Once checks and balances disappeared

“Checks and balances” were always a lie. Those so-called checks and balances may have played a real role in maintaining the status quo class hierarchical structures (helping ensure class cohesion among the bourgeoisie), but they never served as a genuine check on the power of those who have it in their rule over those who don’t. The ones in control could always do whatever they wanted, but liberal theatrics like “checks and balances” helped with the facade that protections for the people were in place where they never actually were. The only difference now is the mask is slipping. As the rates of profits fall, the imperial core is beginning to cannibalize itself so there’s less and less need or incentive to maintain that increasingly obvious false facade. The vast majority of regular people, the working class, only ever had one “check and balance” to use against the ruling class and that is noncompliance backed by a willingness for violence, more specifically the threat of revolution.