The Failure Option
Josh Marshall puzzles over what’s changed in American politics to make the 60 vote threshold so difficult to overcome, and argues that “we’re also deluding ourselves if we do not figure in a large role for larger structural changes in our politics. Simply put, the broader climate of political polarization in the country — a socio-political reality than transcends parliamentary rules — creates pressures for party coherence and party discipline that makes the resort to these tactics more and more the norm.”
There’s something to that. But I do think it’s worth emphasizing how one-sided efficacious minority party obstruction has been. The Bush administration wasn’t able to get its agenda through congress unscathed, but fundamentally they did achieved their main goals in terms of tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, substantially altering Medicare in 2003, and of course securing support for the invasion of Iraq and 2002. A big part of the difference here is that the post-1994 Republican Party appears to believe that, as a matter of political strategy, it makes sense to try to deal demoralizing defeats to the Democrats. Thus whereas in the past you might have a few dozen conservative pragmatists in the House of Representatives willing to say something like “I think your bill has a lot of problems; if you change in this way and that way and throw in a slice of pork I’ll vote for it” you now have zero such legislators.
From a policy point of view, this is too bad. It results in legislation that needs to cater to each and every picayune concern of each and every Democrat in an undue and inefficient manner. The problem, however, is that it’s by no means clear that the “make Obama fail” theory of politics is wrong. Had a few dozen House Republicans been willing to sign on to ACES or health reform in exchange for some substantive changes, then that would have (a) given moderate Democrats more political cover to vote “yes” if they wanted to and (b) given the Democratic leadership more leeway to permit vulnerable members to vote “no” if they felt they had to. Result—fewer good targets for the midterms while simultaneously making Obama and Pelosi look like more moderate, more bipartisan figures.
Maximal obstruction, in other words, seems to make sense. Tyler Cowen theorizes, plausibly, that public anxiety about the deficit is a proxy for a sense of public anxiety about dysfunctional politics. But if the minority can make politics dysfunctional and then turn public anxiety about dysfunction into a rebuke for the incumbent majority, then we’re going to be trapped in a cycle in which politics is dysfunctional indeed.
97 Responses to “The Failure Option”
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November 24th, 2009 at 10:11 am
“If”?
November 24th, 2009 at 10:14 am
But I do think it’s worth emphasizing how one-sided efficacious minority party obstruction has been. The Bush administration wasn’t able to get its agenda through congress unscathed, but fundamentally they did achieved their main goals in terms of tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, substantially altering Medicare in 2003, and of course securing support for the invasion of Iraq and 2002 [sic].
Their main goals included Social Security reform and immigration reform, which they didn’t get–in fact the whole second term was pretty much a bust as far as Congress was concerned. And there wasn’t efficacious minority party obstruction to the 2001 tax cuts, Medicare expansion, and the invasion of Iraq because a lot of members of the minority party were willing participants in all those causes.
The only really clear case of the GOP ramming something through is the 2003 tax cuts. Other than that, they either had a lot of willing support from Democrats, or they failed.
Maximal obstruction, in other words, seems to make sense.
Maybe for 2010, if the economy is a net liability for the Democrats and depresses Democratic turnout. After that, I think their failure to rebuild the Republican brand is going to be a huge problem for them.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:17 am
There’s something to that. But I do think it’s worth emphasizing how one-sided efficacious minority party obstruction has been.
I’ve spent decades trying to figure out the Democrats.
Their weird, craven passivity in the face of the Republicans is only #3 on the rap sheet (after DLC centrism and ineptness in communication) , but it’s the most puzzling one. The Republicans were able to dominate Congress with tiny majorities (and with the polls often against them), whereas the Democrats are helpless with 60 votes in the Senate. The Republicans made slaves of their so-called moderates, whereas the Democrats’ so-called moderates run wild.
What they do makes the most sense if you don’t believe that they’re in good faith. The majority are both corrupt (bought and paid for) and ideologically center-right on most issues. They need liberal votes to be elected, so they create as much ambiguity and hope as possible, but they’re liars. They don’t want the same things that the people who vote for them want.
They will always say “I’d like to do this, but it’s too radical for the American people”, but that’s not true. The poloing is good on the public option, for example. At best, they mean that it’s too much for their donors, and at worst, they mean that they’re looking after their own business interests.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:18 am
As with much that is wrong about our democracy, the problem ultimately is with the voters. Why should a political strategy of obstruction of the majority, coupled with recent history that your party’s alternatives do not work, be successful?
November 24th, 2009 at 10:21 am
As with much that is wrong about our democracy, the problem ultimately is with the voters.
That’s such an easy, blame-the-victims answer. You have to look at the big players first, and at the structure of how politics works. Liberals love to blame the stupid voters, but liberals tend to be morons too.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Let’s be honest — the Dems are phucking pussies. Except for SS, they rolled over for Bush at every opportunity.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:24 am
Maybe for 2010, if the economy is a net liability for the Democrats and depresses Democratic turnout. After that, I think their failure to rebuild the Republican brand is going to be a huge problem for them.
Jesus Christ, you’re willing to spot the Republicans the next election. Democratic stratagery is another weak point.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:26 am
“But if the minority can make politics dysfunctional…”
This construction is simply a lie to support Matthew’s corrupt bosses.
It’s not the minority that is making politics dysfunctional.
It’s the White House which has demanded that healthcare be passed with a 60 votes process instead of with a 50 vote process.
The Republicans had no ability to demand a 60 vote process. The problem rests with the “Democratic” administration, not the Republicans.
—–
It’s worth noting that this is the fundamental lie we’ve been getting out of the WH and its apologists for the past 6 months. Without this lie, their entire pseudo-intellectual case collapses.
And folks ought to get to know this lie. It’s going to repeated for years to come to justify the WH’s continued unwillingness to deliver for the public good.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Sure the job of the opposition is to oppose, but it’s the job of the majority to govern. If the old filibuster rules worked okay because the opposition felt some need for restraint, but now the opposition doesn’t feel need for restraint, then the rules no longer work. It’s up to the Democrats–as the ruling party–to state that the rules are not working and that they need to be changed. It’s the height of institutional decadence to let your fetish for gentlemanly procedure trump your constitutional responsibilities.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:28 am
John Emerson,
I’m not so sure what is hard to understand about Democratic members of Congress elected in districts or states where they rely on the support of at least a substantial percentage of non-Democrats and conservatives not always behaving like loyal progressives. And national polling on various issues doesn’t rebut that more specific point–in fact issue polling in general doesn’t rebut that point, because it doesn’t correlate neatly with voting outcomes.
