THREAD ➡️ President Biden has just issued an unprecedented number of foolish and economically destructive executive orders. So much for unity. You might be wondering how he is allowed to do this. After all, America isn't a dictatorship and the president doesn't make laws.

Put simply: Congress. Every president issues guidance to the executive branch. That's normal. But when Congress passes bad, vague, or imprecise laws, it opens up space that executive orders fill. In other words, Congress enables presidential discretion.
This is THE biggest problem with Congress today. You may have heard that America has three coequal branches. This is wrong. Congress is the dominant branch of government. We are the first branch, and we have the most power over the other two.
Our constitution is designed to have Congress at the center. We are supposed to be making laws and directing the government. The president and the federal courts are empowered to check Congress, but they are not supposed to replace our legislative authority.
So what happens when Congress decides not to play its part? First, the other branches step in to fill the space. Courts legislate from the bench. The president and bureaucracy tackle problems and policy however they like.
In the short term, this behavior wins the praise of partisans. But in the longer term it creates instability and chaos in our constitutional system. Every single election, the disposition of the entire federal government changes on a dime, across a wide range of issues.
That hurts the economy, it sows confusion among citizens, and it often helps the powerful and the connected at the expense of everybody else. That, in turn, raises the stakes for each election - because seemingly everything turns on the outcome.
President Biden is blowing through norms with the sheer volume and scope of these executive orders. That's wrong. But it shouldn't be surprising. The next president, regardless of party, will probably do the same thing.
This is not a cheap partisan jab: I made this exact same criticism of the previous administration and voted against Trump's use of emergency executive authority because it ignored Congress's clear constitutional authority to appropriate money. https://t.co/oWvPwwPLBf
If we want to stop this chaotic way of governing, if we want to make politics more reasonable, we can't have a giant gap in the heart of our Constitution. Congress has to do its job. Here are some thoughts on how to force Congress to do its job. https://t.co/pKAicWQgDS

More from Biden

I got overnight via email a query from @briansflood at Fox News, the principal part of which I reproduce below. I answered by email too. I'll append that reply in the next threaded tweet:


My reply:


Hunter Biden's dubious business activities have been reported for years. Here for example is @TheAtlantic in September 2019, year *before* @nypost
https://t.co/qZBTpyuysM


That emails attributed to Hunter Biden were circulating was also known well before the NYPost story in October. Here's TIME magazine https://t.co/JvpEKdG0U4


What @NYPost added to the work earlier done by others was a new *origin* story for the materials that circulated in Ukraine in 2019. When other media organizations attempted to corroborate that story, hijinx ensued. https://t.co/ZJGZWq7etU @thedailybeast account
This is the start of my second thread of the front pages of newspapers on this date January 21, 2021. Click below for the first thread. #inaguration2021


Front page of the Independent Record on this date January 21, 2021. #OTD #Inauguration2021


Front page of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on this date January 21, 2021. #OTD #Inauguration2021


Front page of the Daily News on this date January 21, 2021. #OTD #Inauguration2021


Front page of the Tallahassee Democrat on this date January 21, 2021. #OTD #Inauguration2021

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I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x