He’s a patriot, and also I think Obama will legitimately enjoy influencing Trump. It’s fun to play someone who thinks they’re a lot smarter than they really are.

Obama might have a point about Trump trying to reverse everything he did. Federal rulemaking takes time, and Trump possesses neither patience nor competence. Plus, as it stands, it looks like we’re about to get one of the least organized cabinets in memory.

A lot of these comments depress me. People really don’t seem to understand how executive orders work.

I’m not saying it’s a good outcome. I’m saying it’s still preferable to handing all the power to an emotionally stunted child who might launch a nuclear war because some foreign leader insulted him.

Congress never needed 2/3 to approve anyone. They needed 3/5. That’s 60.

The presidency has been extremely powerful since World War II. In fact, I can think of some powers previous presidents had that Obama does not (anyone remember the line-item veto?)

People who complain about Obama’s executive orders seem unaware of all the ways that the judiciary can constrain the president.

It’s also decreased in some ways. Nixon once tried to unilaterally spend less than what Congress passed in a budget. Clinton had a line item veto for a time. Both of these powers were curtailed by the courts. People have no idea how much the judiciary constrains executive action.

I blame the media for utterly failing to inform Americans on how executive action works and the existing laws that have been used to underpin Obama’s actions.

Yes most political scholars agree his use of them in size and scope was unprecedented.

When I say institutions, I mean the rule of law. This, I think, is the worst-case scenario in a Trump presidency in which he actually tries to do things.

There’s no such thing as a permanent majority in politics. It only feels like the GOP is dominant because they just won.

We lost our chance with the court regardless. Just have to hope everyone else lives another four years.

That’s not true. Exit polls show he did better than expected among white, college-education suburbanites. That’s a big reason why he won, since Clinton was counting on flipping those voters.

I’d rather Pence and the GOP Congress do things we can eventually reverse (we can always restore Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, it’s just a matter of winning elections) than Trump destroying our institutions, alliances and possibly launching nuclear war. I never thought I’d say this, but I hope Pence gets the…

And if the GOP can increase their tally of States by 1, they can call a Constitutional Convention and rewrite the rules at the most fundamental level.

They’re still counting in California, where Clinton won by a significant amount. I doubt her lead will decrease.

It’s funny because she won the popular vote anyway.

Pence is ultra-conservative, but the kind that we more or less know how to deal with as a country. I’ll a conservative president I can predict over an unpredictable, emotionally-unstable Trump any day.

As smug conservatives will tell you, the U.S. is not a democracy, but a republic. And occasionally one that awards positions completely arbitrarily.