Was learning about King Charles of England in the Civilizations Series podcast that was recommended to me. How it was king but with parliament of nobles and yet the king could kind of just be like “nah I don’t want to listen to parliament” and parliament couldn’t do much about it. And it doesn’t feel that distant from the modern day US if you replace “king” with “president” and “parliament” with “congress of capitalists.” If the president wants to do his own thing and congress doesn’t band together to stop it, the so-called “checks and balances” aren’t worth much.

It also reminds me of it in that, according to the history told in the podcast, most of parliament was in favor of having a constitutional monarchy. They just had problems with how King Charles was running things and ultimately brought it back after the civil war inducing problems with King Charles himself were resolved. Similar to how some members of congress might crow about Trump, but they’re not saying the system is bad and we need a different one, they just don’t like the way he’s doing things.