And by the way, this used to be true of Republicans members of Congress elected in districts or states where they relied on at least substantial support from non-Republicans and liberals: they weren’t always loyal conservatives, which isn’t a particularly mysterious outcome. Then the GOP decided it would impose “discipline” on its “RINOs”, and now most of them have lost their offices or retired (or, in at least one notable case, become a Democrat).
So the tough one to explain is not the behavior of the Democrats. The tough one to explain is the behavior of the Republicans, who seem to be hell-bent on turning themselves into not just a minority party, but maybe no better than a regional party.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Only if you don’t give two shits about governing, solving problems, the needs of citizens, “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind”, and so on.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:35 am
I think this is it. It’s pretty irrational to continually interpret someone’s not doing what you want them to do as ‘cowardice’ or ‘ineptitude’ under the assumption that of course they want the same things that you do.
I think the main impetuses include the Democratic leadership’s and Democratic Party institutional / consultancy complex’s desire to establish / maintain its brand as the most effective and rational of the representatives of the U.S.’ uppermost class (and their corporate manifestations), and one way of doing so is to always undermining any actual liberal or left policy which favors the vast majority over the uppermost few, and also general war-hawking.
Going along with Republicans in the guise of knuckling under is a very good way for many politicians and their ideological soulmates to come up with an excuse for why they do so.
I mean, they know that Democratic voters are much more likely to vote for Democratic ‘wafflers’ and ‘cowards’ than they are people who openly declare allegiance to the Republicans’ goals.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:41 am
“Liberals love to blame the stupid voters, but liberals tend to be morons too.”
That’s certainly how this particular WH approaches things.
We’ll see in November 2010 when the left sits on its hands just how well that attitude works out for them.
(Of course, if one assumes the WH wants big Republican gains in 2010 to both help them in 2012 and to take away any pressure to pass legislation for the public good, then it’ll work out just fine for them.)
The gap between the interests of the WH and the interests of the Democratic Party gets wider every day.
Too bad we don’t have a Democratic WH. A lot of good could be accomplished if we did.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Democracy cannot function without a free and active press. This has been well-known since the beginning of the Republic.
Basically what we have now is a mix of hyper-partisan sources (Fox, talk radio and blogs), content-free mass media “news” outlets focused entirely on horse race stories and trivia (cable and network news), local newspapers that are just ads and wire stories and little else, and then a few semi-decent national newspapers that virtually nobody reads.
It’s a serious problem.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:45 am
“It’s the White House which has demanded that healthcare be passed with a 60 votes process instead of with a 50 vote process.”
Yeah! Whenever the rules don’t fit your particular needs of the moment, change ‘em! And then when those new rules don’t fit tomorrow, change ‘em again! And again! And again! There’s no way anything bad could ever result from doing so! Damn you Obama!
Mike
November 24th, 2009 at 10:47 am
“The gap between the interests of the WH and the interests of the Democratic Party gets wider every day.”
And if Democrats and liberals had recognized that under Clinton, we might have avoided most of this whole flippin’ mess in the first place.
Mike
November 24th, 2009 at 10:49 am
You’d think it wouldn’t be so hard to defuse these concerns by shouting from the rooftops that the Senate health bill runs a $140 billion surplus between now and 2019. I bet the average American who’s paying some attention has heard someone from the GOP complain about a trillion dollar bill but isn’t aware that it’s more than paid for.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Why should a political strategy of obstruction of the majority, coupled with recent history that your party’s alternatives do not work, be successful?
Basically because only 1/3 of the Senate is elected at a time. But that is ultimately a temporary protection from self-destructive tendencies.
Jesus Christ, you’re willing to spot the Republicans the next election.
In case you didn’t notice, I am not in a position to dictate Democratic political strategy. I am just a guy in the Internet making a prediction: if the economy is a net liability for the Democrats in 2010, then probably their blanket obstruction is a decent short-term strategy for the Republicans. That said, it wouldn’t surprise me if they found a way to screw that up, or if the economy had recovered enough by the 2010 election to make that prediction inoperative.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:52 am
This thread has a lot of good possible reasons to explain why, since the conservative “revolution”, Democrats never manage to pass a single really liberal reform.
But whatever the explanation, the result is not surprising, it is in fact anything but: the rich get their way.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:53 am
The American people are generally aware of the outlines of the problem. But the Senate is not really a democratic institution, so expecting a democratic solution will be futile. Expecting another kind of solution may be futile too, but the Senate has got to want to change. And it’s not like it hasn’t happened before, and in my lifetime even!
November 24th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Tyler Cowen theorizes, glibly,
Fixed.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:53 am
The silver lining for me is that we are electing some pretty good new members of both houses that are speaking out. The goal for me in 2010 is to make sure the congresspeople who are willing to stand tall are rewarded and reelected with the largest possible majority to serve as a lesson for the weak-kneed. We so need Howard Dean back.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Because most democrats are moderates. I forget the exact number, but according to one poll, registered Dems were something like 55 percent moderate, 35 percent liberal and 10 percent conservative. You add that to the fact that the moderates have the big corporate money and that many Dem senators are representing red states, and it is no surprise that the Democrats are essentially a center right party in practice.
This is going to change though as the demographics of the party change. In the 2016 Democratic primaries, blacks and hispanics should be casting over a third of the ballot so whoever wins is probably gonna be pretty far left.
Ofcourse, that still leaves the problem of the blue dogs in the House and Senate. Well, it looks likely that 2010 will pretty much eliminate blue dogs in the House and the next 3 cycles will probably eliminate moderate Dems in the Senate. The end result will be two much more politically pure parties. And that will be a good thing.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:56 am
A couple important things to keep in mind:
(1) progressive Democrats aren’t in the majority in either house of Congress; and
(2) most of the non-progressive Democrats haven’t been shy about telling people they are non-progressive.
So yes, if progressives thought Democratic majorities in Congress automatically meant progressive majorities in Congress, they were making a mistake. But they weren’t lied to–I guess they just weren’t paying attention.
Oh, and Petey still hasn’t offered proof that there are 50 votes in the Senate to use a 50-vote process to pass health care reform. But, of course, anyone who doesn’t immediately agree with Petey’s unfounded speculation is a LIAR.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:56 am
“Yeah! Whenever the rules don’t fit your particular needs of the moment, change ‘em! … Damn you Obama!”
No rules need to be changed to pass healthcare reform with a 50 vote process.
Reconciliation instructions on healthcare were included in the budget language passed this past spring. A 50 vote process on healthcare is already in the “rules”.
The Senate leadership wanted to go to reconciliation, but the “Democratic” WH demanded a 60 vote process.
We are in a 60 vote process on healthcare for one reason, and one reason only: the demands of the “Democratic” WH.
