> In most modern democratic countries (I don't know about the US, since I'm European) executive and legislative branches are one and the same, so that still hol

> In most modern democratic countries (I don't know about the US, since I'm European) executive and legislative branches are one and the same, so that still holds up! In the US we have had legitimate separation of powers between executive, legislative and judicial branches through much of our history and some of my lifetime (I'm almost 53). We don't anymore. The Republican-majority Congress has completely abdicated all of its power to the Republican executive and the Republican-majority Supreme Court barely tries to act like it is non-partisan anymore. The non-Supreme Court judicial system is still (as can been seen by this ruling) functioning as intended, but there's a limit to how helpful that is when the top court is clearly in the bag, and if the other systems of checks and balances aren't repaired quickly it is only a matter of time until enough hyper partisan judges are installed at the lower levels to end that too. The beginnings of the crumbling of our checks and balances pre-date the Trump era, though they've accelerated greatly during the Trump era. Even before Trump Congress had abdicated much of its power in matters of declaring war, for example.