It’s time to drastically rein in the powers of the President of the United States.

In fact, it’s long overdue.

Enough is enough. We have three branches of government in the United States: The Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial — but you wouldn’t know it these days. The checks and balances created between these three branches have become brittle enough for a power-hungry president to run roughshod wherever he pleases. We are witnessing it every day, in shock, as though — after decades of consolidating power in the Executive — this should come as any sort of surprise.

Here is what the president is supposed to be able to do, as originally intended by the authors of the Constitution:

1. Sign or veto legislation
2. Command the armed forces (but not declare war)
3. Ask for approval of his Cabinet choices from Congress
4. Convene or adjourn Congress
5. Grant reprieves and pardons
6. Receive ambassadors
7. Propose treaties
8. Nominate judges (with advice and consent of the Senate)

Oh, and execute to the best of his ability the laws that Congress passes.

And that’s it.

But American politics has become a soap opera and its leading star is always the POTUS. Trump is hardly the first to spearhead a cult of personality or take the power of the presidency too far. He’s the flashiest and most garish in recent memory, and has even less respect for the rule of law and the bedrock institutions of this country than any president in modern history, but the powers of the Executive branch have been abused and expanded for decades, by both Republicans and Democrats.

It’s time for that to stop, and the reasons are now more obvious than ever.

The president is not a king. The Executive branch of government was never meant to wield this much power. Trump is following in the footsteps of his predecessors in his effort to secure more and more control in the Oval Office. That he’s glaringly corrupt and shows a frightening disregard for the sort of checks and balances we’re supposed to have in place just proves my point: We’ve allowed the presidency to become something it’s not, a dangerously anti-democratic nexus of power that, in the wrong hands, can quickly unravel this Republic and its institutions.

And before anyone claims that Obama also abused his power and that I’m just complaining now that Trump is in office, let me stop you. I do agree that Obama overreached as president, again following in the footsteps of his predecessors. I believe that Obama was a more cautious and conservative man than Trump, however, and that he was far more restrained. Trump has proven in just one week that he has very little in the way of restraint. But I opposed many of Obama’s decisions as POTUS, especially overseas, and believe that both Democrats and Republicans alike need to see the danger in a powerful presidency and rein it in before it’s too late.

This is the lesson of the Romans, of Julius Caesar and the dangers of a charismatic dictator wresting control from a pack of self-centered fools. If we don’t oppose our own undoing, American democracy as we know — the Republic itself — could come tumbling down. The Nazis couldn’t beat us, but home-grown nationalism just might thanks to a weakened Congress, a greedy GOP, and an overly powerful Executive branch.

Trump is canny when it comes to this sort of thing. He’s sewing distrust in the media — which he now refers to as the ‘opposition party’ — as well as in just about every other obstacle in his path, from minorities to the judiciary to our allies and international organizations like NATO and the UN.

And it was bound to happen. We allowed the presidency to become something it isn’t. Naturally the most power-hungry, self-centered petty tyrant would come running to abuse it for his own ends, his own ego. The groundwork for Trump’s takeover of the American system has been laid by each of his predecessors and a Congress only too willing to cede power so long as the president is on their team.

A complacent, power-hungry Republican party lacks the backbone to stand up to Trump, even if he flaunts his disregard for all things conservative. True conservatives should be shocked and dismayed by the actions, opinions and character of president Trump; alas, the GOP’s leadership is a pack of shameless cowards more interested in their own success than in anything resembling true conservatism. The Democrats, meanwhile, have squandered their own power and abandoned their true role as the party of the working class, and I have little faith that the party leadership will respond effectively this time around even though they now have the mobilization to take back Congress in 2018.

Whatever comes next, one of the great political projects of the future must be reeling in the Executive branch. Once upon a time, a president couldn’t declare war. That was the job of Congress. Now presidents wage war with impunity, without declaring it at all. Everyone simply goes along for the ride. This is not what the Founders intended. The president shouldn’t be the be-all, end-all of American politics. He (or she) should be far less important to our day-to-day lives and to the management of government.

And now, more than ever, the clock is ticking. This is not a project to put off into the future. It is work that must be done now.