The WH’s apologists fervently try to rebut this and have for month, but there is a word for folks who fervently try to rebut the basic facts…
November 24th, 2009 at 10:59 am
No Mike, you have it exactly wrong. If the Democrats would have stood behind Clinton and told the Republicans to go fuck themselves then we might have avoided all of this.
Clinton made the whole process of governing look so easy (look, prosperity and a balanced budget while the fuckwits are impeaching me) that the electorate thought that any moron could do it.
So they elected a moron.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:59 am
We are in a 60 vote process on healthcare for one reason, and one reason only: the demands of the “Democratic” WH.
The White House now controls the Senate?
November 24th, 2009 at 11:01 am
But whatever the explanation, the result is not surprising, it is in fact anything but: the rich get their way.
More accurately, absent a lot of factors aligning for an extended period of time, the status quo tends to win.
Now of course the status quo is usually pretty favorable to rich–after all, they got rich under it. But when the rich want a lot of legislative change in their favor, they also tend to run into trouble.
And all that is deliberate design on the part of the framers of the Constitution. Arguably the Senate has now overshot even their intentions with the current practice of the filibuster, but the general bias in favor of the status quo was planned (and pretty well executed).
November 24th, 2009 at 11:02 am
The Senate leadership wanted to go to reconciliation . . .
Since this is such a definitive statement, I assume the supporting proof is forthcoming.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Two points about Congressional Democrats:
First, as parochial and maddening Senate and House Blue Dog Democrats are, the caucus is actually substantially more progressive and cohesive today than it was the last time Democrats had a majority. Clinton’s 1993-1995 Congress was abysmal, and by the end of it he didn’t even have 50 Democratic votes for health care reform.
So the trend is in the right direction. Although I wonder whether it will take another spell of Republican dominance to actually make Democrats more solidly progressive.
Second, Democrats have an innate problem, especially in the Senate, that is structural. Democratic votes and liberal votes are concentrated in larger, urbanized states, while Republicans are spread more thinly in smaller, more rural states. In an even presidential election like 2000 for example, Republicans could win 30 states to Democrats’ 20.
What that means is that any Democratic majority will necessarily rest on Democrats being elected from right-leaning states. By contrast, Republicans can win a majority relying far more solidly on red states. That dramatically effects party-unity scores.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:09 am
“anyone who doesn’t immediately agree with Petey’s unfounded speculation is a LIAR”
My “unfounded speculation” is shared the Democratic Senate leadership, but you know this already. My “unfounded speculation” was already passed as part of the budget language this past spring, but you know this already.
You, DTM, are a congenital liar. You lie both when when you’re defending causes where you don’t have the facts on your side and when you’re defending causes where you do have the facts on your side, which is what makes the condition congenital. But at least you’ll have company in your lies for a while amongst the paid WH shills like Matthew…
November 24th, 2009 at 11:09 am
So yes, if progressives thought Democratic majorities in Congress automatically meant progressive majorities in Congress, they were making a mistake. But they weren’t lied to–I guess they just weren’t paying attention.
Or maybe they were paying too much attention and read the Democratic Party platform before the 2008 elections. So much naivety!
Now I happen to think DTM is wrong and that people who voted for the Democrats in 2008 really wanted, among other things, an end to those stupid wars (even though Obama promised more blood in Afghanistan, his opponent was making jokes about bombing Iran so…) and a liberal reform of the health care system.
But I have to wonder, what are exactly “moderates” non-”progressives” (like DTM I presume) hoping for when they vote Democrat, if it’s not more or less liberal or “progressive” reforms? What does the Democratic party stand for besides that, more subsidies to Wall Street, or just doing nothing at all?
November 24th, 2009 at 11:13 am
My “unfounded speculation” is shared the Democratic Senate leadership, but you know this already.
Proof, please.
My “unfounded speculation” was already passed as part of the budget language this past spring.
The budget reserved the option to use reconciliation. It didn’t specify that was the preferred option.
So Petey still has no proof. What a surprise.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:13 am
But when the rich want a lot of legislative change in their favor, they also tend to run into trouble.
Uh, yeah, like the Bush tax cuts giving them hundreds of billions in taxpayer money. So much trouble, having to find new ways to spend all that money…
November 24th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Or maybe they were paying too much attention and read the Democratic Party platform before the 2008 elections. So much naivety!
This is exactly right. If you thought a Democratic majority in Congress necessarily meant the party platform was going to be enacted, you were being very naive.
Now I happen to think DTM is wrong and that people who voted for the Democrats in 2008 really wanted . . .
I made no claim about what people who voted for Democrats in 2008 wanted, although speaking of them as a hive-mind makes little sense to me.
what are exactly “moderates” non-”progressives” (like DTM I presume) . . .
You presume wrong. I just don’t confuse what I want to happen with what is likely to happen.
. . . hoping for when they vote Democrat, if it’s not more or less liberal or “progressive” reforms?
This is a fascinating topic, actually. A certain percentage of voters are in fact issues driven, although there are so many orthogonal issues that you are still talking about a very diverse group of people. But then there are other voters who are more influenced by general sentiments, personalities, partisan loyalties, various group affinities, and so on. It is a really mess of different factors.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Uh, yeah, like the Bush tax cuts giving them hundreds of billions in taxpayer money. So much trouble, having to find new ways to spend all that money.
As I noted above, that is indeed one clear example of the GOP pushing through an item on their agenda.
But of course the “rich” had lots more failures under Bush. And even their victory on tax cuts is likely to be short-lived due to the process they had to use, although I would agree a lot of damage will be done in the meantime.
Of course progressives are not going to entirely fail under Obama either–and indeed haven’t already. The status quo is a tough opponent, but it can be beat.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:24 am
“The White House now controls the Senate?”
The WH is generally always able to control the actions of a Senate Majority Leader of its Party, which makes sense, given the power structure of American political parties and the levers of power each office controls.
If you review post WWII American history, the only partial exception to a WH’s dominance over a Senate Majority Leader of its Party a is the Carter-Byrd relationship, but the Carter WH didn’t use most of the normal levers of its office.
At the end of the day, Reid certainly could have tried to go against the WH’s wishes on this issue and proceeded to reconciliation in September. But he would have found himself an ex-Majority Leader quite quickly, and the defenestration very possibly would have occurred before the bill came to fruition.
The WH has only medium amounts of leverage over Committee Chairpeople of its Party, but an enormous amount of leverage over a Senate Majority Leader of its Party.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Of the major “achievements” of the Bush administration, the only one that was at all really controversial for the general public was the invasion of Iraq (tax cuts? a Medicare giveaway? Yeah that’s about as hard a sell as free lemonade on a hot summer day). Ok if you accept that then I don’t see how we can get through a whole discussion about how the Republicans foisted the invasion of Iraq on the American people without talking about September 11. The attacks gave the administration a carte blanche with a large segment of the country to invade whomever it pleased – totally irrational, ultimately destructive, but it’s impossible to ignore that that’s what happened.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:28 am
“The budget reserved the option to use reconciliation”
The congenital liar concedes a fact that he shouldn’t have conceded if he wishes to properly use the tools of sophistry to defend his dishonest position.
