Ungovernable America
The smarter elements in Washington DC are starting to pick up on the fact that it’s not tactical errors on the part of the president that make it hard to get things done, it’s the fact that the country has become ungovernable. For example, here’s Steven Pearlstein on minority leader Mitch McConnell:
The bad Mitch, as most Americans know by now, is the charmless and shameless hypocrite who offers up a steady stream of stale ideology and snarky talking points but almost never a constructive idea. McConnell has decided that the only way for Republicans to win is for President Obama to lose, and he will use lies, threats and all manner of parliamentary subterfuge to obstruct the president’s programs.
Pearlstein contrasts McConnell with the good Mitch, Mitch Daniels, “a principled but practical conservative who respects the intelligence of voters and would rather get something done than score political points.”
One can only imagine how Republicans could have reshaped health-reform legislation in the Senate if it had been Mitch Daniels rather than Mitch McConnell running the show, striking deals with the White House and moderate Democrats to win concessions in exchange for a pledge not to filibuster.
I think this is largely right, but I agree with Ezra Klein that it vastly underrates the structural issues at work: “Governors have to make their state work. Minority leaders have to win seats in the next election. Telling this story in terms of good people and bad people doesn’t give enough weight to the structural incentives that make people of all sorts do good and bad things.”
We’re suffering from an incoherent institutional set-up in the senate. You can have a system in which a defeated minority still gets a share of governing authority and participates constructively in the victorious majority’s governing agenda, shaping policy around the margins in ways more to their liking. Or you can have a system in which a defeated minority rejects the majority’s governing agenda out of hand, seeks opening for attack, and hopes that failure on the part of the majority will bring them to power. But right now we have both simultaneously. It’s a system in which the minority benefits if the government fails, and the minority has the power to ensure failure. It’s insane, and it needs to be changed.
267 Responses to “Ungovernable America”
Register
RSSLogin
Yglesias Tweets
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
December 11th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Since either party can (and has been in this decade) in the minority, who’s going to make the change? The current setup is in both their interests. What makes a politician happier than authority without responsibility?
December 11th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
This post is just utter nonsense. There have been no major institutional changes in the United States government in recent history that have caused it to “become ungovernable.” There just isn’t enough political support to enact various news laws and policies that you favor. Tough.
If you hadn’t become seduced by the delusion that Obama is a “progressive” and that last year’s election represented some kind of historic realignment in favor of “progressive” policies you might have seen this coming.
December 11th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
@1: Which is why we need some grass-roots pressure on this. If we wait for Senators to take the lead, it ain’t happening.
December 11th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
I think MY is right about the history of the filibuster.
But honestly, I wouldn’t care whether “there have been … major institutional changes” or not.
The current system makes it nearly impossible to act on issues that require action. Whether it has gotten worse recently, or has always been this bad — it needs changing.
December 11th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
I don’t really get the argument that the republicans should support the bill if they are allowed to tweak it. Do you think that when the democrats were in the minority they should have worked with republicans on social security privitization to make it better around the edges? If you think its a bad bill even with tweaking then you should be voting against something.
December 11th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Honestly- the only institutional change is that politicians have started to recognize that so few of the middle of the road voters pay attention that there is virtually no downside to acting in an extreme way and pandering to the base.
December 11th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
This assumes that there’s a compromise available. The Republicans have been denied all opportunities to offer amendments in the House; what possible incentive is there for them to “play ball?”
Do you honestly expect the Democrats to “play ball” the next time there’s a Republican majority? And I agree completely with what damon said just above.
December 11th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
The current system makes it nearly impossible to act on issues that require action.
You’re funny. So how did Bush and the GOP manage to do all those awful, awful things while they were in power if the country is “ungovernable?” And how did Clinton and the Democrats get anything done before that?
The reason you can’t get the legislative “action” you want is that you have been unable to persuade enough people to support it. Unfortunately for you, that’s how democracy works. Deal with it.
December 11th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Agree with Mixner: this post is virtually incoherent. If the Senate flips next year, well, McConnell will be seen as extremely successful. Already the GOP has made far more progress in their return to power than I would have thought possible a year ago.
December 11th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
You can have a system in which a defeated minority still gets a share of governing authority and participates constructively in the victorious majority’s governing agenda, shaping policy around the margins in ways more to their liking.
This system is called Switzerland, where the chief parties are all represented in parliament and all major legislation are made by consensus among the chief parties. As a result, Switzerlna has one of the highest living standards, and best governance, in the world.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that many here actually like the Swiss system very much. Democrats would be very loth indeed to introduce a purely Swiss medical insurance system, or a Swiss system of immigrantion, or a Swiss system of decentralized power, or Swiss gun control (automatic rifle in every home), or Swiss tax regimes (no taxes on capital gains or estates).
Until such time, Democrats need to shut up. Unless they are willing to embrace a workable multipartisan system like Switzerland, which other parties actually shape legislation in their entirety instead of nipping around in the margins, they shouldn’t expect cooperation from the Republicans.
December 11th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
“There have been no major institutional changes in the United States government in recent history that have caused it to “become ungovernable.”
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/02/the_new_filibuster.php
http://ezinearticles.com/?A-Brief-History-of-the-Procedural-Filibuster&id=656046
To be fair, the institutional changes in question are over 30 years old. This is a cultural change. This is the first time we’ve really seen a determined minority that is actually willing to enforce a 60-vote super-majority on nearly every Senate action.
Pretending that the ability of 40 Senators representing a quarter or so of the US population to block legislation represents a lack of political support is pretty silly even by your standards, Mixner.
December 11th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
The Republicans have an advantage, since the only legislation they care to pass are tax cuts, which only need 51 votes, being budget-related. But sooner or later, the supermajority rule will work against them.
Know what they’ll do? Get rid of it, and tell the Democrats to shut up.
What’s dysfunctional about Congress is that one party is a bunch of gutless pukes.
December 11th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Well done, LaFollette. Two links, neither of which describes a major institutional change in the United States government in recent history.
To be fair, the institutional changes in question are over 30 years old.
So the country has been “ungovernable” for 30 years, has it? I guess all those “terrible” laws and policies you think were passed during the Reagan, Bush I and Bush II presidencies must be just figments of our imagination.
Pretending that the ability of 40 Senators representing a quarter or so of the US population to block legislation represents a lack of political support
Pretending that being unable to get 60 Senators to support your position is NOT a lack of political support demonstrates ignorance of the meaning of the term “political support” or simply a lie.
December 11th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Finally someone points this out. If the Dems tried to pull this level of obstructionism during a Republican majority Congress, and they had a bill they really wanted to pass, the filibuster would be gone in an instant.
It’s not a dysfunctional system. It’s a dysfunctional party. If you believe the minority is abusing the filibuster, the solution isn’t to whine about it.
Frist threatened to blow up the judicial filibuster because the Dems were blocking a handful of judges, and guess what, he got his judges through.
I can understand the Dems not wanting to pull a “nuclear option.” But at the very least they should start running on a campaign pledge to not renew the filibuster. It’s not a law. It’s just a Senate rule, which has to be renewed at the beginning of every session.
If it’s so harmful, which it’s pretty clear it is, don’t fucking renew it.
December 11th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Shorter Matt: If only if it weren’t for that pesky filibuster we’d have single payer health care and a wind turbine in every pot.
Yeah, right.
December 11th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Let’s see, deliberate misreading, decontextualization, and feigned ignorance. That’s our Mixner.
The first link shows that there has been a significant recent increase in the number of cloture votes. The second link shows the not-very-recent institutional change that made it possible. I know it’s so terribly complicated to grapple with the concept of a two step process, but I’m sure you’re up to the challenge.
Pretending that being unable to get 60 Senators to support your position is NOT a lack of political support demonstrates ignorance of the meaning of the term “political support” or simply a lie.
But of course you understand that 59% is a landslide majority, and that democratic politics typically operate by majority rule. I won’t insult your intelligence by maintaining the pretense that you’re arguing in good faith.
December 11th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
To be fair, the institutional changes in question are over 30 years old. This is a cultural change. This is the first time we’ve really seen a determined minority that is actually willing to enforce a 60-vote super-majority on nearly every Senate action.
Not to nitpick, but there’s no need to distinguish. Cultural changes of this sort are institutional changes. The filibuster has been part of the rules for decades, but the frequency with which it has been used, particularly by Republicans, has shifted dramatically in recent years. This indicates an undeniable shift in the institutional norms governing its use. The party leadership has clearly come to realize that there is essentially no downside to flagrant abuse.
December 11th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
“Pretending that being unable to get 60 Senators to support your position is NOT a lack of political support demonstrates ignorance of the meaning of the term ‘political support’ or simply a lie.”
