If we had a functioning congress, laws could be set. The president really is not _meant_ to have a lot of power here. Administrations have been trying to do more, as congress really won't pass laws any longer. However, each administration just throws out the policies of the last administration. Actually passing laws in congress does not necessarily have this same problem.
Precisely. Regardless of your political leaning, Congress has been playing hot potato for a long time. Instead of actually creating rules or regulations, they do nothing and let the administration or courts decide. That way they can go to their constituents and beg for votes or contributions to fight the same branches that they relinquished power to by not doing anything.
A large part of the Republicans' strategy is to appoint partisan judges & let them legislate from the bench for the rest of their lives. Talking up thread about "the biggest problem", this is probably it. In the context of climate change, recently we can see SCOTUS shooting down environmental protections. This happens in lower courts too, but those don't make national news.
The problem is that trump believes the president is king of America, and that a dictatorship is the best form of government. Even bigger problem: far too many Republicans seem to agree with him and will try to hasten the descent into a fascist authoritarian dictatorship. I have no idea if they will be successful, but it doesn't look like there will be much to stop them.
I think the problem is that when the Democrats are in power, they also attempt to inflate the power of the executive branch. Both parties have been doing this for a while, and are AGHAST when the opposing party gets elected. No one seems to want to take back the power the executive branch, which makes each new bad president more and more of a disaster.
I don't think the president does have much power over this? The most important things are indeed enshrined in legislation. I think it's pretty unlikely they are going to spend any political capital on undoing any legislation in this space.
"The President might not sign the bill, however. If he specifically rejects
the bill, called a veto, the bill returns to Congress. There it is voted on
again, and if both houses of Congress pass the bill again, but this time by a
two-thirds majority, then the bill becomes law without the President’s
signature. This is called “overriding a veto,” and is difficult to do because
of the two-thirds majority requirement."