So what is the mechanism for now proceeding to reconciliation, Mr or Ms Congenital Liar?
(Seriously, are you Kent Conrad? You echo him eerily…)
November 24th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Too bad only one party adopts it.
I know that seems cruel — “we don’t want to stoop to their level” and all of that BS. But the fact is that we are substantially trimming our wings right now, and the very likely result will simply be to hoard a little bit of money for the next Republican president to blow on deeply conservative policies.
Right about now I think a lot of Democrats are feeling like the early cavalry sent to storm WWI trenches only to hit barbed wire and machine guns.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Petey, “congenital” means you inherited it from your parents. Do you know something about DTM’s parents that the rest of us don’t?
November 24th, 2009 at 11:35 am
At the end of the day, Reid certainly could have tried to go against the WH’s wishes on this issue and proceeded to reconciliation in September. But he would have found himself an ex-Majority Leader quite quickly, and the defenestration very possibly would have occurred before the bill came to fruition.
Good grief. You are nuts.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:41 am
“Petey, “congenital” means you inherited it from your parents. Do you know something about DTM’s parents that the rest of us don’t?”
See Merriam-Webster’s definition of “congenital”:
The second definition is what is common usage for folks like DTM and Kent Conrad. If you lie both when it serves your purposes and also when it doesn’t serve your purposes, you have a congenital issue that has nothing at all to do with heredity.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:47 am
“But if the minority can make politics dysfunctional and then turn public anxiety about dysfunction into a rebuke for the incumbent majority, then we’re going to be trapped in a cycle in which politics is dysfunctional indeed.”
It seems to me that this is the core of the American conservative worldview: Government simply cannot be trusted to work, and we will prove it by obstructing any positive use of government and by misusing power when we get it.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:48 am
“Good grief. You are nuts.”
We’ve witnessed a WH defenestrating a Senate Majority Leader of its Party who wasn’t doing its every bidding within the past decade. You don’t even need to refer to the history books to see an example.
Being Senate Majority Leader when the WH is of your Party is one of the most constrained jobs in all of Washington.
If you become an enemy in the WH’s eyes, you lose your levers of power even if you are able to maintain your position.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
I see some problems here:
So Democrats have to hew to the wishes of non-Democrats, but pointing out that this should be true of Republicans as well is met with “well, that’s different”? Where is the falsifiable statement in here? The same holds true here:
This isn’t a prediction; this is hedging your bets. Finally:
Words like “progessive” and “liberal” sure do take a beating, don’t they? I’ve been called a “liberal” on the strength of my opposition to the invasion and occupation of Iraq(or adventures in Afghanistan.) But since most people feel the U.S. shouldn’t be there either, I am puzzled as to how a clear majority could be labeled as anything other than “moderate”. Ditto for many other issues as well, for example, the inclusion of a public option in any sort of health care reform. That being noted, what you’re really saying then is that you agree with those who say that Congress is to the right – whatever that means – of the American public.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
John Emerson — “What they do makes the most sense if you don’t believe that they’re in good faith. The majority are both corrupt (bought and paid for) and ideologically center-right on most issues.”
Exactly.
You can understand nearly everything in recent American politics by keeping this in mind:
The Republican Party is a coalition of Center-Right and Far Right politicians. It is bought and paid for by corporate interests, wealthy donors, conservative religious groups, and single-issue conservative interest groups.
The Democratic Party is a coalition that ranges from the Center-Left to the Center-Right. It is funded by a mishmash of labor and corporate interests, wealthy donors, moderate religious groups, and single issue interest groups running the full gamut from liberal to conservative.
One of these parties is built to wield power in the service of ideology whenever they win elections and build an ad hoc bipartisan center-right coalition to obstruct legislation whenever they lose elections. The other party is built to accomplish virtually nothing when in power and fail to obstruct legislation whenever they are out of power.
Unfortunately, I don’t see any way for this scenario to change until the electorate becomes less conservative. An ideologically coherent Center-Left party would be unlikely to control Congress for any length of time.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
“Liberals tend to be morons” doesn’t exactly refute the idea that the voters are dumb and to blame for, well, everything. One problem I have with progressives is their total unwillingness to assign any blame to the voters, and to put undying faith in democracy (even though it is a terrible system, as the founding fathers knew).
The simple fact is that in a democratic republic, the voters are ultimately the cause of all good and all bad that happens. The current problem isn’t with the filibuster. The filibuster stopped a lot of bad from happening (SS privatization for example). The problem is the senators, and thus the voters who elected them.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
DTM’s coolly intelligent approach would be more plausible if he actually were intelligent.
Most Republicans aren’t hard-core conservatives either, but the Republicans were organized on the “majority of the majority” principle, which meant that the hard conservative core dominated. The Democrats are organized one the “obey Lieberman” principle.
Why did Obama start off talking about bipartisanship, given what he knows about the Republicans? Why did the Democrats start off bargaining with their compromise final offer, public option, instead of single payer, which is what many of them actually want? Why did they accept the need for 60-votes immediately, when the Republicans didn’t in the past? (As far as that goes, why didn’t the Democrats filibuster more when they were in the minority?)
There will always be justifications for Democratic failures, but justifying failure shouldn’t always be the central task.
And may I say again, spotting the Republicans 2010 in the calm assurance that they’re going to fall apart by 2012 is just imbecile. The Republicans are a mess now, but they’l regroup, and unless the economy turns around in a big way I expect them to be back in condition in three years. Relying on the tide of history doesn’t usually work very well.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
I guess the justification for that attitude is that it’s somehow “better” to have a theoretically filibuster-proof majority built on those disloyal Democrats, even those 60 votes don’t actually help you overcome routine filibusters in practice. So the Republicans are “failing” in numerical terms b/c they’re a small minority, when as a practical matter they seem to enjoy almost as much power to drive the agenda & media narrative as Obama himself.
At least that seems to be the prevailing narrative about why Republican rigidity is a problem — but I have to say I don’t see it. If you’re going to face a filibuster and make painful bargains with moderates ANYWAY, what’s the benefit of trying to hold 60 votes? I’d rather just have 50-some Democrats genuinely interested in advancing some element of the progressive agenda than face the year of strangulation the healthcare bill has gone through. I understand that you might need to make painful bargains with people like Max Baucus or Joe Lieberman, but that certainly shouldn’t start on day one of the process.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
The simple fact is that in a democratic republic, the voters are ultimately the cause of all good and all bad that happens.
