This is the very essence of the difference that should exist between a President and a King. From Federalist 69:
The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the king of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution. In this delicate and important circumstance of personal responsibility, the President of Confederated America would stand upon no better ground than a governor of New York, and upon worse ground than the governors of Maryland and Delaware.
The failure of the Republican party to support this kind of check on Presidential power is why we’re having this crisis now.
The gears grind slower each rotation, yet we’re still surprised when the machine jams. Constitutional guardrails only work if the drivers pretend they exist—a quaint fiction evaporating under the heat of performative strongman politics. We’ve seen this before: executive overreach dressed as “emergency,” norms crumbling like stale bread.
What’s novel is the brazenness. Courts are now just another PR obstacle, their rulings reduced to content for the outrage algorithm. Linz warned of dueling mandates, not this farce where one branch swallows the rest whole. The Founders’ checks? Dry rot under the floorboards, termites long since victorious.
Democracy cosplay can’t hide the scaffolding. When the executive branch treats the judiciary as a nuisance, the only remaining question is how many will still clap as the curtain falls.