Public outrage derailed Trump’s plans to slow the mail. That’s what keeps presidents in check.

Public opinion more effectively reins in the presidency than the other branches, Douglas Kriner, the Clinton Rossiter Professor of American Studies in the government department, writes in an op-ed in the Washington Post, citing this week's outcry over the Trump administration's proposed changes to the U.S. Postal Service. But that may be changing, he says.

“This isn’t the first public backlash to force the Trump administration — or previous presidents — to backtrack,” Kriner wrote in the piece. “Public opinion — more than constitutional checks and balances — provides the strongest brake against presidents attempting to act without congressional support.”

Read the story in the Washington Post.