Checks and balances...
My understanding about how our system of government works always has been that each branch of government has ways of exercising oversight over the others -- and in turn, being overseen by the others. This is what is known as a system of checks and balances. The problem is, it doesn't really work that way for us. This is because each branch exercises oversight not over the other branches of government, but over the politicians and officials in the opposition party, and this includes the opposition party officials in their own branch.
So instead of the POTUS (and I'm not referring to that con man who currently holds that office, but just any POTUS) checking and balancing the members of the U.S. Senate, for example, s/he checks and balances those members of the Senate who are of the opposition party -- while getting along just fine with the U.S. Senate members of his/her own party. Judges in the judicial branch check and balance laws passed by the legislative branch that is controlled by the party that is not in line with their own ideological temperament, but render judgments that stamp their imprimatur of approval on the laws passed by legislators who are in line with their ideological temperament.
This is not the way it's supposed to work. Instead of being at odds with the opposition party, they're supposed to be at odds with the other branches of government. When they don't get along, it's supposed to be presidents not getting along with representatives, or judges not getting along with senators, but instead it's Republicons not getting along with Democrats, regardless of the branch of government they're in.
This is why we're having all these 53-47 votes now in the impeachment trial. This is why we have party-line votes so often in both the House and the Senate. This is why presidents sign bills passed by Congress when it's controlled by his/her party and veto them when Congress is controlled by the other party.
As I said, it's not supposed to work this way. The branches of government are supposed to check and balance each other, instead of the political parties checking and balancing each other.
I suppose this is what Thom Hartmann is talking about when he says that the framers of our Constitution and other early politicians warned of what they called "factions".
-- Ron
