Subject: Re: "We need a 4th branch of Gov't"
Is this a proposal to institutionalize or strengthen the "deep state"? To be clear, the answer to this question being yes or no doesn't automatically mean one should be against it or for it. Maybe the US gov't functioned better before 2016 than since 2016 because it had a deep state and that was a good thing.

The biggest hole in the current system seems to me that the main "check" on the executive was the impeachment process, and that Trump demonstrated who easily that breaks down with a popular demagogue. Yes, the judicial is something of a check on the executive as they have been rolling out limiting decisions on trump pushing a year later than would have been ideal. Maybe an improvement could be creating an impeachment mechanism that could be initiated and lead by the judicial? Maybe a super-panel of appellate court level judges determines that a pattern of disregard for laws and moral/reasonable behavior is established by the president and suborned by the legislative branch? This change could be accomplished by constitutional amendment without creating a fourth branch of government.

Of course this "problem" couldn't exist without in the neighborhood of 70 million of the electorate being, more or less, in favor of what the other 70 million see as a collapse of function. I don't think we can ever get a structural "solution" until the math of that divide is changed, until some signficant fraction of the 70 million MAGA has an "oh 54it" moment and switched to "never again" mode. So while we are discussing structural solutions, do we also want to address the fact that the current shitshow is pretty much what an extremely large block of voters in this country want?

R: