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Comment by otterley | Hacker News Reader

It’s not a fact, because it depends upon a subjective interpretation of the word “working.” Some might argue, for example, that if the President can cow Congress into subservience, then the three branches of government are no longer in balance with each other, and thus the constitution is no longer “working” as intended.

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Depends on how he cows them into subservience. If he uses the threat of electoral defeat for opposing him, that's totally legitimate. If he uses his position as commander in chief to threaten them with force, that's different.

It does not matter how. The fact that he is able to do it at all illustrates a design weakness. Until recently, Presidents chose (consciously or otherwise) not to exploit that weakness. It doesn’t mean the weakness wasn’t always there.

It can be true that the constitution is not working as intended, AND the US is a far cry from a country like Russian in terms of it operating as a constitutional republic / democracy. It is not subjective to say the US is more of a democratic country than Russia.

I think Russia was being used as an extreme example. It wasn't being lauded as a model nation, far from it.

Maybe not yet, but the current US president has lauded authoritarian Hungary as a model for the US.

Rome wasn't built in a day, you don't go straight from 2024 to throwing people out of windows overnight.

But you get there by doing exactly what's being done on a daily basis.

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