Oh, for Christ’s sake. What else did your Sunday school teacher tell you?
Our system of government was designed to give voters some influence, but not very much, and additional layers of intermediation (e.g. the Senate rules) have been continually added.
One kind of liberal takes comfort in defeat by blaming stupid voters, which is one of the reasons why I’ve more or less given up. That’s stupid loser behavior and preening vanity. Their conceit is exasperating, given their thoughtlessness.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
I will also add that “At That Point, We Had to Pass Something!” is not going to be a particularly useful message to drive turnout next year or in 2012. The more the Democratic agenda caters to our moderates, the more likely we are to lose big in upcoming elections.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
The better solution is to just forget about reconciliation and use the nuclear option (needing only 51 votes) to end the filibuster once and for all. Then everything (healthcare, cap and trade, EFCA, reregulation) could be passed with 51 votes.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
If you become an enemy in the WH’s eyes, you lose your levers of power even if you are able to maintain your position.
Reconciliation vs. cloture is cause for a duel?
November 24th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Read this on CA: http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/californias-crisis-and-the-collapse-of-the-republican-party/
In 94, the CA Republicans hitched their wagons to anti-Mexican racism, just as the national Republicans hitched their wagons to Southern resentment. The electoral logic is taking longer to play out at the national level due to demographics, but it’s the same: you start by appealing to racial antagonism as a swing strategy and it quickly captures you. With no hope of a majority, you end up with a self-reinforcing culture of No Compromise. I suspect there are parallels with the No Snitching movement, but I’m not enough of a game theorist to elucidate them.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
“Unfortunately, I don’t see any way for this scenario to change until the electorate becomes…”
Meh.
It’s not so hard. You just need a leader who’s elected on a valid political organizing principle.
For example, Bill Clinton got elected President with a political organizing principle of focusing on the economic concerns of the middle class. And whadya know? He then produced the first and only administration since LBJ that actually raised median wages.
(Tangentially, consider how utterly amazing it is that 7 out of the 8 most recent administrations have produced failing median wages…)
On the other hand, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama got elected President with an “organizing principle” of their personal characteristics. They both then found it difficult to navigate an effective political course, since their elective identities weren’t tied to any particular political organizing principle. (Eisenhower experienced the same issues on the other side of the aisle.)
The electorate is just fine. Results in the interest of the public good can be produced with the current electorate. The problem lies with the Democratic opinion-makers who don’t understand that there is a purpose to politics beyond the symbolic.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
when as a practical matter they seem to enjoy almost as much power to drive the agenda & media narrative as Obama himself.
Back in 2006, the Republicans had 55 Senate votes and they now have 40. Hmm…
November 24th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Most Republicans aren’t hard-core conservatives either, but the Republicans were organized on the “majority of the majority” principle, which meant that the hard conservative core dominated.
And then they lost a bunch of elections. Again, it is THEIR behavior which is hard to explain on the basis of rational self-interest.
Why did . . .
The answer to all those questions is that the conservative Democrats in Congress demanded this approach, and the progressive Democrats in Congress can’t do anything at all without them. If progressives want to do things entirely their way, they need to get progressive-only majorities.
As far as that goes, why didn’t the Democrats filibuster more when they were in the minority?
Because a lot of times a lot of Democrats were willing participants in the measures in question.
If you’re going to face a filibuster and make painful bargains with moderates ANYWAY, what’s the benefit of trying to hold 60 votes?
Because the most annoying Democrat is still more helpful to progressives than the least annoying Republican.
The real upshot to all this is that if you want more progressive outcomes out of Congress, you need to elect more progressives to Congress. That isn’t a counterintuitive conclusion and may not be emotionally satisfying, but complaining about people who are not in Congress or suggesting progressives would be better off making the 51st-60th votes into much more conservative Republicans aren’t actually solutions.
Oh, and Petey still has no proof. It is amazing what Petey’s fragile ego drives him to do–a more self-confident person would long ago simply have admited he made a basic logical mistake in his initial analysis and moved on. But Petey can’t admit mistakes, and his only other idea is to attack those pointing out his mistakes, and keep doubling down on those attacks. By the time he is done, I fully expect him to be suggesting that those who wonder if there are really 50 votes for a 50-vote process have invented a time machine and gone back and spiked health care under Truman too.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
“Reconciliation vs. cloture is cause for a duel?”
You’re missing the whole point here. When the WH and the Senate Majority Leader are of the same Party, a deadly confrontation between the two is not a duel. It is an execution.
In a duel, both sides are armed.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
There are zero examples of Bush-era policies that failed despite near-unanimous GOP congressional support.
And there won’t be under Obama/comprehensive-Democratic support either, at least not under the current composition of Congress. The specific problem is people don’t like the compromises necessary to get to that point.
That said, it is true that Bush had a greater margin of error on many issues thanks to a lot of Democrats being willing to work with him on those issues. So the fact that very few, and sometimes no, Republicans are willing to work with Obama on most issues makes a big difference in terms of how far Obama has to compromise with the most marginal members of his own party.
But I thought Matt was trying to avoid that conclusion.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Our system of government was designed to give voters some influence, but not very much
You are correct, but most of those layers (a working electoral college, election of senators by states, ect) have been removed. Even the senate rules which you cite have been made more democratic. Until WW1, a single senator could filibuster. Between WW1 and the late 1970s 2/3 of the senate (67 votes currently) were needed to break a filibuster. What has changed was not the addition of anti-democratic rules, but the prolifergate overuse of some of the weakened anti-democratic rules. The fact that the filibuster is slowing healthcare reform, but stopped SS privatization and ANWAR, show that anti-democratic rules aren’t always bad. It is the idiots who are elected to the senate that are the problem.
One kind of liberal takes comfort in defeat by blaming stupid voters, which is one of the reasons why I’ve more or less given up. That’s stupid loser behavior and preening vanity. Their conceit is exasperating, given their thoughtlessness.
You dismiss the possibility that the voters actually are stupid. It seems you start out with the assumption that this simply cannot be the case, and so anyone claiming it is rationalizing defeat. I think the 2004 election should have answered this question once and for all.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
“It is amazing what Petey’s fragile ego drives him to do–a more self-confident person would long ago simply have admited he made a basic logical mistake in his initial analysis and moved on.”
What is my basic logic mistake, Mr or Ms Congenital Liar?
You’ve admitted upthread something that defeats your own sophistry. Now that you have, what is the mechanism for proceeding to reconciliation, Mr or Ms Congenital Liar?
Has the Senate Leadership made the same “basic logic mistake” that you say I made, Mr or Ms Congenital Liar?