As opposed to 51 Senators? This is a joke, right, Mixner? (It’s a joke that would not have amused the Founders, by the way; the US started off without the filibuster.)
As for the lack of “institutional change”, LaFollette said expicitly (and correctly) that the key change is “cultural” instead — the filibuster is being used tremendously more now than it ever has before in US history, and it’s the GOP that initiated it. May I submit that the best way to fight it is to force the GOP to actually start going through with filibusters, rather than merely threatening them and promptly causing the Dems to collapse, until the public gets fed up with the TV spectacle of Republican senators running their mouths continuously on empty?
December 11th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
It’s “harmful” only to particular goals at particular times. Both Dems and Repubs have benefitted because of it, and suffered because of it. That’s why you can’t even get your own fucking party to oppose it.
December 11th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Pretending that being unable to get 60 Senators to support your position is NOT a lack of political support demonstrates ignorance of the meaning of the term “political support” or simply a lie.
Last I checked, 59% (substantially more by population), certainly counts as “substantial political support”. I.e., not a lack.
Perhaps what you meant was “lack of sufficient political support”, but that would have been just as vapid. After all, if the senate rules required unanimity, then receiving support from a mere 99 of them would also technically qualify as a “lack of sufficient support”. It would still be a ridiculous way to run a country.
December 11th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
“It’s “harmful” only to particular goals at particular times. Both Dems and Repubs have benefitted because of it, and suffered because of it. That’s why you can’t even get your own fucking party to oppose it.”
No, it’s harmful to the party that’s too afraid to use it when they’re in the minority, and beneficial to the party that’s willing to play hardball.
If Dems had played the game that Republicans are playing now, they could have picked up seats in the 2002 midterms, and had a much greater shot at defeating Bush in 2004.
Bush wouldn’t have been a tough guy war president. He’d be an ineffectual loser who couldn’t get anything through a Republican Congress.
December 11th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
May I submit that the best way to fight it is to force the GOP to actually start going through with filibusters, rather than merely threatening them and promptly causing the Dems to collapse, until the public gets fed up with the TV spectacle of Republican senators running their mouths continuously on empty?
You could, but you’d be wrong. The rules do not require anyone holding up debate to speak. They can just repeatedly suggest the absence of a quorum, and all we’d get is hours of the clerk calling the roll. If you’re suggesting that Democrats have the public relations skill to put that in a favorable light that will create the media narrative to shame a Republican party utterly immune to shame into giving up, I’d say you’re rather naive.
December 11th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Bush wouldn’t have been a tough guy war president. He’d be an ineffectual loser who couldn’t get anything through a Republican Congress.
But Bush’s and the Republicans’ top priorities were tax cuts, which can be passed with 50 votes. There’s nothing in the rules you can do to stop that. The only big thing they passed that was subject to 60 votes was Medicare Part D.
If Democrats just wanted to raise taxes, they could do it with 50 votes. Clinton did. And if they only had, say, 54 Democrats now, they’d be passing whatever shell of health care they could with 50.
December 11th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Lafollete,
The first link shows that there has been a significant recent increase in the number of cloture votes.
A change in the frequency with which a senate rule is invoked is not an institutional change at all, let alone a major one.
The second link shows the not-very-recent institutional change that made it possible.
A 30-year-old change is not a “recent” change. It encompasses 8 presidential terms, 15 House terms, and 5 senate terms. And the change you refer to here is not an institutional change, either. It was a change to a particular senate rule.
But you’ve ignored the point, anyway. If this 30-year-old rule change rendered the country “ungovernable,” how were the Reagan, Bush I and Bush II adminstrations, and GOP-controlled congresses, able to use the powers of government to do so much “harm?” As is so often the case with liberal narratives, your position is incoherent, self-contradictory nonsense.
But of course you understand that 59% is a landslide majority, and that democratic politics typically operate by majority rule. I won’t insult your intelligence by maintaining the pretense that you’re arguing in good faith
No, I understand that the lack of support of 60 Senators is a lack of POLITICAL SUPPORT. The fact that 60 is more than a simple majority of the senate is utterly irrelevant to this point. Your claim to the contrary is just more nonsense.
December 11th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Re: Already the GOP has made far more progress in their return to power than I would have thought possible a year ago.
Last I checked they have fewer seats in Congress now than they did a year ago (or even in January when this Congreess commenced). But I think the deeper problem is not with the Senate, or even the GOP. It’s with the American people. A fairly large fraction of them have simply gone off the deep end. I’ve been watching this slow process much of my life. It’s approaching the scary phase when our politics grows so gridlocked that violence becomes an option for frustrated people. We’re about where France was in the mid 1780s, budget woes and all. That didn’t end well, you know, and our Napoleon would have nukes at his command.
December 11th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
If they had blocked Medicare Part D, Republicans wouldn’t have done as well with seniors. On top of that, Democrats could attack Bush for not achieving his campaign pledge to pass a Medicare prescription drugs benefit, hurting his standing with all voters.
Democrats chose not to play that game. Good for them. But if they’re not going to use the filibuster to boost their political chances, what’s the point of keeping it around at all?
It’s not the political system that’s dysfunctional. It’s the Democrats that are.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Shorter Mixner: since I just got laid off from Burger King and have lots of free time, I’m trolling this thread as long as I can.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Americans have always had a crazy streak. That’s not what’s sparking the Republican comeback.
The reason Republicans are gaining in polls is that Democrats look weak and ineffectual by not being able to pass the legislation they promised, largely because of the filibuster, at the same time that Republicans can baselessly attack Democrats for going on some insane liberal spending spree based on the high deficit numbers. To middle of the road voters, it’s the worst of both worlds.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
No, it’s harmful to the party that’s too afraid to use it when they’re in the minority, and beneficial to the party that’s willing to play hardball
Well, make up your mind. You just claimed it’s “so harmful,” period. Now you’re saying it can be either harmful or beneficial to both parties, depending on how they choose to use it.
In any case, the idea that this one rule has rendered the country “ungovernable” isn’t simply wrong or an exaggeration. It’s preposterous. But if you seriously think you can sell this preposterous claim to either members of congress or the American people, go for it. I predict disappointment.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
If ya wanna know why progressives can’t get out of their own way, read LaFollete:
“the ability of 40 Senators representing a quarter or so of the US population…”
Underestimate your adversaries. Do the math, dude. The 40 Republican Senators represent states with more than 40% of the US population.
” a lack of political support ”
Mis-state the problem Look at the 12 states that have elected one Republican and one Democrat to the Senate. In eleven of those states, the Democrat cannot lead the Republican to vote for health care reform. In the 12th, the Republican is likely to lead the Democrat to vote against it.
Who doesn’t have political support?
“democratic politics typically operate by majority rule.”
When all else fails, hallucinate!. Majority rule? We’re talking about the United States Senate.
Look, even as kibitizers, if you were serious about trying to change “duly sworn” to “present and voting”, that can only be done by Senators , who will only do it if they are persuaded that it will increase their individual power.
Yer not gonna achieve that by imagining that Senators like LeMieux doesn’t represent the 18 million people in Florida, Voinovich the 11 million people of Ohio, Ensign the 3 million in Nevada, Burr the 9 million in North Carolina, etc. Senators are kinda touchy about the idea that they don’t represent all of the people in their state.
Strive to acquire facts before you imagine you have a real opinion, willya?
December 11th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
The reason Republicans are gaining in polls is that Democrats look weak and ineffectual by not being able to pass the legislation they promised, largely because of the filibuster,
More self-delusion. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s not just support for Democrats themselves that has been falling, but support for Democrat legislation. Health care reform is now polling at 52% opposed, 38% in favor.
at the same time that Republicans can baselessly attack Democrats for going on some insane liberal spending spree based on the high deficit numbers.
Ah yes, yet another “baseless” attack on the Democrats. But aren’t they all? Funny how you seem to have such a hard time persuading people that the attacks are, in fact, “baseless.”
It must be because the Amerkun Peeple are sooooo stoopid and just can’t see the harmonious wisdom of the liberal elite.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
I meant harmful to Democrats. Of course it’s wonderfully beneficial to Republicans, because they can use it to obstruct Democrats and Democrats mostly don’t return the favor.
If Democrats in the minority would just behave like the current Republicans, and hold up every single appointment and every single piece of legislation, within a few months the filibuster would be gutted.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Uh, Mixner, you’re proving my point for me. The legislation wasn’t unpopular to begin with, but now it is after months and months of delay and wrangling to get 60 votes.
Why should a voter support a piece of legislation that a massively Democratic legislature can’t seem to muster the votes to pass it? If it was so good, they should have passed it by now.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
The context of this is pretty bizarre given that we are in rare and unusual moment where one party has 60 members in its caucus and therefore, the minority does not have the power to ensure the failure of anything.
