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How the Myth of the Coequal Branches Became the Norm

In fits and starts, we forgot that Congress is supposed to lead our political system.
Jay Cost /
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(Illustration by Aaron Sandford. Images by Chris Kursikowski/ Unsplash; Will Ma/ Unsplash; and Jeff Kubina/ Wikipedia Commons)

We’re thrilled to introduce The Monday Essay!

If you read The Dispatch regularly, you know that one of the main things we aspire to do—going all the way back to our founding—is inject more sober-minded analysis into a media environment rife with hot takes. We believe that’s especially needed in the middle of an election season.

Jay Cost is the Gerald R. Ford Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of five books, most recently ‘Democracy or Republic? The People and the Constitution.’ He is currently writing a book on the Jeffersonians for the University Press of Kansas.

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