The last time that Democrats had this much power was in Bill Clinton’s first two years, and I think it is arguable that you really need to go back to the 1977-78 period to find one party with comparable majorities. Obviously, nothing like the modern internet existed back then, and so people didn’t have an opportunity to watch their government as closely as they do now. We can watch CSPAN at our leisure or YouTubes of committee hearings and speeches on the floor. We can download the legislative language of every version of a bill from both houses of Congress. And we have a 24-hour cable news culture to discuss it all. I think that is one reason that there is a higher cost to the routine sausage-making of bills. It used to be that you could offer a Cornhusker Kickback and no one would know about it (certainly not until after the bill passed, anyway).
This is one way that transparency has made it harder to pass legislation. Overall, I think transparency is a positive. It allows us to meaningfully participate in the legislative process. But it isn’t an unvarnished good. It is also weapon for Republicans who want to oppose every bill under consideration in Congress.
I’ve long felt that the whole reason for being for the DLC/Blew Dogs/etc. was to stop any real Liberal reform from within the DemocratIC Party.
This was clear throughout the 1990s, and isn’t that precisely what’s happening right now? Even the most tepid Liberal reforms are being stopped by “Democrats.” I mean, Dem Senators are stopping respectable appointees to the NLRB fer chissakes.
So to say that we have these historic majorities is incorrect in my opinion. Sure, people can point to pure numbers, but that’s part of the whole DLC/Clinton game though. Gets Liberals complacent since they supposedly have these “majorities,” and at the same leads to endless “Democrats in Disarray!!11!1!” stories in the Conglomerate Media. Plus, even just on numbers, we’re nowhere near the majorities that FDR and LBJ had for instance (Repubs would actually cross the aisle back then too).
To think what Obama could do without Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln and friends in the DemocratIC Party stopping nearly everything he proposes. With Democrats like these, who needs Repubs?
As you note, LBJ and FDR enjoyed a climate where some Republicans could be counted on to cross the aisle. As you do not note, they had a huge bloc of socially conservative segregationists in their party. In real terms, our present majorities are probably the biggest in history.
I’ve “friended” some of my husband’s co-workers on Facebook and come across comments from young Republicans complaining about Democrats hiding the legislative process. There’s some snippet on YouTube of Nancy Pelosi saying something like, “We have to pass the bill before you can see what’s in it,” totally out of context, I imagine. But this is, ya’know, “evidence” of how arrogant and dictatorial Pelosi and Obama are.
I had to pepper-spray the thread with, “You’re on the internet, right? Google is your friend. You can friggin’ read both the Senate and House bills online! You don’t even need a password to access them.” I was a thread-killer, I tell ya.
We’ve arrived at a state where the political process is the most naked it’s ever been. Yet people can still build a delusional narrative just by being willfully ignorant.
I think they all want an original copy of Obama’s birth certificate.
More like a copy of his death certificate…