I agree that the Republicans have made a strategic decision to just kill everything, that this represents a cultural shift that was likely ushered in by the 93-95 Congress, etc. But it makes little sense for Democrats to be complaining about all that at this moment. The problem, if you are a mainstream Democrat, is that folks at the far right of the party, some of whom represent a miniscule slice of the population, are willing to kill good legislation rather than compromise at the margins.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a good bill to pass through the US Senate.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Another good rule is an old Hill axiom: if anything passes by more than six votes, it ain’t worth shit.
The logic of this insight is that virtually anything worth doing is going to gore some oxen, and the folks who guard them cattle are gonna fight like hell, regardless of the overall value of the bill. And when you have to fight like hell to gore or be gored (the whole ‘if you’re not at the table you’re on the menu’ thing), the votes that count will be close.
That’s a good thing, not a bad thing.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Er, Mixner. As has been pointed out to you repeatedly, are we seriously supposed to believe that the support of a simple majority represents “a lack of political support” for a bill?
Whether anything can ever be done to get rid of the filibuster — any more than anything can be done to get rid of the Senate’s grotesque misapportionment — is open to question. But the former is at least within the range of long-shot possibility — and since both of them are outrageous offenses against small-”d” democracy (regardless of which party they happen to benefit at the moment), we should start acting accordingly. (The same thing can be said about the Electoral College, and I was saying it in letters to the editor back before the 2000 election when it appeared that Al Gore would be most likely to benefit from a College malfunction. These are non-partisan reform measures. But then, Yglesias himself points out that the filibuster can allow any “minority” to sabotage the democratic process, not just the GOP.)
December 11th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
I’m just going to ignore the trolling, because there’s a real issue here that progressives need to discuss among themselves.
Basically, I think ds and LaFollette are both right. The problem is that Republicans are willing to play hardball, both by filibustering and by threatening to abolish the filibuster when convenient — whereas Democrats have not yet been willing to perform brinksmanship in either way.
We really need a different majority leader in the Senate. But we also need a grassroots movement pushing harder on these procedural issues.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
All that is required to eliminate the filibuster is for the Democrats to end their battered wife syndrome. Long shot, I know.
Senate rules don’t continue from one session to the next. They have to be re-approved each time.
Reforming Senate apportionment is impossible until the current constitution is scrapped by our Chinese overlords. No small state is ever going to vote to dramatically reduce their power.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Uh, Mixner, you’re proving my point for me. The legislation wasn’t unpopular to begin with, but now it is after months and months of delay and wrangling to get 60 votes.
The reason it wasn’t unpopular to begin with is because people didn’t know anything about it. “Health care reform” generally polls well in the abstract. The bill lost support as it was subjected to the political process and more and more people became aware of its costs and risks. That’s been the general pattern for major health care reform legislation.
Why should a voter support a piece of legislation that a massively Democratic legislature can’t seem to muster the votes to pass it?
You seriously don’t know why? Because a senator is more likely to support a piece of legislation if his constituents support it, that’s why. Senators read the polls and pay great attention to emails, letters and phone calls from the voters they represent. If voters liked the legislation and wanted their senators to support it, that support would be reflected in the polls. Voters don’t like the legislation. Increasingly, voters don’t like congressional Democrats either.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Reforming Senate apportionment is impossible until the current constitution is scrapped by our Chinese overlords. No small state is ever going to vote to dramatically reduce their power.
Still impossible as a practical and political matter, but it may be technically possible to remdedy this not by asking small states to give up power, but instead asking large states to correct their disadvantage by voluntarily splitting into small states.
This would likely have the somewhat bizarre effect of dividing, e.g., NYC burroughs into full fledged states, but has the virtue of, AFAIK, not requiring much consent from small states (though I think congress would still have to approve the new admissions, it might be possible to game the numbers or something by doing one split at a time).
The more realistic possibility is to somehow just work toward the institutional decay of the senate. It could technically retain it’s constitutional authority while being pushed by cultural norms into more of a rubberstamp committee. (Contra Mixner, such an extra-textual shift would nevertheless constitute and institutional change…)
December 11th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
The reason it wasn’t unpopular to begin with is because people didn’t know anything about it. “Health care reform” generally polls well in the abstract. The bill lost support as it was subjected to the political process and more and more people became aware of its costs and risks. That’s been the general pattern for major health care reform legislation.
A careful reading of the more detailed polls suggests that people actually know even less about it now than they did at the beginning. I’d suggest that has an awful lot to do with the decline in the top line numbers…
December 11th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Reading comprehension problems much, Mixner? I humbly suggest that you got the causality of that (rhetorical) question backwards just now.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Er, Mixner. As has been pointed out to you repeatedly, are we seriously supposed to believe that the support of a simple majority represents “a lack of political support” for a bill?
No, you’re seriously supposed to believe that having less than 60 votes when you need 60 votes represents a lack of political support. If you need a certain amount of political support to achieve a goal, and you only have something less than that needed level, then the reason you fail to achieve your goal is a lack of political support.
I don’t think this is very difficult to understand. I’m not sure why you’re having so much trouble.
December 11th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
jack lecou,
Usually, I just ignore your vacuous “rebuttals” to what I write. But this time I think I’ll just respond in kind.
A careful reading of the more detailed polls suggests that people actually know even less about it now than they did at the beginning
No, it doesn’t.
Reading comprehension problems much, Mixner?
Can you understand even elementary English sentences, lecou?
December 11th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
I think Matt is right, but for the wrong reasons. The country is ungovernable, but not because of the fillibuster, it is ungovernable because the electorate has become so polarized.
There have been other periods of partisan strife in US history, but right now is the first time since the Civil War that what divides us is greater than what unites us. The Left and Right simply do not have enough in common for us to live in the same country. And the polarization will only grow greater with time.
December 11th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
The problem is that the governing majority isn’t a real majority. Too many of its members are prepared to side with the opposition on crucial issues.
December 11th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
No, you’re seriously supposed to believe that having less than 60 votes when you need 60 votes represents a lack of political support. If you need a certain amount of political support to achieve a goal, and you only have something less than that needed level, then the reason you fail to achieve your goal is a lack of political support.
You are, again, missing the crucial word “sufficient”.
If an issue has 51% or 59% support, it is unambiguously true to say that “there is political support for this.”
(In some cases, the phrase “X has political support” could be true even without a majority. I’d say even 30% or 40% for, say, drug decriminalization, would be enough to accurately state “There is political support for drug decriminalization.” So 59% is completely unambiguous.)
The question of whether that political support is enough to overcome procedural hurdles is obviously another matter, but it would be flatly incorrect to say flatly that 59% represents a “lack of political support”.
December 11th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
All that is required to eliminate the filibuster is for the Democrats to end their battered wife syndrome.
So why do Democrat voters keep voting for Democrat Senators who suffer from battered wife syndrome? Can’t you find any healthy candidates? Is this problem inherent to the Democrat psyche? Perhaps that evil BushCo used some kind of mind-ray device to turn Democrats into snivelling wimps. Yes, that’s it.
December 11th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
In a prior comment, I said: The context of this is pretty bizarre given that we are in rare and unusual moment where one party has 60 members in its caucus and therefore, the minority does not have the power to ensure the failure of anything.
I think that some of the other comments unintentionally underscore this point. If the Democrats were to “threaten” to abolish the filibuster, who would they be threatening? Their own party members? I suspect the country would laugh at them.
Better, perhaps, to start yanking committee chairmanships.
December 11th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
You are, again, missing the crucial word “sufficient”.
No, I’m not.
If an issue has 51% or 59% support, it is unambiguously true to say that “there is political support for this.”
If an “issue” fails because it has only 51% or 59% support when it needs 60%, it is unambiguously true to say that it failed for lack of political support.
December 11th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Can you understand even elementary English sentences, lecou?
Indeed I can, Mixie. Let’s break this down:
ds said:
This is in the context of talking about declining poll numbers for the legislation in question. I.e., ds was talking about the idea that at the beginning, poll numbers were high. But over time, as voters notice that legislators seem unable to pass anything, they begin to question their initial support of the bill: “If this isn’t important enough for congress to pass and/or bad enough that large numbers of legislators are opposed, perhaps it is not a good thing after all.”
In other words ds was talking about the way (in)activity in congress influences public opinion. The chain of causality he posited was: Congressional deadlock -> voters second guess themselves -> decline in support.
You responded with:
A true enough statement, but an utter non-sequitur in context. The question was not about the source of a senator’s support, but about factors influencing voter opinion. About the way a lack of support in congress can feed back into public opinion.
You read the causality in the initial sentence exactly backwards.
