The president may be all we have, but he is constitutionally forbidden from acting like a king. Though, of course, that hasn't stopped presidents from trying.
This fails to realize Congress works entirely the way it was designed. As you said, inaction == lack of consensus.
Imaging running a country where significant ways of life (influenced by laws) change willy-nilly depending on the flavor of the day? The legal whiplash would be absurd.
So, people often look to the president as some sort of king analog, and demand action via Executive Order - then cry foul when the next president undoes the previous one's EO's... it's lunacy and not a good way to run a society.
Don't really think so.
The 1929 Permanent Apportionment Act subverted the intentions of the founders and clearly swayed the power balance back towards rural areas, even though they have equal representation in the senate.
I don’t think that’s correct. There is way too much propaganda coming from the parties to think that voters have made up their minds based on the facts. It’s actually quite hard to get the facts because the media is mostly reporting politics like they report a football match.