The ideal of checks and balances is really an outdated mechanism for a democracy. To be completely fair, when Madison and others were laying the blueprint for a democracy, they didn’t have a lot to go on. Democratic energy was already bubbling up in Europe at the time, but “democracy” in England was really more about finding the right balance of power between the monarch and the aristocracy, and this was probably the case throughout much of Europe. The last time that there was anything resembling a democratic arm that purported to speak on behalf of working class people was the ancient Roman assembly. It’s possible we might have found some exceptions in places like the Isle of Man or elsewhere, but for all practical purposes, the Framers didn’t have much to go on. One model they weren’t going to emulate was that of Athens, which in their estimation gave too much power to ordinary folk, a sentiment which was further vindicated in the wake of Shays Rebellion. The point of my rambling is that our reliance on “checks and balances” is our reliance an understanding of democracy that’s nearly 250 years old, and one that relies on a very limited body of evidence over a 2000 year period prior to that.
The “checks and balances” hypothesis assumes that people are hopelessly ambitious and compete relentlessly for power, which is something that I won’t disagree with. However, that understanding ignores the fact that ordinary voters can be a stabilizing force for democracy themselves, provided that there is some degree of economic parity, and more importantly, the perception that there is opportunity for upward mobility. If you look at Western democracies, and even some democracies in the East, their political institutions operate with this newer understanding of egalitarianism and its role in promoting democracy and democratic stability, while ours does not. The “conservatives” embrace separation of powers because it’s a constitutional loophole that they can exploit, but in so doing, they’re undermining the entire social contract itself - and they know it. Mitch McConnell loves separation of powers for the same reason the Nazis did. They can use loopholes and procedures to ensure that nothing is accomplished for the majority, which in turn engenders cynicism toward governance in general.