This is a really great question! You’ve already got the underlying reason down too - all the various executive departments were created to distribute the enormous administrative burden of figuring out how to enforce laws that have been passed.

Interestingly, Congress is actually in charge of creating the various departments. The President is not authorized to abolish or create new ones, or to expand their jurisdiction or invent new powers, however they are responsible for proposing leaders to each and soliciting their guidance for topics within their domain. How this currently gets enforced is part of the issue however.

Independent agencies also exist that do not explicitly fall under the authority of the President. While the President can remove heads of departments for any reason, there is a much higher bar for removal of independent agency board members.

As the office of the attorney general is one of the government’s oldest, established during the first Congress, this may be a matter of combatting tradition more than anything else! This predates independent agencies by something like 100 years.

I should also edit in a clarification that the DOJ not being an independent agency is what allows it to be more partisan than something like the FTC. Also that an independent agency does not in and of itself entirely mitigate partisan politics from its decision making.

Whether it is referred to the DOJ or not is not my point. What I describe is how this process works. Congress having a simple majority of one party with an adversarial president is unlikely to result in prosecution or impeachment/removal by the Senate because of the systems in play.

For the president, what you say is true. But there are others who are not the president and have participated in illegal activities. This is also being blocked currently by the DOJ or by pardons.

Democrats alone do not have the ability for removal via impeachment. They’d need Republicans to cross the aisle on it and recent history has shown that this is unlikely.

Voters want accountability but there are more obstacles to overcome within our existing legal framework before that is realistically possible. This is why there may be a focus on other more easily altered areas in the short term.

As much as I agree that criminals and corrupt politicians have no business being in government, prosecution is unlikely to be successful in the next 2 years. Congress only has the authority to investigate then makes a referral to the DOJ, but the president controls the DOJ.

The recourse after a referral like that falls flat would be to impeach and remove (until someone is in place that will honor an independent DOJ) but they’d need the opposing party to cooperate and reach the 2/3 threshold needed for removal. Prosecution may need to wait for the next president to unblock the DOJ and empower them to do their job.

Some of the ideas being floated might be more attainable in the short term, especially in the cases of regaining control over responsibilities enumerated in the Constitution as belonging to Congress, such as passing budgets and declarations of war.

Me too. Banking/finance is the one I’m most worried about. Value stocks and international stocks are both valid for an overall portfolio strategy, but they don’t fill the same large cap criteria that the SPX covers.

Even total market funds are heavily invested into AI, so it requires breaking investments out into the composition you’re after, sans AI.

For anyone in the market and worried about things like this, what do you think of SPXT? The expense ratio is terrible but it tracks S&P without the IT sector included, which should insulate it from the circular financing arrangements that helped balloon valuations like this.

For reference, SPX composition is normally 30-40% IT sector (because of rules driving which stock and how much of it gets included), and many of those companies are involved in these AI investments.

Of course. Wikipedia would probably do a better job, but the idea behind it was that the smallest state by population serves as the baseline for representation within the House, which was originally intended to be based on population. At the time it was conceived, this was Wyoming.

This means that representation would be more accurately scaled to the population, so instead of rebalancing which states get larger shares of reps (CA, TX, FL, NY, etc) to accommodate the hard limit of 435, the House continues to grow to meet the demands of the populace. Under the rule, the House would grow well beyond 435 but it would mean one vote in Wyoming wouldn’t be worth roughly 68 votes in California, for example. Instead, CA would gain something like 17 reps and Wyoming would have 1.

Since the only outlined requirements for the House in the Constitution is that each state has one rep and there are not more than one rep per 30,000 citizens, this would require a repeal of the law capping the House at 435 (due to the physical constraints of the building!) and the passing of a new law to expand it. The Wyoming Rule was a proposal to do just that.

Durable and resilient change means connecting the court expansion to something meaningful. In this case, it would involve looking back on history and returning to the concept that the SC has seats equivalent to the number of federal circuits.

It could be argued there is almost a precedent for this from the Judiciary Act of 1869, the last time the court size changed, and that’s held up after all this time.

The SC expansion would need to be tied to the number of federal circuits, assuming that’s why you suggested 4, so that the addition isn’t just met by more retaliatory additions later on.

While we are dreaming of a better future, why not also reform the House to build true representation based on population and remove the cap of 435. Revive the Wyoming rule.

Interesting theory by Warren. Pass bills targeting key issues and see if the president vetos something popular…

It is critical to draft and pass this legislation, however the problem is that if he does veto, afterwards nothing changes. They get to say “we tried” and that isn’t likely to be enough for voters.

