[alecbz]

> if enough people want to willing vote in a corrupt president

Why do people do this though? Maybe it's inevitable, but I think there was a lot of pent up frustration with the government that led a lot of people to just say "fuck it". Not really excusing it (especially for his second term), but I feel like we're reaping years and years of a dysfunctional and ineffectual congress. Not that that's an especially easy problem to solve either.

I think this also explains a lot of the frustration with SCOTUS. In-theory, SCOTUS is supposed to just interpret and flesh out the policies decided on by congress. In practice, congress doesn't really do anything, and people started depending on SCOTUS's ability and willingness to make far-reaching and impactful decisions. Now a more conservative SCOTUS isn't doing that.

[legitster]

It's worth noting that an ineffective and gridlocked congress is specifically a problem of presidential-style democracies. Parliamentary systems with a prime minister have some of their own shortcomings (notably a weak executive), but the government is actually controlled by the legislature.

Countries that follow the presidential model regularly succumb to strong man type leaders. Ironically, in the modern era when the US had a hand in helping other countries establish their governments, we specifically helped them establish parliaments.

[alecbz]

I don't think parliamentary systems help the legislature remain effective, since they're still elected in roughly the same way, no?

But yeah, it prevents an ineffective legislature from leading to strong-men, which does seem nice. :)

[JKCalhoun]

I agree there is a lot of pent up frustration in the U.S. and the GOP did a bang-up job of cultivating this frustration. And now that they have their chance at bat they seem to be striking out.

At the risk of my analogy making something serious sound like a game, I'd like to see another team have a chance at bat.