December 11th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
In any case, the idea that this one rule has rendered the country “ungovernable” isn’t simply wrong or an exaggeration.
The idea that this one rule permits the minority that only represents a third of the country to render the country ungovernable is simply true.
I’m not sure why people are bothering to argue with you–anyone paying attention knows this. Your statements are trivial falsehoods. BORING. TRY HARDER.
OTOH, there’s another individual here that spouts absolutely AWESOME falsehoods. I sure hope that guy gets going again!
December 11th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Hmm. Looks like I should apologize. Mixner’s original statement was:
There just isn’t enough political support to enact various news laws and policies that you favor. Tough.
With the word “enough”, that’s technically correct. So my apologies, should have checked that before I opened my mouth.
Where he’s wrong is more fundamental: the issue of whether there’s been any institutional change (there clearly has), and the question of whether a state of permanent filibuster is a sane or effective way to govern a country (I’d say it isn’t).
December 11th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Another good rule is an old Hill axiom: if anything passes by more than six votes, it ain’t worth shit.
The logic of this insight is that virtually anything worth doing is going to gore some oxen, and the folks who guard them cattle are gonna fight like hell, regardless of the overall value of the bill. And when you have to fight like hell to gore or be gored (the whole ‘if you’re not at the table you’re on the menu’ thing), the votes that count will be close.
That’s a good thing, not a bad thing.
Right, anything that passes by more than six votes is crap. But make it pass by TWENTY votes, then it will be AWESOME!
December 11th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
jack lecou,
You are utterly confused, as usual. A voter who approves of a bill has no incentive to withdraw his support of it simply because it doesn’t (yet) have enough votes in the Senate for passage. That’s an incentive to support it even more strongly, not to withdraw support.
The reason the bill lost support is because the political process exposed its costs and other problems. This is the typical pattern for major health care reform legislation.
December 11th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
You are utterly confused, as usual. A voter who approves of a bill has no incentive to withdraw his support of it simply because it doesn’t (yet) have enough votes in the Senate for passage. That’s an incentive to support it even more strongly, not to withdraw support.
It’s not an especially good reason, certainly. It is nevertheless a fact of human behavior. People want to be on the winning team.
December 11th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
(And, contrariwise, don’t want to be stuck on the losing team.)
December 11th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
jack lecou,
So my apologies, should have checked that before I opened my mouth
Well done. I know how hard that must have been for you. Don’t do it again.
But your claim would have been completely, utterly, shockingly false whether the statement of mine you quoted contained the word “enough” or not. You just don’t seem to understand the meaning of the phrase “political support.” Or maybe it’s the word “lack” you don’t understand. Possibly, you are even ignorant of the meaning of “of.”
the issue of whether there’s been any institutional change (there clearly has)
As I said, there have been no major institutional changes in the United States government in recent history that have caused it to “become ungovernable.” Your belief to the contrary is also shockingly false.
December 11th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
It’s not an especially good reason, certainly.
It’s not a “good” reason at all. It’s a stupid reason. I think that Democrat voters often exhibit stupidity, but I don’t think they’re generally stupid enough to behave as you suggest. Perhaps I’m wrong about that.
December 11th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
BTW, another source of decline related to congressional (in)activity is the increasing opposition from the left out of concern that the plan is becoming too watered down.
AFAIK, there’s still majority support for “health care reform”, just not the plan before congress (or whatever people perceive that plan to be).
December 11th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
consumpt
The idea that this one rule permits the minority that only represents a third of the country to render the country ungovernable is simply true
Not only is it not “simply true,” it’s utter nonsense. And you’ve moved the goalposts, anyway. The claim in question was that the country has “become” ungovernable, not merely that the minority party has acquired the power to render it ungovernable. Words matter. Pay more attention to them. Try thinking harder, too.
December 11th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
But your claim would have been completely, utterly, shockingly false whether the statement of mine you quoted contained the word “enough” or not.
See? Boring. You’re just taking something obviously true and calling it obviously false.
As I said, there have been no major institutional changes in the United States government in recent history that have caused it to “become ungovernable.”
This is a little better, in that it’s false in two ways simultaneously. The original post didn’t say there was institutional change–rather that a minority has incentive to take advantage of institutional problems that were always there.
But as a matter of fact, the institutions have changed. An institution includes it’s traditions and norms. And those evolve constantly. The traditions and norms of the Senate have changed dramatically just in the past few years, as documented above.
You’ve grown soft or something. You never made sense, but at least you used to make better nonsense.
December 11th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
I still want to know why Democrats keep voting for Senators who, in ds’s words, suffer from “battered wife syndrome.” What’s WRONG with them? Are they just stupid, or what?
December 11th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
The claim in question was that the country has “become” ungovernable, not merely that the minority party has acquired the power to render it ungovernable.
“Govern” is a long-term proposition. If it can only be governed while one party has sixty votes, and that’s not likely to continue, then it’s ungovernable.
December 11th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
As I said, there have been no major institutional changes in the United States government in recent history that have caused it to “become ungovernable.” Your belief to the contrary is also shockingly false.
I’m curious what you believe the word “institution” to mean. Conventially it has a much broader meaning than merely “the rules written on paper”, and refers to a whole slew of both written and unwritten rules and norms, and the broader social context they swim in.
Obviously there has been no major change to the “rules written on paper” about the filibuster, but equally obviously there has been a rather massive empirical shift in the behavior regarding it’s use. A shift large enough to have altered the dynamics of passing laws in this country. That more or less by definition suggests that some changes or other have occurred in the institution of the filibuster.
A complete analysis of the changes and their causes is probably worthy of a book or two, but obviously it has a lot to do with underlying changes in our political institutions: changes in the media (talk radio, blogs, Fox news), increasing political polarization, a corresponding breakdown in the unspoken “gentleman’s” social rules governing the senate, etc.
Possibly even some accidents of history were involved. E.g., after a decades long period of relatively cautious and judicious use, perhaps some mere happenstance of necessity or temporary recklessness led to a brief flurry of filibuster use, without apparent political backlash. The waters thus probed, senators began using it with increasing boldness.
In any case, the outward change to the institution of the filibuster is pretty plain.
December 11th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
I really just don’t have any sympathy for the Democratic party. It’s had Congress for three years now, if it can’t figure out to do with 60 senators what the Republicans did with <55, tough luck. I think it really does represent incompetence on the part of Harry Reid.
December 11th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
America is perfectly governable. As several posters above have stated, we have the same institutions we had in the ’30s and ’60s.
The problem is that the Dems have abandoned all but the pretense of serving the interests of the New Deal coalition. The alleged “ungovernability” argument is, however, useful in maintaining that pretense. But given the near-lock on the gov’t by the Dems, and given the apparent governability of America when the GOP is in charge (somehow they never had to get 60 votes for anything, it seems…) that excuse is beginning to wear pretty thin.
The bottom line is, if the Dems lose big in 2010 and 2012, they’ll have only their own corruption to blame.
December 11th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
You’re just taking something obviously true and calling it obviously false.
No, you’re taking something obviously false and calling it true. Vacuous gainsaying is such fun, isn’t it, jack?
This is a little better
A little better than what?
in that it’s false in two ways simultaneously.
No, it’s not false at all.
The original post didn’t say there was institutional change
So we just IMAGINED that Matthew wrote “We’re suffering from an incoherent INSTITUTIONAL set-up in the senate,” did we? You’re funny.
The traditions and norms of the Senate have changed dramatically just in the past few years, as documented above.
No, one Senate rule has been used a bit more frequently than it used to be. That’s not “institutional” change at all. Still less is it “major institutional” change. And the idea that it is major instituitional change that has rendered the country ungovernable isn’t just wrong or an exaggeration, it’s preposterous.
You’ve grown soft or something. You never made sense, but at least you used to make better nonsense
You’ve always been an idiot, jack, and your contributions to this thread demonstrate that you still are.
December 11th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
It’s not a “good” reason at all. It’s a stupid reason. I think that Democrat voters often exhibit stupidity, but I don’t think they’re generally stupid enough to behave as you suggest. Perhaps I’m wrong about that.
No argument about it being a stupid reason. But people do (and think) many stupid things for many stupid reasons. Nobody said only the rational ones get to answer polls, so ds’ inference was perfectly valid.
Incidentally, I wouldn’t guess that that particular avenue of decline comes from Democrats per se. Possibly some of those exhibiting that behavior ended up voting for Obama last time, but that because he was popular. They’re the ones in the “weakminded middle” who don’t necessarily have a particularly keen understanding of what’s going on in the first place, and only rather flaccid and uncertain support for any particular policy or candidate.
Loss of support from more hard core Democrats comes from disappointment at the plan’s increasing dilution, with the result being that the top line number is whittled down from both sides.
