Washington Post reporter Dan Balz was on Chuck Todd’s MSNBC show this morning and, among other things, he said that we have already had a default in Washington DC. We’ve had a default of politics. I think that’s about right. There are a lot of shortcomings in our political system that are essentially permanent features that are built in by our Constitution and other laws and by rulings of the Supreme Court. But most of us can live with those shortcomings. We’ve known them our whole lives, or nearly so. What we can’t live with is a politics of perpetual crisis, with gridlock and effective minority control of the Senate. It needs to be understood that the Democrats have only nominal control of the Senate. They can prevent most things from coming to the floor and they have near-total control of the calendar. But only the Republicans can actually pass a bill. Without control of the House, even passing some things by a simple majority under budget reconciliation rules is no longer possible. It didn’t used to be this way.
The Senate’s 60-vote requirement simply doesn’t work when the two parties are completely diametrically opposed to each other on almost every single issue under the Sun. Why would we want a system where the party with less members has to approve everything from the appointment of cabinet members, to the confirmation of judges, to whether or not to adjourn or recess?
Our politics are broken. The only way to fix our politics is for one side of this game to prevail in overwhelming fashion and change the rules so that we can have a government capable of taking decisions and reacting to crises rather than one that is at constant loggerheads and just bounces from one crisis to the next without ever resolving anything.
Yes, you have it perfectly. We have reverted to the 1850’s when the same divide in government made for one crisis after another. But I will quibble with you on one matter – the parties are less far apart than they seem. Far too many Democrats could live comfortably a republicans if the extreme right had not effectively performed a coup d’etat and now own the Republicans. We are at the mercy of Republican primary voters. The vast wave of Independents have no understanding of what has happened – they simply vote based on minimal and often misleading information.
The progressive elements in the Democratic party are as numerous (or more numerous than the radical right, but we are helpless in the ability of the wealthy to dominate and control the national and even state leadership of the Democratic party. That Dem leadership is addicted to the money and fearful of losing it, so they cave all the time. Progressive threats are meaningless because even of we primary a centrist or conservative incumbent, we still cannot adequately finance that race.
That is not an issue with the Teahadists, who know their candidates will be well financed by the likes of Koch, etc. plus receive the benefits of activist GOTV efforts. Our progressive candidates like Grayson either become one termers, or they are brought down by scandal or seduced by the need to fund raise from millionaires to retain their seats.
You make it sound like the need for money is some kind of unnecessary addiction for Dems. The root problem is not “addiction” but a system that makes ridiculously huge expenditures the only barrier between survival and permanent minority status — or even dissolution. AFAIK, no other developed country has the kind of social-darwinist electoral system we do. Until we radically change it, we don’t have much ground to bitch about its inevitable consequences.
Yes, you are right. When Reagan killed the Unions the Dems were forced to go trolling for money in the same places the Repubs did.
The need for money is directly proportional to giving the Republican-owned media their once-every-two-years and once-every-four-years big sales and profit boost.
It’s a losing proposition for Democrats. They are subsidizing the enemy.
Then we’re well and truly screwed.
I don’t see the Democrats being able to achieve such a sweeping victory. I do see the Republicans doing it, if another 9/11-level disaster strikes us and the fearmongers pin it on Obama and company.
Then we’re well and truly screwed.
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“.. one side of this game to prevail in overwhelming fashion and change the rules”
A recipe for dictatorship! An absolute majority will never address the needs of minorities in Washington DC. By the people and for the people is an archaic proposition not followed by our representatives. A mix of religious fanatics and paid lobbyists lay out the rules we are governed bij. The two party system just doesn’t work in DC, especially when there is little light between them.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."The Senate Democrats had a chance to abolish or amend the 60-vote filibuster rule in January. They decided not to because they prefer the system the way it is.
you took the words out of my mouth.
There was a chance to do something a couple of years ago, and the senate democrats decided to do nothing.
You took the words out of my mouth. AFAIK, they had 2 chances to fix the filibuster and wimped out on both of them. There’s no excuse for their failure.
The Village is discovering that DC is broken. Wait until they get caught up in the Rupert Murdoch scandal when it hits the US. Twenty five years of enabling the forces that were undermining American democracy. All because of the success of Mr. Hearst, uh, I mean Mr. Murdoch.
