[ExI] Trump suggests not letting Iran 'take out' Los Angeles and San Diego

[spike at rainier66.com]

...> On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat

Subject: Re: [ExI] Trump suggests letting Iran 'take out' Los Angeles and
San Diego

On 13/10/2026 02:46, spike wrote:
> ... ideally from my POV the office of POTUS should change hands every
election.  For the past decade, it has.  This time it might not, which
leaves too much embedded power in place in the executive branch, which is a
bad thing.  


>...Do you really think that the current excess of power in the executive
branch would be reversed if the democrats won the next election?

Not entirely, but if the same party holds the office, many of the embedded
offices remain occupied by the previous holders.

>...It's a general observation, generally true, that anyone in a position of
power will try to obtain more power. There are vanishingly few instances of
someone (or some institution) in power voluntarily relinquishing even a part
of their power....

That's right.  In a binary system, the ideal situation is where the party of
POTUS switches every four years and the party holding congress switches
every two years, with a majority of one vote.

>...So Trump has probably permanently shifted the landscape in favour of the
incumbent president having a lot more power than he should have...

It isn't permanent.  Part of what gives him power now is his party
controlling both houses of congress.  It still wasn't enough power to reopen
government last time we had a shutdown.

>...What mechanisms exist to reverse Trump's usurpation of the balance of
power, assuming someone else, opposed to his authoritarian tendencies,
becomes (and remains) president? Is it likely that they would restore the
checks and balances on presidential power that Trump has eroded or
dismantled?
-- 
Ben

Ben, it is all about law.  Presidents don't make law.  They can only enforce
it.  Law didn't change much during either of the current POTUS' terms.  The
holder of that office can be as authoritarian as he wishes, but he still
can't make law, nor enforce laws that do not exist.  The system of checks
and balances of power are alive and well.

There was a case adjudicated in June 2024 while I was vacationing in your
fine country which clarifies this.  Congress had gradually delegated a lot
of authority to executive branch bureaucracy.  We had the Environmental
Protection Agency deriving regulations that were the functional equivalent
of law, for instance.  The Supreme Court reminded us that the executive
branch doesn't make law, congress does.  That restores (or confirms)
congress' check on presidential power.  

Now it looks to me like we don't really need all that executive branch
bureaucracy, for their regulations are now confirmed to be suggestions.
They could go thru the reams of executive branch regulations, insert at the
start of each sentence the phrase "If it isn't too much trouble," and at the
end of each sentence the word "please."  POTUS isn't the head of US
government, he is the head of the executive branch only.  The value of
unpopular presidents is to remind the American people how their government
works.

spike