December 11th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
there has been a rather massive empirical shift in the behavior regarding it’s use.
No, there has been no “massive empirical shift.” One particular rule has been used a bit more often in recent years than it was in prior years.
A shift large enough to have altered the dynamics of passing laws in this country.
Bzzzt! You’re trying to move the goalposts AGAIN. The claim was that it has rendered the country UNGOVERNABLE, remember? Not that it has merely “altered the dynamics of passing laws.”
Keep backpedalling furiously, though. You’ve had a lot of practise.
December 11th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
The difference, Alex, is that the Democrats were willing partners in governance. That meant that the Republicans could simply march in lock-step and put in enough to get bills passed. The Republicans, on the other hand, don’t give a fuck about governance. They are only interested in power. They have the power to make a hash of governance and are hoping that they can simultaneously cause harm to the nation and benefit from it. Idiots like Mixner are willing to to vote for such thugs and so it makes it possible that they will be proven correct. And back in power they will once again use their position to further wreck the United States.
The problem isn’t that the nation has become ungovernable, it is that there is a significant minority desiring an ungoverned nation. The Republican Party is insufficiently differentiated from a criminal organization.
December 11th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
No argument about it being a stupid reason. But people do (and think) many stupid things for many stupid reasons.
I’m sorry you think people who used to support the health care reform bill but no longer do so are so stupid. I oppose the bill, but I have a higher opinion of its former supporters than you do.
December 11th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
No, there has been no “massive empirical shift.” One particular rule has been used a bit more often in recent years than it was in prior years.
Gradual institutional change illustrated in chart form.
Bzzzt! You’re trying to move the goalposts AGAIN. The claim was that it has rendered the country UNGOVERNABLE, remember? Not that it has merely “altered the dynamics of passing laws.”
Usually two different people being in two different places isn’t understood to mean that one of them is “backpedaling” – ungovernable was Matt’s word, not mine.
But I do think it’s an accurate enough conclusion considering the altered dynamics in question, so no backpedaling even under your strained definition.
December 11th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
(Oops, close tag foul. Sorry.)
December 11th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
joe from lowell is stupid.
December 11th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
I’m sorry you think people who used to support the health care reform bill but no longer do so are so stupid. I oppose the bill, but I have a higher opinion of its former supporters than you do.
I’m not sure that’s really a matter of opinion. There’s an empirical question there, and the disappointing reality is that a large number of American voters really are just very poorly informed.
December 11th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Aaaand… We’ve reached the point where Mixner becomes too confused even to keep the names of his interlocutors straight.
I’m out.
December 11th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
You guys crack me up. Constitution, hello? Consent of the governed, hello? Have you been reading the polls? Citizens do not want Big Government. In fact, “ungovernable” is a feature, of course you know the rest…
December 11th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Not that we don’t know just what Mixner is already, but a while back he was saying that if 2/3 = x/120, then x does not necessarily equal 80 but ‘depends’. Here we see a typical Mixner tactic of “If you can’t make me say I’m wrong I win.” And if you stop replying, guess what? He “wins” because you couldn’t handle his arguments. No matter what you do, in short, he “wins”. Well, in his own mind anyway.
December 11th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
So we just IMAGINED that Matthew wrote “We’re suffering from an incoherent INSTITUTIONAL set-up in the senate,” did we?
And you apparently just IMAGINED the word “change” in something you just quoted right now. That’s key word. Words matter. Pay more attention to them.
But yeah, I’m falling asleep here. I guess that means Mixner wins by default! Congratulations!
December 11th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Oh, another thing I recall from a while back was that Mixner was claiming that school vouchers had “political support” even though they have been defeated every single time they’ve been put on the ballot. I’m guessing that this previous claim is “no longer operative.”
December 11th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Gradual institutional change illustrated in chart form.
No, the chart shows a volatile but gradual trend of increasing use of the cloture motion over the past 50 years. It doesn’t indicate any “institutional” change, let alone a major one.
Usually two different people being in two different places isn’t understood to mean that one of them is “backpedaling” – ungovernable was Matt’s word, not mine.
You were responding to my response to MATT’S CLAIM, not some other claim that exists only in your fevered imagination. This is what I mean about your terrible reading comprehension skills.
But I do think it’s an accurate enough conclusion considering the altered dynamics in question,
Then you’re an idiot. But we knew that. If the country is UNGOVERNABLE, then attempts to pass major new legislation are doomed to failure.
December 11th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
1) How was George Bush able to implement an incredible tax cut, a war with Iraq, a large entitlement program (Medicare D), eviscerate environmental and labor protections? Hmmm.
2) Pearlstein has to be joking: Mitch Daniels? The man behind Goldman Sachs’ privatization of toll roads with a non-compete clause? C’mon.
Second point aside: Was the country ungovernable and hampered by the strictures of too many veto points? No. The country is “governable,” it’s just a matter of which side of the plutocracy you work for.
December 11th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
the disappointing reality is that a large number of American voters really are just very poorly informed
Since you believe that the country is “ungovernable” for “institutional” reasons, one wonders why you think it matters whether voters are informed or not.
This “ungovernable” shtick really is hilarious. Why do you care which party is in power, if you think the country is simply ungovernable, period?
December 11th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Oh, another thing I recall from a while
I recall a while back ScentOfViolence admitting that he is a pathological liar.
December 11th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
You were responding to my response to MATT’S CLAIM, not some other claim that exists only in your fevered imagination. This is what I mean about your terrible reading comprehension skills.
As you say, I was responding to YOU. I was not reiterating every point made by Matt, just making a case for the existence of recent changes in the institution of the filibuster, which you had denied. I was saying nothing more about Matt’s original claim, nor putting statements in his mouth in order to “backpedal”.
Logically, the sequence was:
Which is truly bizarre. As I said, it’s patently impossible for me to backpedal on any claim made by Matt. But even if it were possible, I did not do so. I simply made a claim about P, a claim identical to Matt’s claim about P, and crucial to his original conclusion.
December 11th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Not as Stupid as Mixner:
The difference, Alex, is that the Democrats were willing partners in governance. That meant that the Republicans could simply march in lock-step and put in enough to get bills passed. The Republicans, on the other hand, don’t give a fuck about governance. They are only interested in power. They have the power to make a hash of governance and are hoping that they can simultaneously cause harm to the nation and benefit from it. Idiots like Mixner are willing to to vote for such thugs and so it makes it possible that they will be proven correct. And back in power they will once again use their position to further wreck the United States.
The problem isn’t that the nation has become ungovernable, it is that there is a significant minority desiring an ungoverned nation. The Republican Party is insufficiently differentiated from a criminal organization.
I think you give far too little credit to the sincerity of your opponents. I suspect a legitimate majority of Republicans sincerely oppose the proposed health-care reform bills enough to want them to die at any cost. I suspect legitimate majority of Republicans wanted to kill EFCA. I suspect a legitimate majority of Republicans are opposed to cap-and-trade or, in fact, anything other than “drill, baby, drill!”
There’s a difference between “we want the country to be ungovernable” and “on the whole, we oppose these bills so we are going to block them”. If Obama proposed legislation that was actually supported by a majority of Republicans, I suspect the Republican party would vote for it – but the Democratic party might voice a few objections.
When it comes down to things, it isn’t the minority party’s job to let legislation they oppose get passed just because they were thrown a bone or two.
December 11th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Note that Mixner’s first objection in this sequence doesn’t follow either, as a slight rephrasing shows:
Matt: P implies X
Mixner: But not P, so not X
Full stop right there. P->X does not mean that ~P->~X. I’ve had these sorts of weird conversations with him where he either does not get it, or pretends not to get it. He was at one point something of a major irritant on several blogs I frequented, exasperating many with his mislogic or antilogic or whatever you want to call it but seemed to have faded away. I guess he’s back, or rather, he’s out again.
December 11th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
No Alex, the Republicans are not sincere. If they were sincere they would be working to get something done. They are perfectly happy to have millions of Americans die early owing to a lack of access to health care. That’s the position of nihilists, not a party interested in governing a nation. That’s why you see them moving the goalposts every time there is some chance that they would be called upon to vote for something that would benefit the nation.
The Republicans have demonstrated that they will support torture, wars of aggression, and are quite comfortable with abuses of power. This is a criminal organization masquerading as a political party.
December 11th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
It doesn’t indicate any “institutional” change…
Scare quotes around the word institutional? Really? How ’bout you tell us what interpretation of the word “institution” your working with and we’ll go from there.
On second thought, fuck that. If I want annoying remedial English hair-splitting, I’ll go watch Clinton on YouTube explain the meaning of “is”.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
“I think you give far too little credit to the sincerity of your opponents. I suspect a legitimate majority of Republicans sincerely oppose the proposed health-care reform bills enough to want them to die at any cost.”
