“But over time, the executive branch grew exceedingly powerful. Two world wars emphasized the president’s commander in chief role and removed constraints on its power. By the second half of the 20th century, the republic was routinely fighting wars without its legislative branch, Congress, declaring war, as the Constitution required. With Congress often paralyzed by political conflict, presidents increasingly governed by edicts.”
No, that was when we got Super Pacs which is how billionaires have a control over a majority of US Senators needed to break a filibuster.
“We the People” is how you got plantation-owning slaveholders to write the constitution (and be senators) so they could control U.S. policy despite being way fewer in number than their northern buddies. Kind of the same thing, all told.
Oligarchy masquerading as democracy.