Restricting the power of the Presidency

Well that just about sums it up doesn't it? Excellent point. 

You can prevent sabotage as well with enough safeguards, but not if those in charge of such measures are saboteurs themselves.

Our government now is as if the helmsman of the Titanic was aiming at the iceberg.

The US has endured single party control ( president, house, and senate) multiple times in its history. That doesn't include SCOTUS (judiciary) partly due to the lifetime individual justice appointment tenet. The saving grace that has emerged from history is that one party control has in general never lasted for very long which is illustrated by opposing party success in midterm elections ( generally within two years of an incoming administration). One or both of the two branches of Congress have usually switched party control in those midterms ( often the opposing party vs the president). I assume you're aware of all that but in and of itself is a 'check' that has worked as originally intended. 

During this term (and the initial term, too) SCOTUS has generally backed Trump..that's true. There are indeed  a few instances in which their rulings went against him and his admin. I won't list those because over the grand scheme of things they represent small blips on the inclusive graph.  

The Founders considered human history and human nature quite a bit before they created and enacted the Constitution. They understood that most citizens are often capable of acting reasonably while simultaneously prone to self-interest, factionalism, and selfishness. Self-interest is obviously a monstrous motivational source for all of us..it's a big part of humanity and the themes are obviously massively diverse. It is perhaps the main underlying reason for all this national division and pissing in the other sides cornflakes. One has to wonder how many significant mistakes / bad outcomes have been due to self-interest and we're all at least a little guilty of it.

I just don't agree that one man (Trump or Biden) and his ilk have the degree of long reaching power and influence necessary to permanently overcome or negate our 250 year democratic republic intent, laws, and conflicted history. I say that with sincerity and personal belief while at risk of being labeled a naive Boy Scout; I've generally always bought into that apple pie / home team stuff as corny as it is. Ultimately I'd just add that a divided government is a good thing for us on occasion; it'd be an improvement if it all wasn't consistently in our collective faces 24/7.

We've endured single party rule in the past because the President in question was a decent, well-intentioned person. Also, the party of such a President wasn't by any stretch of the imagination a bunch of rubber-stamping lackeys.

Neither of those mitigations exists now.

The opposing party has always regained ground in the midterms because the ruling party didn't have the gall to sabotage those elections. That's not the case now. The Republipigs are working on several fronts to illegally affect the outcomes. (The strongest evidence of their strategy is that they aren't flogging the chances of their 2026 Congressional and Senatorial candidates--they intend to win no matter who they prop up. Thus, the only criterion for candidates is MAGA fealty.)

The Founders clearly drastically underestimated the degree of factionalism and party politics that would dominate us. They couldn't envision the MAGA cult that exists today. They couldn't fathom the possibility of millions of people actively working to destroy everything they built. They never imagined that so many people would actually WANT a dictatorship. So ..they created weak, ineffectual safeguards.

You're correct that Trump alone couldn't possibly have brought about the current slow-moving train wreck all by himself. Without the support of tens of millions of stupid, evil, ignorant, mindless, thoughtless subhuman fools, he'd be at most just another garden-variety rich scammer.

But as I've said already, I hope that your take on things is correct. Keep shoveling, there's got to be a pony in there somewhere!

I don't think the Founders underestimated factionalism because they'd observed the extreme division between the Patriots and British Loyalists before the Revolutionary War; that division was in fact the motivation for that war and the eventual creation of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. They knew and had experienced a huge division when they created those documents.

Once again, how are the R's going to sabotage the election ( beyond gerrymandering)?  How are they going to "blot out millions of Democrat votes" as you claimed in an earlier post? Hell, we'll all be in jail...and none of us look good in orange.

Sending heavily armed "election monitors" to polling stations in Democratic districts. Cutting down on the number of polling stations and the hours they are open in Democratic districts. Drastically reducing the availability of ballot drop-off boxes. Restricting traffic access and parking at polling stations.

Shoving bills that forbid mail-in voting through the legislature. 

And I don't have to list all the various propaganda campaigns about them billions of illegal fraudulent votes. All it would take to swing an election would be one Trumpy judge willing to declare Democratic votes invalid.

I maintain that the current situation was unanticipated by the Founders. A President as well as the entire party that belongs to him actively hostile to democracy and working feverishly to destroy it. Even the worst of the factionalism they had encountered wasn't seeking the destruction of the country.