn't run for president, because the power was in congress. Now, congress is for people who aren't interested in governing. The power of the presidency grows, until one day someone notices that hey, isn't he basically an emperor? Let's remember Augustus made every effort to make it seem like the Senate still had influence, while stripping the last vestiges of it.
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