U.S. Government in the Breakdown Lane

The U.S. government structure is a tipping point of failure. The founding fathers designed a good system. It had balance of power and reasonable representation of Americans rich and poor. Good ideas could surface and everyone had a voice (except African Americans who didn’t count.)

Fast forward to today and it is very broken. The representatives we have elected to lead our country are mired in unbalanced processes. This has led to distorted representation with significant Americans voiceless. It has also allowed individual representatives to grasp power well beyond the power associated with their office. Good ideas are stifled. The benefits of government are given to the few at the expense of the many. And, whatever attempts are made at governance results in gridlock.

• The presidential use of executive orders to accomplish his wishes bypasses the congress and senate elected specifically to act to represent the will of the people. He is a de facto dictator.
• The senate majority leader controls all legislation and judgeship confirmations at his whim. He is effectively a one-man funnel of the governance process. The majority in the senate fall in line and congress sits on the sidelines effectively defanged and superfluous.
• The result of the above is that the balance of power is gone.
  • We can no longer expect a supreme court judge to be processed through the confirmation process unless that nominated judge’s ideology aligns with that of the house majority leader. This in effect converts the supreme court into a mirror of the senate majority’s views.
  • We can no longer expect the powers of the president to be checked by congress. He has defeated this control via executive fiat.

So what does all this mean? The weaknesses are not only here for today, they cannot be put back in the bottle. They will only be more pronounced as the next class of governmental “leaders” take their seats. I pity future generations of Americans. Our country has zero chance of being more cohesive but one hundred percent chance of being more divisive. The extremes will rule. It makes me sad.