Well said.
Apparently 61% of the American people want it to die too. Which is something, you know, that folks in the Senate & House might check in on from time to time.
BTW: Going forward I shall be ungovernabletao9.
BTW2: How long have the American History and US/Government curriculums been suspended at Harvard? I had no idea they just up and cut ‘em.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
“They are perfectly happy to have millions of Americans die early owing to a lack of access to health care.”
HAAAHAAAHAAAAAA/HOOOOOOOOOOO/WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT !!!!11!!1!
December 11th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Apparently 61% of the American people want it to die too. Which is something, you know, that folks in the Senate & House might check in on from time to time.
Look, 25% of Americans don’t know what country we gained independence from, and 20% of them think the sun revolves around the Earth.
On the other hand, a majority still feel we need “health care reform” generically, they’re just disappointed in one way or another about the current bill, or what they’ve heard about the current bill, or think they’ve heard, or about the acrimony in Congress.
Color me elitist, but I think responsible, sincere, governance would involve taking minute-by-minute will-o’-the-people polls with a grain or two of salt, and instead using their position as a senator to become informed on the issue and make your own decision, then hope that the voters will swing around your way if you make a good one.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
tao9, if the issue were simply health care, then you might have a point (even if your 61% turns out to include a lot of people on the left who recognize how fucked the bill is owing to the interference of the nihilist party), but this extends to pretty much all proposals. Let’s look at their ideas? Oh wait, they don’t have any. They do, however, insist that what needs to be done is to gut anything that benefits the middle class and to start wars with anyone and everyone.
Again, this isn’t a serious political party. Forty years of borrow and spend tells us all we need to know about the Republican Party.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
Not as Stupid as Mixner:
No Alex, the Republicans are not sincere. If they were sincere they would be working to get something done.
That doesn’t follow at all. They are sincere in their opposition to the proposed HCR – and they know that any HCR acceptable to them would never fly with the Democratic Congress or Obama. Therefore it’s completely the right choice to block it any way they can.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Not as Stupid as Mixner:
tao9, if the issue were simply health care, then you might have a point (even if your 61% turns out to include a lot of people on the left who recognize how fucked the bill is owing to the interference of the nihilist party), but this extends to pretty much all proposals. Let’s look at their ideas? Oh wait, they don’t have any.
They’re the minority party, why do they need to expend effort proposing legislation that has no chance of passing? Until we’re actually in the election, when they can make their proposal directly to voters, their job as the opposition is, surprise, to oppose the ruling party.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
Apparently 61% of the American people want it to die too. Which is something, you know, that folks in the Senate & House might check in on from time to time.
If the senate were just taking cues from the public, you’d think they’d be hustling to include a “public option”, something almost 60% of Americans say they support.
That number’s probably even higher in places like Connecticut and Maine… (And I daresay a lot of those people are supporting a public option from their imagination that’s a whole lot stronger and affects more people than anything actually on the table.)
December 11th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
Okay, I’ll bite: let’s see some links to old posts of yours defending politicians who opposed the Iraq invasion. See, here’s the thing: you’ve got to be consistent. The fact that your formulation of what an opposition part is and does is bizarre in the extreme is another issue, but I want to see if you really believe what you’re saying first.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
When Republicans have a majority (any size) in the Senate, they get things done and the Democrats can’t stop them.
When Democrats have a majority (any size) in the Senate, they can’t get things done because the Republicans can stop them.
The fault, dear MY, lies not in the stars but in the Democrats.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:02 am
When Republicans have a majority (any size) in the Senate, they get things done and the Democrats can’t stop them.
When Democrats have a majority (any size) in the Senate, they can’t get things done because the Republicans can stop them.
The fault, dear MY, lies not in the stars but in the Democrats.
So what you’re suggesting is that when Democrats are in the minority, they should do what the Republicans do, and that way nobody will get anything but tax cuts passed, ever?
Forgive me, but that hardly seems like a stunning rebuttal of Matt’s point.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:19 am
ScentOfViolets:
Okay, I’ll bite: let’s see some links to old posts of yours defending politicians who opposed the Iraq invasion. See, here’s the thing: you’ve got to be consistent. The fact that your formulation of what an opposition part is and does is bizarre in the extreme is another issue, but I want to see if you really believe what you’re saying first.
1) I’m not defending the Republican position on these issues, I’m simply defending them from the accusation that their political strategy is somehow improperly obstructionist (as opposed to properly obstructionist). The Democrats, impotent as they were during most of the Bush years, didn’t really obstruct anything except a few judicial nominees.
2) I was in middle school at the time, so I don’t think my opinions then were particularly relevant to anything, even if I could find something I wrote on the Internet years ago to support or deny something like that.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:23 am
[...] Matt Yglesias takes this a bit further – We’re suffering from an incoherent institutional set-up in the senate. You can have a system in which a defeated minority still gets a share of governing authority and participates constructively in the victorious majority’s governing agenda, shaping policy around the margins in ways more to their liking. Or you can have a system in which a defeated minority rejects the majority’s governing agenda out of hand, seeks opening for attack, and hopes that failure on the part of the majority will bring them to power. But right now we have both simultaneously. It’s a system in which the minority benefits if the government fails, and the minority has the power to ensure failure. It’s insane, and it needs to be changed. [...]
December 12th, 2009 at 12:34 am
If this country is ungovernable it’s because of clowns like Mitch McConnell. All he is is a prostitute for his big donors and his standing orders are – Do Nothing. In English, this translates “Screw the People”.
I think people would like Mr. McConnell better of he admitted he was a whore.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:49 am
The whole premise of the article is ridiculous. Might I point out that the Democrats already HAVE 60 votes in the Senate, enough to break any filibuster. Despite their massive advantages in Congress and control of the White House, they have made a hash of things and can’t get their agenda through. Rather than facing up to their incompetence and the narrow far left wing agenda they are pushing, they want to declare the country “ungovernable” and blame the opposition. Where do they get people that actually commit such poppycock to paper?
December 12th, 2009 at 12:56 am
The whole premise of the article is ridiculous. Might I point out that the Democrats already HAVE 60 votes in the Senate, enough to break any filibuster.
Tell that to Lieberman, Nelson, et al. Please.
December 12th, 2009 at 1:02 am
1) I’m not defending the Republican position on these issues, I’m simply defending them from the accusation that their political strategy is somehow improperly obstructionist (as opposed to properly obstructionist). The Democrats, impotent as they were during most of the Bush years, didn’t really obstruct anything except a few judicial nominees.
The problem is that this hasn’t historically been the role of the minority party. It would be one thing if they were only opposing one or two high profile or especially controversial proposals, but they are obstructing very nearly everything, including some of the basic day-to-day functions of government (by keeping large numbers of mid-level cabinet posts and judge seats unfilled).
Of course whether the fanatical minority obstructing everything is cynically nihilistic or merely earnestly wrong-headed, the effect is the same. Neither is especially acceptable.
December 12th, 2009 at 1:58 am
I don’t understand why the opposition should only oppose “one or two high profile things” they disagree with, instead of all of the things they disagree with. Can you mention a major piece of legislation you think they secretly agreed with but only tried to block because it came from Obama? (If you say the stimulus, note that it actually DID pass after concessions were made…)
Also, if the Democrats of the Bush years had grown a spine and actually done their jobs as the opposition, maybe we’d be in better shape right now. Just sayin’…
PS I agree in a broad sense re: executive appointments, but that doesn’t seem to be the thrust of Matt’s complaint: “the Republicans refuse to roll over for our health care legislation!”
December 12th, 2009 at 2:01 am
Re: Apparently 61% of the American people want it to die too.
The polling on healthcare has become so incoherent I strongly suspect it’s not accurate (a majority approves of the major features of HCR, but rejects it as a whole? Huh?) Perhaps we can look forward to a Pollgate scandal in which hacked emails surface revealing how the data was fudged to produce these contradictory results.
December 12th, 2009 at 2:55 am
[...] Well, that’s the House. Matthew Yglesias points out things are even worse in the Senate: [...]
December 12th, 2009 at 4:03 am
I don’t understand why the opposition should only oppose “one or two high profile things” they disagree with, instead of all of the things they disagree with. Can you mention a major piece of legislation you think they secretly agreed with but only tried to block because it came from Obama? (If you say the stimulus, note that it actually DID pass after concessions were made…)
Well, there ARE examples of that. How about the unemployment benefits extension? Three filibusters, a month of delay. Then passes 98-0.
But it’s not really a matter of secretly agreeing with anything. The point is that it does not matter whether or not they agree with things at all. There previously existed a “gentleman’s agreement” in the Senate, an unwritten rule that the manifest will of the voters should be respected, and that the role of the minority party was not to obstruct the majority at every step, but for the most part to step aside and work with the majority to achieve compromise and consensus where possible. Likewise, the majority would reach out to the minority and welcome them to the table.
