If you want to know what a failure of civic education looks like, it’s month after month of state and city executives operating with unwritten emergency powers and no public discussion of limiting principles, oversight, or approval from voters or their representatives.

It’s been SEVEN MONTHS. This isn’t a rapidly-developing emergency anymore. Why do some of these despots still have monarchical powers? Why haven’t legislatures *legislated* such powers into existence and imposed some kind of expiration/renewal reporting structure?

Why? Because Americans no longer seem to know that those powers don’t belong to government. Because we’ve gotten used to executive orders and signing statements and all-powerful executives and treating politicians like salvation-delivering religious figures instead of servants.