On the other hand, if the policies are popular and the next candidate endorses them, they will catch on and become the norm. The way things are now, any Dem who wins the presidency will have to use EAs to get things done.
We just saw that not work. Hillary Clinton endorsed all of Obama's most popular ideas and lost the election. Now the popular things he did via executive action have all been reversed, but his policy that was put in place by legislation is still in place inspite of Republicans trying to repeal it constantly. If Obamacare was an executive order it would already be gone. My point is that keeping your executive actions in place relies on your side staying in executive power for multiple presidential runs, which isn't always probable.