If Trump were President, I’d wish our checks were more balanced

The presidency of the United States has been growing more powerful and less constrained by traditional norms with every passing administration. One need not pass judgment on individual presidents and their policies to recognize this trend, and to expect it to continue regardless of which party wins in 2016. In that context, a successful man-on-horseback candidacy, in which a president is elected on whose selling point is that he refuses to bow to convention or restraint, is precisely the kind of thing that could expose some of the underlying perils inherent in our system, and accelerate America’s march toward either Caesarism or crisis.

– Ross Douthat, “Why I Can’t Learn to Love Donald Trump.“