When the makers of “Schoolhouse Rock” set out in the 1970s to explain how the federal government worksmnl777, they likened it to a three-ring circus. It was more than just a comment on the chaos of Washington — it was a metaphor for the three coequal branches of government that make our democracy what it is.

“Each controls the other, you see,” the song went, “and that’s what we call checks and balances.”

I’m an investigative reporter for The New York Times, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how those three branches — the basic building blocks of government — will fare with President-elect Donald Trump returning to power. He has promised to upend the system and use its power to prosecute his political enemies, and Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans warn that means he will use his second presidency to rule like an autocrat, putting extraordinary pressure on the nation’s democratic experiment.

Some people I have spoken to about this, including top officials from Trump’s first administration, have faith in the three branches of government, a system built to keep presidents’ power in check.

But the country’s three branches of government are in a weaker position to hold a president accountable than they were when Trump first took office in 2017, in part because of the stranglehold he has over his own party. And some of the change he has promised to bring to Washington would only further erode checks and balances.

“He’s enjoying unified government but, just as importantly, the party itself has been remade in his image,” said William Howell, the dean of the new Johns Hopkins School of Government and Policy in Washington.

The founders wrote the Constitution purposely to prevent any single person from amassing too much power. To do this, they set up three branches of government intended not just to check each other, but to be rivals for power.

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