[linguae]

When the Republican Party has been largely purged of opposition to Trump (except for senators Rand Paul, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski and a tiny handful of people in the House), and when six out of nine Supreme Court justices are generally loyal to the GOP, then there are effectively no checks and balances.

Trump learned during his first term that he can bypass checks and balances by making sure the GOP is thoroughly MAGA. People who stood up to Trump have been sidelined, such as Justin Amash, Mitt Romney, and, most famously, Mike Pence, who stood up to Trump on January 6 and paid a heavy political price for it. That’s why Vance, not Pence, is the current VP.