Would you trade checks and balances for state-level universal healthcare?

[SolitarySolace]

A candidate for governor of your state promises universal healthcare but also wants to rewrite your state constitution, abolish the state senate, and make the executive and judiciary subordinate to one legislature. Would you vote for or against them?

Yes

No

[MrOracle]

The government needs to be LESS involved with health care, not more, and less involved in health insurance. It's government rules (which are so full of loopholes that they might as well be Swiss cheese) that is responsible for the insane costs of health care.

[Pterodon]

Fuck no. I don’t want government controlled healthcare. I want choices. Once you get your “free” healthcare you won’t have any choices about your care. It’ll be streamlined so everyone will get the same treatments regardless of body individuality. You really think Americans will pay the taxes the Scandinavian countries do? Guess again

[Jersey2]

F no. That would be stupid. And you won’t get what you were promised, you never do.

[msc545]

There are no checks and balances. Trump fixed that.

[SolitarySolace]

@msc545 I strongly disagree. You can argue that Trump has pushed the limits of executive authority, and we can debate particular actions, but saying “there are no checks and balances” is simply false.

Congress still legislates and controls powers constitutionally assigned to it. Federal courts still review executive actions. The Supreme Court remains institutionally independent of the president. Courts have repeatedly blocked Trump administration policies—including a federal appeals court ruling just days ago blocking portions of his voting executive order.

In fact, the Supreme Court has ruled against Trump on major issues during his current term, including his sweeping unilateral tariffs and his attempt to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.

That actually illustrates the distinction my poll is getting at. Trump has not abolished Congress, abolished the Senate, abolished the Supreme Court, or rewritten the Constitution to make the judiciary and executive formally subordinate to a single legislative chamber.

Criticizing Trump for allegedly testing or stretching checks and balances is one argument. Claiming checks and balances literally no longer exist is a very different—and inaccurate—claim.

[msc545]

Neither supreme. Neither the supreme Court nor Congress is completely obtuse. Neither one wants to look like they are simply doing whatever it is that Trump wants them to do. The supreme Court is made disastrous decisions in favor of trump repeatedly. Yes, they don't always decide in favor of him. But as I said before, they're not going to do that because they don't like the way it looks. The fact of the matter is that six justices on the supreme Court have a history of taking bribes and are solidly on Trump's side in almost every decision. As far as Trump's powers being attenuated in any fashion that is simply not the case. The man just started a war without Congressional approval which he is legally required to get. He simply ignored that and the war continues and not a single thing has been done about it by the Congress. If any other president had done this, it would be grounds for impeachment. There's a long list of things that have occurred, but the bottom line is that Trump has indeed pushed back against restrictions on his power and the supreme Court in the Congress have for the most part gone. Along with this. Certainly they've gone along with it. To the extent that it's reasonable to say that if checks and balances are not absent there, they are severely impaired.

[SolitarySolace]

@msc545 This is exactly the distinction I was talking about. Your original statement was “There are no checks and balances.” Now you’re saying they still exist but are “severely impaired.” Those are not the same claim.

You can argue that Trump has pushed presidential power too far or that Congress has sometimes failed to restrain him strongly enough. That is a legitimate argument. But it does not establish that checks and balances have disappeared.

Congress is actively disputing Trump’s Iran war powers, and the Supreme Court has also ruled against him on major issues. And saying six justices have a history of “taking bribes” goes well beyond the evidence; ethics controversies involving gifts and disclosures are not the same thing as proving bribery.

But more importantly, none of this answers my original poll, which never mentioned Trump. You brought Trump into it as a rebuttal.

Even if I granted your revised claim that Trump has strained or impaired checks and balances, that is still fundamentally different from deliberately rewriting a constitution to abolish one legislative chamber and structurally subordinate the executive and judiciary to the remaining legislature.

And this also goes back to something you yourself told me before: you said you would not support the DSA because of its Feminism for All agenda. That illustrates my broader point. You cannot treat one part of a political movement’s program as completely disconnected from the rest of the agenda you are helping empower.

So Trump is beside the point. Would you vote for the hypothetical candidate I actually described: universal healthcare combined with abolishing the state senate and fundamentally restructuring the separation of powers? Yes or no?

[msc545]

I will settle for a severely impaired and that process is not static and in fact it's dynamic in the wrong direction. Trump keeps pushing and pushing in the Congress and the court keep yielding and yielding.

[SolitarySolace]

@msc545 Every president pushes the limits of what he believes he can accomplish within his constitutional authority. That is not unique to Trump. Biden pushed his agenda through executive actions and tested the boundaries of executive authority; Obama did the same; presidents before them did as well. Courts and Congress then push back when they believe a president has gone too far. That friction is part of the checks-and-balances system, and President Trump, like past presidents, is still operating within a constitutional system in which those other branches retain independent powers.

Biden provides a good example. After the Supreme Court struck down his original broad student-loan cancellation plan in Biden v. Nebraska, his administration pursued alternative routes to provide student-debt relief under different legal authorities. Those later efforts were themselves challenged in court. That is not the judiciary disappearing; it is the executive pushing its agenda while the courts continue exercising an independent checking function.

You’ve already moved from “there are no checks and balances” to saying they are “severely impaired.” Fine—we disagree about how impaired they are. But that still does not answer the question I asked.

My hypothetical is about formally changing the system itself: abolishing the state senate and restructuring government so the executive and judiciary are subordinate to a single legislature. That is fundamentally different from a president aggressively pursuing his agenda within an existing constitutional system whose courts and legislature still retain independent powers.

So I’ll ask again: would you vote for that hypothetical candidate—yes or no?

[fishbone77]

against.