November 24th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
And then they [the Gingrich-Delay-Hastert Republicans] lost a bunch of elections
This is a key point. A lot of the top Democrats are election wonks for whom winning elections is the sole goal. That’s what they make their living doing. Some of them are pretty good at it (Jack Morris), some awful (Shrum), but winning elections is what they do. But when the chips were down, Karl Rove out wonked them and whipped their asses.
But for the Rove-Bush-Gingrich-Delay-Haster Republicans, winning elections was not an end, but the means to an end, and that was making and controlling policy. They took a lot of chances, and 1994-2004 they had an amazing string of victories, and they transformed this nation with tax cuts, and authoritarian transformation of the legal system, the appointment of reactionary judges, the institutionalization of permanent war, and a variety of other large and small actions and blockings of action.
The loser Democratic wonks are trying to make the Republicans looks like failures because they finally lost, but that’s self-serving BS. During that period we got our asses whipped, no thanks to the loser wonks. And we’ve hardly crawled out of the hole yet.
Escuses for failure is the only thing that Democratic wonks are any good at.
November 24th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
You dismiss the possibility that the voters actually are stupid.
No, I say that people in politics have to work with the actual population that exists. Given the actual US political system, either you do that, you become apolitical, or you dedicate yourself to minority politics (democratic centralism and interest-group politics). You can’t be a Democrats.
Whining about the stupidity of the electorate is usually a self-pitying loser cop out. Voeter education ahs always been a prime political task, but the Democrats quit trying decades ago, whereas the Republicans have invested billions.
And DTM, I don’t really deny that the Democrats aren’t progressive and I absolutely agree that we need to elect more progressives. But I think that a lot of them are not frank either about how unprogressive they are or about their motives. For example, Sen. Lincoln says she’s doing it for The People of Arkansas, but the people of Arkansas both want and desperately need healthcare reform. Blanche is responding to something she isn’t telling us about.
November 24th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
I’m not so sure what is hard to understand about Democratic members of Congress elected in districts or states where they rely on the support of at least a substantial percentage of non-Democrats and conservatives not always behaving like loyal progressives.
While you’re at the explaining game, can you explain to me the worldview underlying Lieberman’s pronouncements on the public option?
November 24th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
I’d also say this: when polled on packages of individual issues, people poll significantly more “liberal” than they do when asked whether they are liberal, moderate, or conservative. The Republicans have been successful in tainting the liberal brand by identifying it with Willy Horton and a million other horrors.
There’s some slack or free play in that difference. But the Democratic leadership for many years has consistently stuck to the centrist interpretation — “The People Are Centrist” — and have generally failed or refused to capitalize on the issue-by-issue results.
To me this is evidence (and I’ll agree with DTm once more) that a lot of Democrats (not just Blue Dogs) are less progressive than they pretend to be. This is an intelligible explanation of their tactical weakness: they only want to win on some issues.
November 24th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
And so they can’t control committees. Their members are missing some of the traditionally valued perks of power in Washington.
But from the basis of driving policy who cares? They are still fundamentally driving the debate. Is there ANY Democratic equivalent to the kind of media access Sarah Palin got by posting nonsense about “death panels” on her Facebook page? That’s not just b/c she’s a celebrity-pol, it’s because the Senate GOP immediately validated her complaints and forced them into the debate. Obama had to address a joint session of Congress to achieve similar impact.
Our party is currently set up to maximize winning elections, not to enact policy. That’s a problem, because the simple number of seats the party holds in Congress is nearly irrelevant to this game.
November 24th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
No, I say that people in politics have to work with the actual population that exists. Given the actual US political system, either you do that, you become apolitical, or you dedicate yourself to minority politics
Nothing in that statement whatsoever counters my claim that voters are stupid. If anything it merely expands on it.
Whining about the stupidity of the electorate is usually a self-pitying loser cop out. Voeter education ahs always been a prime political task, but the Democrats quit trying decades ago, whereas the Republicans have invested billions.
The fact that voters are more stupid now than they were before is not because democrats haven’t done as much education. If anything, with the help of the internet and 24/7 ‘news’ networks they have been doing far more education. Progressives have also invested large amounts of money in progressive infrastructure like the Center for American Progress and Media Matters.
‘Whining’ about the stupidity of the voters is not a ‘loser cop out’ if it is true.
November 24th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
What is my basic logic mistake?
That 50 votes for Bill X on the merits means there are 50 votes to use a 50-vote process to pass Bill X. You made that mistake in a lot of your posts, although just now seem to have backed off it. If you weren’t such a fragile person, that could be the end of all this nonsense.
But I think that a lot of them are not frank either about how unprogressive they are or about their motives.
I think you are on stronger ground when it comes to their motives not always being honestly stated. On their political valance, these people haven’t been hiding the ball very much–they have made it quite clear they don’t consider themselves progressives/liberals, and will favor bipartisanship over partisanship where possible.
But the Democratic leadership for many years has consistently stuck to the centrist interpretation — “The People Are Centrist” — and have generally failed or refused to capitalize on the issue-by-issue results.
I agree that many now-older Democratic officials went into a kind of shock after the 1980s elections, misinterpreted the implications, and are still not exploiting some notable opportunities as a result. So in addition to electing more progressives, I agree there may be some room to work on the understanding of some of the now-old-guard Democrats–but these are in fact typically older and risk-averse folks, so that is going to take a lot of persuasion despite what I agree is a largely meritorious argument.
While you’re at the explaining game, can you explain to me the worldview underlying Lieberman’s pronouncements on the public option?
Not to my satisfaction–I’ve said before that Lieberman is the one Senator I don’t feel like I understand very well, and that does in fact concern me.
That said, Lieberman would never have gotten re-elected without becoming the de facto Republican candidate as well as holding on to some residual loyalty from some Democrats. What I don’t understand is how he could think that unique path to re-election could possibly be repeated if he is the lone holdout who joins a GOP filibuster of health care. But like I said, I’m not sure what game he is playing or why.
November 24th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
NS,
The GOP does get an unjustified amount of play and deference in the media, but I think you are WAY overstating their influence on policy. By refusing to do anything but obstruct, they are in fact increasing the power of the most marginal Democrats in their negotiations, but in the end the Democrats are still setting the agenda.
So again, the real problem is the marginal Democrats in Congress. The Republicans get a lot of press, but are basically irrelevant to the actual legislative process at this point.
November 24th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
“That 50 votes for Bill X on the merits means there are 50 votes to use a 50-vote process to pass Bill X. You made that mistake in a lot of your posts, although just now seem to have backed off it.”
What have I backed off of, Mr or Ms Congenital Liar?
And again, what is the mechanism for proceeding to reconciliation, Mr or Ms Congenital Liar?