They’ll need help. Get involved. Contact your reps - write to them and make appointments to see their staff at their offices, regardless of their affiliation. Work on building support for popular legislation that benefits the people, directly with those making the decision.

I did no such thing. Please actually read, recognize context, and try to understand what I wrote rather than accusing me of ignoring things.

I’m agreeing that vetos are difficult to override. The top level comment had it right that even with the win, the numbers are not there without cooperation from the opposing party to overcome a veto. This affects what legislation can be passed.

Whether the opposition will or won’t cooperate because “they’re a cult” is not relevant to how the system actually functions, though it does affect the possible outcomes and how many “ifs” are being relied on for change.

I’m also agreeing with the comment I replied to that it remains to be seen what the Democrats will actually do and that current Dem leadership has given us no reason to believe they are masterminds.

We are going to see that, yup. People are upset and want change but may not understand (or care about) how things work. It’s one of the reasons the last presidential election went the way it did too, regardless of the evidence that the change on offer may not be in the direction uninformed voters wanted.

Many have seen the damage rapidly caused over the past few years and wonder why the opposition now can’t undo it, despite the levers available being different. There are still things that can be done but either because of emotions or an incomplete understanding of the systems in play, there are mismatched expectations floating around.

It’s why I advocate to engage politicians, which is one of the next levers available to us.

You’re right on all points. It is a lot of ifs, but that’s the position the US gov is in. The veto override and impeachment/removal numbers will impact what can legally be done. Democrats having a simple majority in Congress with an adversarial president means overcoming one or both of those things to pass real legislation or meaningfully hold the President accountable.

They can still subpoena, run investigations, control budgets, and otherwise be incredibly vocal to make certain decisions politically painful but it remains to be seen what they’ll actually do or if there is a plan at all.

In the meantime, we can actively try to pressure politicians to do something with the powers they will have in Jan by writing them and showing up at their offices (with appointments - it’s doable).

Agreed. It wasn’t designed to be this way though and could only happen as it has with compliant politicians in other branches. Complete control across all 3 branches of government is not common and has only happened something like 3 times in the past 40 years.

Are you able to clarify what you mean?

Presidents don’t have the power to make laws according to the Constitution, only the authority to enforce them. The executive branch controls the DOJ and other executive departments and over time, the legislative branch has ceded power to the executive. A president changing those departments as they see fit is unfortunately without meaningful guardrails and where most of the damage has been done. Sweeping changes here are only possible with compliance from other bodies of government. This current version of the executive branch was not intended by the Constitution.

Unlawful executive orders (not laws) have mostly been deemed unconstitutional by the judicial, excluding when the supreme court becomes involved and chooses to make partisan decisions that disregard years of precedent. A compliant congressional majority has failed to curb overreach by the executive, especially regarding actions that would usually be considered acts of war. Compliant branches failing to provide checks and balances as intended allowed the damages to occur within areas governed not by laws but by traditions.

It’s incredibly easy to tear down components of the executive branch when the other two branches offer no resistance. Many things that were “understood” as the norm should have been codified into law and were not. There is now resistance in place with the power to resist, since one party no longer controls all 3 branches. Whether they will or won’t is a different story.

If you care about this issue (or others like affordability or investigations into corruption), try to talk to them/their staff about it in person. With enough voices doing so, it’s harder to ignore.

Here’s an example containing information on how to do so, if you’re invested in doing something and not just posting online about it: https://www.thoughtco.com/meeting-with-your-members-of-congress-3322076

It also shows how to write to them if that’s all that can be managed. Encourage others to do the same and respectfully hold them accountable to their mission statements. They may have been voted in, but they need to hear from their constituents to learn more about why.

Sweeping changes are incredibly difficult because the US Constitution intentionally made change slow. It was a purposeful attempt by the founders to prevent rapid policy changes and have some degree of stability.

When passing laws, 2/3 of EACH house of Congress is required to overcome a veto. This is why passing laws is difficult when one party does not own both houses with the presidency or a super majority in both houses without. This also says nothing about the judicial and their ability to check either of the other branches, in terms of what is “constitutional” per their interpretation.

Amendments to the US Constitution are even harder. 2/3 of each house of Congress or 2/3 of state legislatures must agree to a proposal and then 3/4 of the states must agree to the change for it to pass and the Constitution be amended.

What happened last night is one step on the road to permanent change, since historically red states have shifted (for now), and those states are required for long term policy to be put into place. It’s an important step, but tempered expectations are crucial. There is still a lot of good/harm reduction that can be done as a result.

Technically, zero… If you don’t mind not posting that is, libredirect is an option.