Now, I’m sure it didn’t always work quite that amicably in practice, but procedural blocks like the filibuster were usually just an unexercised threat to bring the minority at that bargaining table, used only rarely. Now they’re not: In the sixties, no senate term had more than 7 cloture votes. In the entire history of the senate, there have been 863 cloture votes. The 110th congress had 112 of them.
And health care, if you cut through the politicization, hardly seems like it would make the cut in a 7 cloture per session Senate. In the end it’s just a budget-neutral bill to address a very pressing social and economic problem, one that has been acknowledged as such by all sides.
Perhaps the Republicans think the Democrats have the wrong approach. Perhaps they think they could do a better job. But elections are supposed to matter. The minority can certainly have a say, it just shouldn’t be flat no. If they were actually willing to bargain in good faith, I think it’s pretty obvious they could receive some important concessions. (Heck, Snowe, Collins, or anyone else who stepped forward could practically just write their own bill at this point.)
And that’s just health care. The case really seems damning indeed if you consider the numerous appointments and other matters that have been delayed, stopped, or not even attempted.
(And of course, even if we were to accept the idea that a minority ought to shut down everything because of ideological disagreement, the Republican objections are hardly convincing. Their arguments, and their own so-called alternatives, are unconvincing at best, and mostly just incoherent. It smells of stammering excuses, not a studied, principled opposition. Nevermind the straight up admissions of the strategy from party leaders and leaked documents…)
December 12th, 2009 at 4:10 am
The polling on healthcare has become so incoherent I strongly suspect it’s not accurate (a majority approves of the major features of HCR, but rejects it as a whole? Huh?) Perhaps we can look forward to a Pollgate scandal in which hacked emails surface revealing how the data was fudged to produce these contradictory results.
I think the polling becomes a lot easier to understand if you consider the propositions that a) people support health care reform quite strongly in the generic and b) don’t trust Congress as far as a newborn baby could throw it.
The polling is still saying that people want health care reform. It even says they support (to the extent they understand them correctly) specific policies like a public option. They just don’t trust Congress to deliver anything that’ll actually help them.
December 12th, 2009 at 6:52 am
Here is what Democrats need to do when Republicans get the majority again: Filibuster every piece of legislation they propose. No matter what it is, filibuster it. Anything from Social Security Privitization to a bankruptcy bill. Reid was actually pretty good at this in 2005 and 2006 before Dems gained the majority and I suspect that the next Senate Dem leader will do the same. Same thing for Obama if Republicans gain control of Congress. He should veto every single piece of legislation that they pass, no matter what it is and then Democrats would likely gain back the majority.
December 12th, 2009 at 7:29 am
“The smarter elements ”
Oh come on Matt. I knew by the time I was 8 years old how obnoxious that wording is. It is exactly how George Will talks.
December 12th, 2009 at 7:57 am
If the President, House and Senate were following the Constitution and not prostituting their votes for re-elections, we wouldn’t be in this mess. America has not become ungovernable. Our Executive and Legislative branches of government have become Houses of the Rising Sun.
December 12th, 2009 at 8:01 am
You guys are doing the Ah Q thing, practically demanding that we lose so you can claim a spiritual victory.
That’s bullshit. Let’s win. Let the other guys delude themselves.
To do that, well — we gotta disenthrall.
A good place to start would be to dispense with this crap: LaFollette sez “the ability of 40 Senators representing a quarter or so of the US population to block legislation…”, and ‘otopia imagines he’s echoing him to add “the minority that only represents a third of the country…”
Smarter folks would be embarrassed to be confused that 1/4 = 1/3, but the fact is: they’re both wrong.
Don’t underestimate your adversaries is good advice. The 40 Republicans in the Senate represent states with more than 40% of the national population. It’s delusional or dishonest or both to degrade that to “a third”, much less “a quarter”. In the dozen states with a Senator from each party, 11 Republicans are likely to cast an opposing vote to the Democrat from their state. In the 12th, the Democrat is likely to vote with his Republican colleague, against the Democratic caucus.
So it doesn’t exactly help to hallucinate that the problem is that Republicans are over-represented in the Senate relative to the share of the national population that elects Republicans. It’s not true. Wishing won’t make it so.
In the House, the 260 Democrats represent districts that make up about 55% of the population. The 175 Republicans represent districts with roughly 45%.
That’s considerably more than a quarter or a third.
Every member of the House and Senate has a political life independent of the President, no matter how popular (or the opposite), he is. It’s politics 101 to recognize that a President can win 59% of the national electorate, and yet have next to no influence over dozens of Senators and scores of Representatives in his own party, much less his opposition. Why? Cuz they won their elections, too.
Take the Blue Dogs: the Democratic majority in the House depends on half a hundred Representatives who got more votes than Obama where it counts for them, in their districts.
So deluding ourselves that Obama’s popularity is somehow more useful than it is, much less that the bad guys represent just a third or a quarter of the nation, is Ah Q all the way.
December 12th, 2009 at 8:04 am
Looking at the bright side: the Senate doesn’t actually have to abolish the filibuster in order to diminish it.
Senators could start talking about abolishing it … in fact, even the mere existence of a vocal grassroots movement *calling* for the abolition of the filibuster would make Senate minority leaders more cautious about using it.
In short, every time MY writes one of these posts, he is probably reducing the effective power of the filibuster by 0.001%.
December 12th, 2009 at 8:16 am
[...] 60 votes — they still can’t enact the policies they want. Matt Yglesias says “smarter elements in Washington DC are starting to pick up on the fact that it’s not [...]
December 12th, 2009 at 8:46 am
Yanno, this isn’t that complicated a problem: there is an historically high # of Senate seats before the voters next year — 36.
There are usually just 33, and every six years, 34 Senate seats before the voters. One totally unremarked on fact about the current Senate is that it had, I believe, a record # of appointed Senators serving, and two of those seats come before the voters in 2010 to fill out the remainder of the term. (Not counting Kennedy’s.)
The point is, there are way more than enough Senators on the ballot next year to get ‘em to promise to change the Senate rules in January 2011. So how come nobody has proposed, yanno, actually doing it?
LOL — it’s one of those things that indicates that MattY is kibitzing, rather than serious about proposing change.
All ya gotta do is organize voters in Illinois, Delaware, Missouri, Kansas, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Florida, Ohio, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Indiana, Maryland, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah to ask the Senate candidates (35 states, 72 candidates of the major parties) to support abolishing the filibuster, or (my preference) restoring it to “present and voting” from “duly sworn”.
LOL — or is that too much like real politics for you guys?
December 12th, 2009 at 8:59 am
If Congress and the president would have done what they said they were going to do, for example, Obama said “What I’ve done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut.”, Congress and the president would be extremely popular, everyone would be gushing about how we live in inspiring historic times, and the economy would be improving much faster.
America is not ungovernable. The problem is our current government is a clown show.
December 12th, 2009 at 9:00 am
TheAmericanist – You know nothing about American electoral politics.
Exactly where can Democrats actually pick up a reliable seat? All we’d do, given what’s actually up to be taken, is elect more Joe Liebermans and Bill Nelsons. There is something called reality, and I’d suggest you start living in it.
December 12th, 2009 at 9:18 am
[...] The country is indeed ungovernable. [...]
December 12th, 2009 at 9:21 am
In Pearlstein’s world the defeated party (minority) would just pack up and go home and not contribute anything. What rubbish.
December 12th, 2009 at 9:25 am
LOL — riiiight. Being instructed about American politics by a guy who hates cops is helpful.
Tip O’Neill loved to tell the story about his first run for office, which was the only one he ever lost. He checked around afterwards, and realized that one of the folks who voted for his opponent was his next door neighbor. So he went to her and said, gee — you’ve known me my whole life, I’ve carried your groceries, shoveled your walk when it snowed. Why did you vote for the other guy?
And she said: Tip, because he asked. You never asked.
So — if you want to change the Senate rules, ask all 74 candidates (counting Massachusetts, this time) who are running for the Senate to take a position on the change you want.
This is the real way to achieve Ted’s silly idea that anybody much would negotiate over a rat’s ass because of MattY’s blogging about it.
In most cases, you won’t get any substantive response at all: political campaigns are busy, this is a minor and somewhat technical issue, so very few campaign staff, much less candidates, will focus enough to say yes, no, or maybe.
But just the fact somebody from the state has asked creates a visibility that didn’t exist before.
In a few cases, asking might actually fit into a political strategy that the candidate already has, e.g., Feingold may be preparing to explain a failure to do x, y or z, and so he just might want to respond to a Wisconsin inquiry about changing the filibuster in a way that links the rules change to his own re-election campaign themes.
