There is something terribly wrong with the presidency in America, and at the risk of sounding wistful and passe, the institution was much better in the distant past.

If any more light need be shed on the albino elephant in the room, the following will do so.

The Expansion of Presidential Power

President Biden's first two weeks in office broke a record in terms of ruling by the pen, with him signing 24 executive orders, more than even Franklin Roosevelt signed in his first month, who previously held the record for most executive orders signed right out of the gate.

The president also has immense war powers allowing him to circumvent Congress and not even bother to declare war in order to go to war. In fact, the last time Congress was consulted on declaring war was in the summer of 1942, with regards to Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, minor allies of Nazi Germany.

Periodically, the federal legislature is consulted in the form of Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), which grants plenary power to the president to use some unspecified amount of force to pursue a nebulous objective over an undefined time. Case in point, there are still active AUMFs for opposing communist aggression in the Middle East from 1957, for the Gulf War in 1991, and for the Iraq War of 2002. Military operations continue to be carried out under the auspices of these orders from decades or generations past. (Note to government: The 1950s called, they want their AUMF back.)