It turns out all of the "institutions", customs and traditions, not technically enforced by law, had an important effect on restraining corruption. Turns out they were only really enforced by the public, but with the general (intentional, IMO) erosion in faith in the government and institutions, the public no longer cares.

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estearum 3 days ago | parent [-]

Well, many of these actions are illegal. But law is not self-enforcing. If POTUS is the origin of the corruption and his party in Congress doesn't impeach or otherwise constrain, then he's allowed to do whatever he wants.

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overfeed 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Well, many of these actions are illegal.

SCOTUS ruled that official actions of POTUS can't be illegal, and can't even be investigated.

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kelnos 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

You better believe that if a Democrat were in the White House doing similar things, the conservative wing of SCOTUS would have voted the other way.

I no longer consider SCOTUS rulings as good measures of what the law actually is. Instead I look to the lower court decisions that brought us there. If they agree with SCOTUS, or there's no consensus, then sure, ok. But if the lower court rulings are largely the opposite of the final SCOTUS rulings -- especially if the lower court judges include folks appointed by Trump or another conservative president -- I think it's fair to assume that SCOTUS's decision is partisan, ideological bullshit that bears little resemblance to actual law in the US.

It pains me to say or even think this, because in the past I've had a lot of respect for our Supreme Court, but that respect is completely gone at this point.

	▲	estearum 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		+1 and IMO this is substantiated even if you ignore actual policy/political differences. This SCOTUS has used the shadow docket to overturn (without actually ruling on) lower court decisions extremely frequently. These “decisions” (really delays in the administration’s favor) are increasingly offered without rationale and even without the majority Justices signing their names to the order. IMO they know the administration is way afoul of the law (which is why so many lower courts are finding such in 50-150 page considerations) but they don’t want to have to decide on that. So instead they’re relying on the shadow docket and not providing any rationale or signatures to try to escape the shame they know history will bring upon them.

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ahmeneeroe-v2 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

This "rounds to true" at the middle school level, but isn't actually true at all at the level of a civically-minded adult.

Downvoting because I don't think it meets the bar at HN.

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lokar 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It seems like there are a lot of things that are either illegal, or somehow forbidden, where the only enforcement allowed is impeachment and removal. Given how partisanship has turned out in the US, this is a major flaw in the constitution IMO (along with it being to hard to amend).