I guess they learned from the failure of News of the World that you can keep you nose clean and still lose your job if your boss is sold out, corrupt, and engaging in illegal behavior. That must have come as a surprise to Dan Balz. He could have said that when Newt Gingrich took over the House in 1995. Or during the Starr-avaganza. Or when the Supreme Court anointed the heir to the Bush throne. Or when John Kerry was Swiftboated (oh, he wuz not man enuff to stand up to them). Or the opening salvo in the racist nastiness about Barack Obama.
But his job was not in danger then, was it?
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Murdoch’s Crumbling Empire – Assistant John Yates Quits Met Police
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Booman, supposing the Presidential election is a landslide of some sort, and suppose that the Teahadists break to a further extent with the Republican establishment after the Debt wrangling, and do really well running Teabaggers in Republican Senate primaries. Would that scenario cause you to hedge on your pessimism about the Senate in the 2012 cycle?
Not at all.
I mean, there is a very good chance that Obama will simply outclass his GOP opponent on a near Reagan/Mondale scale, and that we will win back the House and retain nominal control of the Senate.
We can and should do really, really well in the upcoming elections.
But it won’t get us back to where we were two years ago. And, under your scenario, the GOP will be even more radical.
No, that’s not optimism.
This post is right on the money.
I’ve thought for some time that the endpoint of American democracy is rule by presidential decree. This is for three reasons. First, power has accrued to the presidency in any case because of the establishment of the national security state and the regulatory state. Second, because the rules of the Senate make it impossible for Congress to govern even if they wanted to (which they don’t). Third, because the presidency is the only part of the American system that is perceived as having some political legitimacy. Congress’ ratings in opinion polls has always been near the cellar, in part because people accurately perceive that congresspeople are in the pocket of various moneyed interests. In contrast, the President can at least plausibly claim to be the representative of the nation, elected by the people.
It will be just like the Roman Empire…Congress will be kept around for a while to gripe about things, but they will willingly cede real power to the President.
REPEAT, REPEAT, REPEAT… I have been repeating a warning mantra that the ideological goal for the Libertarian Republicans is to ABOLISH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. They are not for small government, they are for NO GOVERNMENT AT ALL, period! I have been posting this over and over now for about a year and guess what? The MSM is just recently has shown signs of starting to get the message with widespread publication of comments on the debt ceiling coming from the new Libertarian Republican House members.
These Libertarian Republicans are KAMIKAZE POLITICIANS. If an econommic depression is created as the result of the debt ceiling problem, these Libertarian Republicans will be celebrating big time. What else would you expect from people who are dedicated to killing the federal government?
IMHO these new House Libertarian Republicans are engaged in practices that in truth can only be called POLITICAL TERRORISM. When someone threatens to take away a frail elderly person’s only meager financial subsistance, part of which is used to keep a roof over their head with the remainder used to purchase critical medications necessary to keep them alive; that my friend is POLITICAL TERRORISM.
Belt tightening is one thing, but commissioning those people who can’t take care of themselves to be swept into an early grave simply because they are poor and indigent is from my point of view just about as un-American as you can get.
No, we can’t live with them. Like anything else that worked in the past and has become a dead weight, these Constitutional failings do not remain just an annoyance, but grow and grow until they bring everything to a grinding halt. We’ve clearly reached that point — it’s right there in front of us. Our highest lawmakers are actually fighting about whether to drive the United States into bankruptcy. Why is it still so hard to see the obvious?
It doesn’t take an overwhelming majority to change the filibuster — the Dems had 2 chances to do just that and threw them away for the sake of some kind of “collegiality” nonsense or to placate the lobbyists who own them. Which it seems to me constituted final proof that the Senate and the electoral system is broken beyond repair, no matter how big a congressional majority might emerge. They are unable and/or unwilling to fix the system from within. Systems generally are.
I think the Senate is broken so thoroughly that the only cure is to abolish it, along with the electoral college, corporate “citizenship” and their “free speech”, private financing of elections, the appointment process for judges, financial sector impunity, and even the federalist concept itself. Jefferson never intended or expected the Constitution to last this long, nor to become a secular religious artifact. Until we face up to the need for a Constitutional Convention, we will live with the “shortcomings” until they destroy the country beyond all repair.