“If you weren’t such a fragile person, that could be the end of all this nonsense.”
I think the “end of all this nonsense” is when you stop repeatedly lying in an effort to make your points. If you can’t make your points by coloring within the lines of the truth, your points likely aren’t worth making.
You’ve essentially got the Megan McArdle Disorder: bad politics that you try to put forward by congenitally lying.
November 24th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Petey, “congenital” means you inherited it from your parents. Do you know something about DTM’s parents that the rest of us don’t?
Point of pedantry, “congenital” means “from birth”, or, figuratively, “inveterate”. Down syndrome is congenital but not inherited.
November 24th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
What have I backed off of?
In your last few posts, you are no longer claiming that if there are 50 votes for a particular bill on the merits, that means there are 50 votes to pass that bill through a 50-vote process.
Now you are just claiming–again without any actual proof–that the Senate leadership wanted to use reconciliation, but the White House told them no. Again, I can only assume you have made up this story because your fragile ego won’t let you simply admit that you originally made a logic mistake, and that you don’t actually know the answer to the relevant question.
It is OK, Petey. People make mistakes. People sometimes don’t know things. You are human–you can forgive yourself.
November 24th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
No, Adam, you’re stupid and ignorant, at least if you’re a Democrat.
Open Left published a political demographic just recently. Obama did LEAST well among college graduates, broke even with “some college”, and did well with the least educated and the most educated. The 10% of the electorate with postgraduate degrees were strongly for Obama, but are you seriously imagining a world in which everyone has post-graduate degrees? Within the 90% remaining, the least educated are most Democratic and the most educated are least Democratic.
Furthermore, when imbecile Democrats whine about stupid voters they play into the hands of the Hans Spakovsky vote-restriction specialists in the Republican Party. The higher the turnout, the higher the low-income turnout, and the higher the uneducated turnout the better the Democrats do. Dozens of times I’ve heard Democrats talk about how the problem is stupid voters, and that’s only true if you restrict the electorate to no more than 20-30% of the population. If you cut off the stupidest (least educated) 10%, the Democrats lose.
Hard core rightists are not usually poor, not necessarily rural or Southern, and not usually uneducated. You can call them anything — deranged, delusionary, mean, bigoted, misinformed, authoritarian — but they’re not especially stupid and some are very smart.
Your little cliched blurt only makes sense if a.) you’re a Republican, b.) you propose that we restrict the franchise to about 20% or c.) you have chosen to withdraw from politics.
One of the enormous weaknesses of the Democrats during the last 20-30 years is voter education, which the Republicans have emphasized. If you don’t get the word out, people won’t get the word.
November 24th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
The fact that voters are more stupid now than they were before is not because democrats haven’t done as much education. If anything, with the help of the internet and 24/7 ‘news’ networks they have been doing far more education. Progressives have also invested large amounts of money in progressive infrastructure like the Center for American Progress and Media Matters.
You’re comparing a smallish 7-year program to a massive 40-year operation. During the preceding era the Democrats were strictly an every-two year campaign party, with little or no ongoing effort, and the recent improvement has come without much help from the Democrats, and in some cases in the face of Democratic opposition.
November 24th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
DTM, you do realize that you’re making Petey look good, don’t you. You have all this cool wisdom that adds up to nothing, and no one can even tell what you are trying to do except carry on a feud with Petey. When I talked about “Making escuses or failure is the Democrats’ greatest skill”, you were one of those I had in mind.
November 24th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
This is one sick thread.
November 24th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Petey: While you’re at the explaining game, can you explain to me the worldview underlying Lieberman’s pronouncements on the public option?
DTM: Not to my satisfaction–I’ve said before that Lieberman is the one Senator I don’t feel like I understand very well, and that does in fact concern me.
Nate Silver, whose rise to stardom was fueled by his being able to explain outcomes based on easily-identifiable variables, shares your bewilderment, DTM. See http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/10/somebody-buy-joe-lieberman-puppy.html
November 24th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Petey still hasn’t got past “assertion” to “proof” yet. He’s a bit like an Ugly American tourist who thinks that shouting in English will get him understood.
November 24th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
DTM, you do realize that you’re making Petey look good, don’t you.
That is among the many superpowers I don’t possess.
no one can even tell what you are trying to do except carry on a feud with Petey
I wouldn’t dignify our little running spat with the term “feud”, but yes, I haven’t claimed to be accomplishing anything in particular by pointing out Petey’s flawed reasoning.
When I talked about “Making escuses or failure is the Democrats’ greatest skill”, you were one of those I had in mind.
Accurately describing what is happening in the world isn’t the same thing as making excuses for what is happening in the world. It is also the first step in coming up with plans to improve conditions in the world that could actually work.
November 24th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Nate Silver, whose rise to stardom was fueled by his being able to explain outcomes based on easily-identifiable variables, shares your bewilderment, DTM.
Nate’s attention-hog theory is probably as plausible as any. Unfortunately it doesn’t make Joe any more predictable.
November 24th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
#78: Jason L, that wasn’t Petey, that was me. I’m a bit horrified at the confusion.
November 24th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Well, technically, that’s incorrect. Ahn “Joseph” Cao (R-LA) springs to mind.
November 24th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
And you plan to stand on the first step forever, from what I’ve seen. Feuding with Petey and pretending you’re doing something more noble than that. And the cool intelligence!
Why are we having this discussion? Because Democrats can’t win without liberals, but they can’t or don’t want to give them much. So the party bosses and wonks weasel and lie, and liberals have their feelings hurt and sit in bafflement. And if the liberals get mad, the machine Democrats go ballistic and start explaining how naive and unreasonable and unrealistic the liberal voters they need are, and the liberals cringe and shrink back into the fetal position.
Sherrod Brown won in Ohio, a swing state. Harkin won in Iowa, another swing state. Voinovich and Grassley are the other two Senators from those states. It can be done. But the Democrats (the leadership, the pros, the wonks, and DTM) don’t want to go that way, so they do what they can to make sure it doesn’t happen. Even in California we get Feinstein.
I agree with DTM again though: it’s up to liberals (and populists) to get their own trip together rather than hoping for the party to fix itself. But Petey’s more likely to contribute to that project than the cooly intelligent DTM.
November 24th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Making the tax cuts permanent. Wasn’t that one of Bush’s highest priorities, and one that no Republican would vote against?
That never happened. So he failed on that one. And opening up ANWR was opposed by a few GOP Senators, so that didn’t happen either.
November 24th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Lieberman’s feelings were hurt. He’s motivated by vanity and revenge. The way he’s going, no one will be at his funeral but family.
