Yuval Levin wrote The Fractured Republic, a very intelligent look at our political condition and highly recommended. Below is as excerpt from his recent article in National Review, Hillary Is an Embodiment of the Left’s Disdain for Democracy:

First, contemporary liberalism has come to ardently champion executive unilateralism. In some respects, this is nothing new. Modern progressivism has always idolized the presidency. Progressivism, as Teddy Roosevelt approvingly put it more than a century ago, is “impatient of the impotence which springs from over-division of governmental powers, the impotence which makes it possible for local selfishness or for legal cunning, hired by wealthy special interests, to bring national activities to a deadlock.” It therefore “regards the executive power as the steward of the public welfare.”

This enthusiasm has waxed and waned, and it is always stronger when Democrats are in the White House. But in the Obama years, it has reached heights unprecedented since at least the early days of the New Deal. Voicing the same kind of impatience TR did with the slow pace of American government, President Obama has repeatedly asserted his power to act alone. “We’re not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the kind of help they need,” he told his cabinet in 2014. “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone,” he continued, pledging to use the federal bureaucracy to advance his agenda on his own if he had to.

In justifying these actions, Obama claimed merely to be setting a policy on how the executive branch would exercise its prosecutorial discretion. But he repeatedly undercut this justification by referring to his impatience with Congress and describing his own steps as a substitute for legislation. “To those members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better or question the wisdom of [my] acting where Congress has failed,” he said, “I have one answer: Pass a bill.”

In justifying these actions, Obama claimed merely to be setting a policy on how the executive branch would exercise its prosecutorial discretion. But he repeatedly undercut this justification by referring to his impatience with Congress and describing his own steps as a substitute for legislation. “To those members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better or question the wisdom of [my] acting where Congress has failed,” he said, “I have one answer: Pass a bill.”

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