So...I'm gonna say a thing about the 'America is better than this' concept WITHOUT claiming the USA was the bestest and fairest and equalest system ever (it wasn't)

We built the US to do 2 main things: 1) absorb political dissent and distribute it across the state system so that no 1 leg of the state could be worn away by corruption, and
2) to ensure any aspiring King would have to smash all the legs out from under the state to take power.

We are designed to either weather all storms, or completely fall apart rather than succumb to authoritarianism.
Which probably should've happened in 2016. BUT.

The assumptions of Jefferson et al when building this wonderbread castle were based on a world that had Kings, or had Republics.
They weren't super worried about an oligarch class. (Probably because they were one, tbh)

Congress and the President and a stacked supreme court cooperating to topple the state wasnt in the expected list of behaviors, because why would congress do that?
WE KNOW NOW!

The reason the US staggered along for such a long time despite the stunning failure to realize that legislative incumbency is a form of oligqrchy is that the Regulatory State is super cool, actually?

All the unexpected trappings and agencies and bureaucracy that arose under the Executive Branch were actually kinda like a 4th check and balance.

When the GoP really knuckled down to capitalism this country to death, they couldn't just declare Reagan king. Even in 2016 they couldnt make Trump king. The people would percieve power shifting from 3 entities to 1 executive and overthrow the state, as Jefferson intended.

Congress couldn't be fully secure in its own power because it couldn't completely undermine elections. By that point there were regulations upon regulations, and agencies upon agencies that slowed the changes Congress could make.
Gerrymandering took a LOOOOOOOONG TIME.

The President couldnt even eliminate those obstacles to do Congress a solid, because he actually can't just dissolve his own agencies; the Court can stop him if he doesn't follow his own process.
And it takes literal generations of largely unapposed progress to corrupt the court.

So if you think of Regan as the point where the GoP really knuckled down to seizing the state, you have 40-odd years of work chiseling away at the regulatory state that created itself as a check to the president, slowly whittling away at the Supreme court's integrity...

...slowly electing oligarchs who, thanks to gerrymandering, can't be unelected, and congress then slowly passing power back to the executive; not his agencies. The actual executive.

The president can declare war now. Because congress won't exercise their authority!
The president *can't* compel congress to vote on appointees to administrative agencies and courts, which would strengthen the courts/regulatory state. Because congress wont vote.

The court can't overturn a darn thing, because congress actually CAN mess with them, by ignoring their decisions, and only the executivr can stop that by executing court decisions.