[wat10000]

It is, and we are pretty close to the bottom. Civil liberties folks have been calling it out for decades. Congress has delegated far too much power to the President. Trump is testing and sometimes exceeding the boundaries of his power, but most of this stuff is legal. The executive shouldn't be able to unilaterally slap tariffs on things, but it can. The law should spell out the criteria for foreigners to be allowed to enter the country, but instead we give the executive total discretion, and the executive has granted the individual agents total discretion.

It was pretty clear for a long time that this stuff was ripe for abuse, and the President's own choices were the only thing preventing it from being abused more than it was.

Well, you put a fundamentally terrible* and vindictive person in that office, and surprise, he abuses this power. One of his first acts in office in 2017 was to abuse his ability to unilaterally dictate which foreigners are allowed to enter the country, no surprise it's even worse now. Despite this, there has been pretty much zero serious advocacy for restraining the power of the executive.

*All US presidents are terrible to some degree or another, but normally it's "I know what's best for the country and I'm willing to kill for it." Which isn't great, but it's better than this.

[jeffbee]

I reject your petty libertarian whataboutism. Snatching a guy off the street and selling him to a slave labor camp in El Salvador is not in the same category as Congress delegating tariff decisions to the executive branch.

[wat10000]

My point is that the one enables the other. Congress gave the President tremendous power under the assumption that the President would use it wisely. Lots of people said, "but what if one day the President is a shithead?" They were ignored. Now the President is a shithead, and surprise surprise, all this power that was ripe for abuse is being abused.

This isn't whataboutism. It's pointing out why you don't give individuals huge amounts of power and hope they're cool.

[jeffbee]

It is. Your point is a non-point. Delegating tariff powers did not lead to the President kidnapping and selling lawful residents of America.

Delegating tariff authority to the executive: an arguably constitutional thing that Congress did deliberately and with due caution, which courts have gone along with.

Rendering lawful residents from U.S. soil to slave camps in foreign nations: no basis in statute or jurisprudence.

[wat10000]

Of course not. Delegating tariff powers led to the President enacting a bunch of stupid tariffs.

Delegating immigration rules is what led to the immigration abuses.

If Congress had refrained from delegating so much power to the executive, this particular executive would not be able to do so much terrible stuff. This is exactly why a lot of people said that it was a bad idea to do that, but Congress was content to assume that the President would wield this power wisely.