MPCooper

Yesterday I wrote about Congress abdicating its responsibility. But abdication only matters if we understand what was surrendered in the first place.

We casually call the President of the United States the most powerful person in the world. The phrase rolls off the tongue as if it were self-evident. Historically, it wasn’t. Domestically, presidents were constrained. Congress blocked them. Courts checked them. Power was contested, negotiated, limited.

Today, under a compliant Congress, the presidency can feel untethered.

So before we argue about who holds power, we need to define it.

What is power?

Is Power the Ability to Do Whatever You Want?

At first glance, power looks like freedom — the ability to act according to your own will, to remove obstacles, to face no resistance.

That is the common understanding: power as dominance, as control, as the capacity to impose your will. Friedrich Nietzsche described it as the “will to power” — the drive to overcome constraint.

But in a constitutional democracy, power has never been that simple.

Power exists inside a structure. Within that structure, action is supposed to trigger accountability. Decisions require explanation. Authority requires justification. If someone else can check you, you must persuade them — or answer to them.

When accountability is present, power is negotiated and limited.

When accountability disappears, power does not need to persuade. It simply acts.

Historically, presidents operated under the assumption that Congress might intervene — cut funding, hold hearings, block initiatives. That possibility created restraint.

When the branch designed to impose consequences refuses to do so, restraint evaporates.

Power shifts from something that must justify itself to something merely permitted.

That is the turning point — not when power is claimed, but when it no longer has to answer.

The Shift: From Constraint to Permissiveness

What happens when the institutions designed to restrain power simply decide not to?

Congress possesses enormous constitutional authority. It controls the purse. It declares war. It conducts investigations. It writes laws. It impeaches. It can limit or block executive action outright.

That authority has not disappeared.

It has gone unused.

And unused power is indistinguishable from surrendered power.

Over the past few decades — particularly since the rise of Newt Gingrich and the transformation of congressional politics in the 1990s — the focus of the Republican Party at the federal level shifted from legislating to maintaining ‘power’. 

Control of the chamber became paramount. Governance became secondary.

The strategy rewarded rhetorical confrontation but discouraged institutional responsibility. Campaign aggressively. Investigate loudly when the other party holds the presidency. But when your party controls the executive branch, restraint becomes the posture.

The incentive structure changed. Governing creates risk. Legislation produces winners and losers. Oversight angers allies. Institutional confrontation forces members to defend their actions to voters.

Avoiding action carries fewer immediate costs.

The ambition evolved from using congressional authority to shape policy to retaining majorities and protecting incumbents — especially when aligned with the White House.

Congress does not have to endorse every executive action.
It does not even have to agree.
It simply has to refrain from imposing consequences.

No funding restrictions.
No binding limits.
No sustained oversight.

However, what looks like unity is permissiveness.

And permissiveness enables expansion.

Executive power grows not when a President forces Congress to bend, but when Congress decides bending is easier than governing.

When legislators value holding office more than exercising authority, dominance is not fought for.

It is handed over.

Power Is Not Approval — It Is Inaction

When Congress declines to investigate, limit, or condition executive action, it creates an environment where consequences are unlikely and accountability becomes optional.

In that environment, the President does not need to persuade or compromise. He can shape narratives and take sweeping action without institutional resistance — not because there is consensus, but because authority goes unused.

That is not power built on agreement.

It is power built on absence.

And power unused to restrain power is not neutrality.

If you possess constitutional authority and refuse to deploy it when it matters — not because intervention is unwarranted, but because it is politically costly — that is not restraint. It is fear.

Congress can slow, expose, limit, or defund executive overreach. When it declines to use those tools out of partisan loyalty or electoral anxiety, it is not preserving harmony.

It is protecting itself.

There is a difference between wisdom and avoidance. Between prudence and calculation.

Power that exists only on paper is theater.

Hollow institutions create space for dominant personalities.

In a republic built on friction, the refusal to defend institutional authority does not produce peace.

It produces imbalance.

And power left unchallenged does not remain static.

It transfers.

The Ambition to Hold Power — Without Using It

At the center of modern Congress lies a paradox.

Many members want power — but not the burden of exercising it.

They want the title, the committee assignment, the majority status, the proximity to influence.

But exercising authority is risky. Hard votes create attack ads. Oversight fractures alliances. Blocking executive action demands public defense.

Governing creates enemies.

Inaction does not.

So the ambition shifts from governing to surviving. From institutional stewardship to reelection. From defending separation of powers to avoiding primary challenges.

To exercise power is to assume responsibility.

To avoid exercising it is to avoid blame.

A generation of legislators has learned that it is possible to hold office while letting the executive branch do the governing. To criticize overreach while permitting it. To campaign against concentrated power while declining to restrain it.

It is politically efficient.

It is institutionally corrosive.

When Congress refuses to assert itself, the President does not need to seize authority. He steps into the vacuum.

Power concentrates wherever resistance dissolves.

And when defending the institution becomes riskier than defending a seat, the institution loses.

Authority is not stolen.

It is left unattended.

And unattended power consolidates.

What This Means for Democracy

In a functioning republic, power is dynamic. It encounters resistance. Ambition counters ambition. Institutions compete because competition is the safeguard.

That friction is not dysfunction.

It is design.

The American system assumes that each branch will defend its authority out of self-preservation. But what happens when self-preservation no longer aligns with institutional defense? When holding office matters more than maintaining balance?

Collapse does not come dramatically.

It comes quietly.

Through continuing resolutions no one reads.
Through authorizations never revisited.
Through oversight that generates headlines but no consequences.
Through statements that signal concern but commit to nothing.

Democracy rarely dies with spectacle.

It erodes through accommodation.

Real power is not charisma or rhetoric. It is not even formal authority on paper.

It is the space created when others refuse to resist.

It is permissiveness. It is inaction. It is consequence-free decision-making normalized over time.

When accountability disappears, power expands — not through coups, but through neglect.

And once power consolidates, culture adjusts. Lawmakers grow accustomed to deferring. Voters grow accustomed to executive dominance. Expanded authority becomes precedent.

The extraordinary becomes routine.

When those entrusted with checking authority avoid using their own power, they do not remove power from the system.

They relocate it.

From legislature to executive. From deliberation to decree. From shared responsibility to centralized control.

A republic depends not only on structure, but on courage.

When that courage fades, the structure remains — but hollowed out.

The forms survive. Elections continue. Committees meet. Gavels fall.

But the equilibrium is gone.

And restoring equilibrium is far harder than preserving it ever was.