November 24th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
The Bush-Gingrich (etc.) strategy was to keep gambling until they lost. It was inevitable that they would lose eventually, given that strategy. I was sickened by their string of victories and the transformation of the country that took place, and I’m also sickened by the whistling in the dark here. Bush, Gingrich, and Delay were enormous successes. Sure, we lost, the country lost, but they succeeded.
If they had succeeded in destroying social security, that would have turned the clock back 70 years and would have destroyed the Democrats’ biggest success ever. They were deep in enemy territory, and defeating them is nothing to feel complacent about.
November 24th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Obama did LEAST well among college graduates, broke even with “some college”, and did well with the least educated and the most educated.
Education has little or nothing to do with intelligence. It has more to do with socioeconomic upbringing and maybe knowledge, but plenty of ’stupid’ people have degrees and plenty of smart people do not. It is foolish to use education level as a proxy for intelligence.
Hard core rightists are not usually poor, not necessarily rural or Southern, and not usually uneducated.
This is true. It is also true that many (maybe most) are quite smart. I know plenty of them. Living in Texas, I have always been surrounded by them. They have been difficult nuts to crack over these years but it seems to me that the underlying issue is a dissociation from reality caused by some underlying intellectual defect. It may be the consequence of group-think as well. If one assumes their fake facts to be true (Obama is a Muslim, healthcare in Europe is terrible, CRA is the cause of the economic collapse ect) then their arguments are quite logical and make a lot of sense. The problem is their belief in this fake reality.
November 24th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Education has little or nothing to do with intelligence. It has more to do with socioeconomic upbringing and maybe knowledge, but plenty of ’stupid’ people have degrees and plenty of smart people do not. It is foolish to use education level as a proxy for intelligence.
Absent any other proxy, what you’re saying is that “stupid” means “voted in a way that displeases me”. IQ tests would tell you about the same thing. What other proxy do you propose?
The answer is something other than intelligence.
November 24th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
What other proxy do you propose?
How about voting in a way that turns an $8 trillion surplus into an $8 trillion deficit, results in a war of choice that kills thousands of people, neglects global warming and is outright hostile to intellectualism and science, feuds over whether to save Terri Schiavo while trying to destroy Social Security, and very nearly destroys the world economy.
Voting for disaster would be the proxy I would use.
November 24th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
And disaster that was obvious to all in 2000 (debatable), 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2010.
November 24th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
And you plan to stand on the first step forever, from what I’ve seen.
What do you think we are doing here? This is just talk on the Internet. If anyone is confusing it with action in the real world, they are in deep trouble.
Sherrod Brown won in Ohio, a swing state. Harkin won in Iowa, another swing state. Voinovich and Grassley are the other two Senators from those states. It can be done. But the Democrats (the leadership, the pros, the wonks, and DTM) don’t want to go that way
You haven’t been paying attention. I’ve suggested over and over here that if progressives want more progressive outcomes out of Congress, their main priority should be switching the remaining GOP seats in blue/purple states like Ohio and Iowa (and Florida and NH and Maine and so on). So you are actually AGREEING with me here.
But Petey’s more likely to contribute to that project than the cooly intelligent DTM.
I make no claims to being the ideal public spokesperson for progressives. But you might want to assess Petey a little more carefully in light of his full record.
Bush, Gingrich, and Delay were enormous successes.
They had a lot more failures than successes and are going to leave almost no lasting policy legacies. On top of that they trashed their party, perhaps beyond repair. It really baffles me why some progressives keep lionizing these incompetents.
If they had succeeded in destroying social security . . .
They didn’t.
November 24th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
They had a lot more failures than successes and are going to leave almost no lasting policy legacies. On top of that they trashed their party, perhaps beyond repair. It really baffles me why some progressives keep lionizing these incompetents.
This is just delusional. Democrats are now playing under very restrictive rules set by the Republicans, both the political and legal rules and the brute fact that Obama has inherited a wrecked economy and two hopeless wars. Even if the tax cuts are repealed, there was still a decade or more of giveaways and crippled government, and we’ll be paying the cost for decades. Obama is rolling back only some of Bush’s authoritarian changes and seems to be continuing Bush’s war policy.
This that look like failures to you look like triumphs to them. And failing to repeal the New Deal is a mark of their ambition. It contrasts dramatically to what I’ve seen: the last three Democratic Presidents have never more than partly undone the damage their predecessor did, and they didn’t necessarily try very hard. The Republicans have been the aggressors since 1968, and on the net, they’ve won.
What do you think we are doing here? This is just talk on the Internet. If anyone is confusing it with action in the real world, they are in deep trouble. The cool superiority again. You’re so smart I could just cry. At the level we’re at you’ve just been flipping out digs at Petey (your non-feud partner) without putting any cards on the table.
And don’t be so complacent about 2012. The Republican problem is that they’ve relied heavily on crazies they’ve lost control of for now. Maybe they’ll be able to regroup, maybe not, but if unemployment is more than 10% in 2012, if the war isn’t going well, or if any of various other things happen, the Democrats might be weak by then too.
November 24th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Voting for disaster would be the proxy I would use.
So you’re happy with “Voting for Bush is stupid, and “stupid” is defined as “voted for Bush”.” OK. I thought you were saying something more specific.
November 24th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Re: The fact that the filibuster is slowing healthcare reform, but stopped SS privatization and ANWAR
Bush’s Social Security proposals never even made it out of committee. There was no filibuster. The GOP dropped it like a hot turd when they discovered what even their most loyal voters though of it.
November 24th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Yes, it has been efficacious for the Republicans to be obstructionist.
Also, it has been efficacious for the Republicans to be crazy. The ideas they propose give the news media a hook– they will always provide an easy confrontation– and so it goes that the Republican talking points regularly go into the news. The media does this for consumer consumption purposes, and the Republicans for power.
It appears Republicans now do the “Full Monty” on crazy (and I mean the ones in power) and eject anyone that disagrees with them. However, this is actually a feature politically because it helps accelerate both their obstructionism and their habitual construction of nonsense talking points to feed the on-going news cycle.
Now it is too obvious that there are only two parties in this country. One of them has gone AWOL from sanity, but yields incredible power as a cohesive and obstructionist rump party. The other consists of all the outcasts but may not be able to form an adequate coalition within its own ranks because of their political disparity to run the country. Of course, this is a prescription for a politically weak country adrift in solving its major problems.
Now it seems to me that the way for Democrats to stab back at the Republicans in all this is to pass health care reform. It will be just a start, but will provide some evidence that Democrats have enough cohesion to run the country. Next, they need to move on to job creation, and perform a credible job at that (implausible perhaps) before the next election.
November 24th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Excellent post Matt. The problem is not procedure but instead the Republicans. Simple task: defeat the Republicans. Difficult task: find 60 votes for cloture so as to find 60 votes for . . .