And just like that, you have what you don’t have now: a Senator who might champion your issue.
See how it works?
The jackpot for this sorta thing is to get major Senate players who are up for re-election to incorporate what you want into their campaign promises (Dodd? Leahy?): and guess what?
The Senate majority leader is up for re-election, and is expected to have a tough race in Nevada.
LOL — honest, how kindergarten are you guys about this stuff? You’re looking at something like an historic trifecta of opportunities (an extremely large # of Senate seats in play, a set of legislative circumstances where a significant # of candidates might want to take up a rules change, of all things, for political reasons, and the Senate majority leader is one of ‘em) in 2010, and all you can do is bitch and make shit up so you can achieve your Ah Q victory.
December 12th, 2009 at 9:34 am
Give me a break – George Bush got a hell of a lot more done with a lot less vote margin. What has really happened is that the left somehow thought that this country had suddenly become a liberal paradise when it actually continues to be slightly right of center. The reason Obama can’t get anything done is because he was completely unprepared for the job (as many critics had said) and he’s trying to push an agenda that a large part of the country does not support.
December 12th, 2009 at 9:46 am
“Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”. Take your phock-ing CFL bulbs and shove them up your collective asshats Mr&Mrs: ReidPelosiKerrySchumerBoxerDurbanFeinsteinFrankenObamaAxelrod…et.al.
December 12th, 2009 at 9:49 am
I sure don’t feel ungovernable….in fact, I feel like I’m being governed about a hundred times more than my Father ever was and about a thousand times more than my Grandfather. Maybe that’s the problem.
December 12th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Matt, you’ve hit the nail right on the head! Out here in San Diego, there have been riots as many people have taken to the streets in defiance of law and the government in general. Last night, over 1500 people were either killed or hospitalized and three whole blocks of downtown were burned to the ground. The situation is critical, Matt! These ungovernable people are wrecking the country and soon we’ll have to …
Oh, wait. That didn’t happen at all. We just oppose endless federal government power grabs. My mistake. I’m sure you can see how the two could be confused.
December 12th, 2009 at 9:58 am
Hey Matt, three words: Obama is incompetent.
He spent about 10 minutes being a senator and now he’s president. Remember?
December 12th, 2009 at 10:00 am
When you say, “it needs to be changed”, I assume you are talking about the policy in the US Senate of needing 60 votes to end debate on a bill. Okay, go ahead and change it. Change it so the Senate operates under the same rules as the House. That way you can get all sorts of crazy bills to the White House for Obama’s signature. Of course keep in mind that when the today’s opposition holds the legislative and executive branches they won’t re-institute that 60 vote rule in the Senate. Have a nice day!
December 12th, 2009 at 10:00 am
[...] The country is indeed ungovernable. [...]
December 12th, 2009 at 10:00 am
[...] The country is indeed ungovernable. [...]
December 12th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Robert Bork and Miguel Estrada called, Matt. They say you’re full of crap.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:02 am
I actually think Obama is doing a pretty good job, which will be increasingly clear as he checks off victories in the coming year: TARP, the stimuli bills, cap and trade, health care reform, immigration reform, and so on.
So it’s not the President who wasn’t ready for this. It’s the Left.
It really is fascinating how plain it is in these threads, and yet folks who exemplify the problem can’t (or won’t) see it: so afraid of being taken in by common sense that they can’t be taken out of their delusions.
The same folks who bitch about how the Blue Dogs, f’r example, are such a marginal and illegitimately influential part of the Democratic party, turn around and complain that Democrats have “overwhelming” majorities, yet they can’t get anything done.
Um, folks? The Blue Dogs are the Democratic majority. Without them, there ain’t one. (This is not true of the 170 or so Democrats who aren’t Blue Dogs. Sure, they outnumber the Blue Dogs in the caucus, but without the Blue Dogs, the caucus is not a majority. No, d-uh.)
But then these same folks insist that the 45% of the nation that elects Republicans to the House, and the 40% of the nation that has elected Republicans to the Senate, are only ‘about a third’ or ‘about a quarter’ of the population.
LOL — see why I use the word delusional?
The President clearly understands how to win key votes in Congress — he hasn’t lost one yet, not that any of you knuckleheads has noticed.
The truth is, a very large chunk of the Left wants to lose, so you can brag to yourselves about how much more noble and smarter you are than the “quarter” of the American people that just kicked your punk asses.
Not me, bub.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Iow, no, you don’t have any posts that demonstrate you’ve defended Democrats on the basis that they’re supposed to be obstructionist. Iow, you’re making it up as you go along with no thought to what you’ve said before. Also, note the inconsistency between obstructionism and bad ideas. The privately managed student loan programs are agreed by everyone not to be good fiscal practice – even Republicans. They oppose any reforms in that direction anyway. I suppose that if Democrats tried to pass a bill saying that breathing should not be taxed that Republicans could oppose that too and it would be perfectly okay, in fact what they’re supposed to do. Son, inconsistent and incoherent is no way to go through life.
If you were in middle school in 2003, then you’re not even 20. If that’s the case, why should I listen to you? Given the incoherency you’ve demonstrated in just a few posts?
December 12th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Waah waah waah!
We can’t impose our will!
Waah waah waah!
December 12th, 2009 at 10:06 am
It’s ungovernable when a corrupt congress is trying to force 2,000-page bills they haven’t read into law when 61 percent of us don’t want it. And thank God for that.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:08 am
We really need a different majority leader in the Senate. But we also need a grassroots movement pushing harder on these procedural issues.
This gets at a criticism of Obama, notwithstanding what ’smart DC people’ say: Obama *has* a grassroots organization, which he doesn’t use for much; Team Obama must have gamed-out everything that’s happening now, and yet it happened anyway – there was no institutional shift in 2008, was there?
The Senate is an anachronism which we’re (unfortunately) stuck with; at the least, the rules need to be changed; Bad-Mitch Republicans are essentially disloyal to the US, since they put Party above Country; the Democratic party desperately needs reformation – all true. Obama has a very very hard job. But he ran for it, didn’t he?
December 12th, 2009 at 10:11 am
[...] liberal blogger Matt Yglesias is finding that American democracy isn’t working out his way these days, and announces that [...]
December 12th, 2009 at 10:15 am
[...] money. It’s not the President fault, mind you. It’s just that the country is now “ungovernable“. The smarter elements in Washington DC are starting to pick up on the fact that it’s not [...]
December 12th, 2009 at 10:17 am
“the country has become ungovernable.”
BWHAHAHAHHAHA!
Oh Gawd. That’s hilarious.
Be careful what you wish for, Leftards. In our system, power shifts back and forth between the parties. If you don’t want it done to you (and you may not know it yet, but you really don’t want to live under the dictatorship you’re unconsciously espousing), don’t do it to the other guys.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:21 am
[...] right on cue, here’s Matthew Yglesias: “The smarter elements in Washington DC are starting to pick up on the fact that it’s not [...]
December 12th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Matt, after reading your article and as many of the comments as I could stomach, I’m thinking that you are really just living in the wrong country. I’m thinking that perhaps you would be happier in a European country – maybe France, maybe Belgium. Or perhaps you would be much happier in an Asian country, China comes to mind.
Here’s the thing. Central Planning, which to this little old rube out in Kansas, is what the current Health Care “Reform” is all about. Bureaucratic decisions as to who will get health care and when and for how much is anathema to the bulk of us ungovernable citizens.
We want to make those decisions for ourselves.
We will not let our neighbors die for lack of health care – and we do not let them die for lack of health care. That is why we have believe in something called Charity.
Most of the hospitals in our area are run by religious organizations. They do not turn people away based on their income or insurance availability. As good people, we give part of our income, voluntarily, to organizations to help people in need.
I’ve never met a Progressive who liked the idea of charity. Y’all think it is a government responsibility to take care of people.
We Americans are an unruly lot because our ancestors did not want to be ruled by a governing elite, and we carry those genes proudly. Get stuffed, Progressives!
The Democrats don’t need Republicans to get stuff passed. They need a reasonable bill, which they do not have.
Government-run anything is never as efficient and as supportive to the individual as privately-run anythings.
Progressives do not get this. Never have, never will. Progressives really, truly believe that they are smarter than the rest of us, and that they know better how to tell us to live our lives.
Oh, golly, gee whiz. Most of us disagree with you. Progressives, the same people who claim they want Government out of their bedrooms, want Government in every possible aspect of our lives because they are “smarter”.
Phllllbbbbtttt!!
December 12th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Maybe he should talk to people in Indiana about Mitch Daniels. Mitch has created a privatization disaster for the state. Our number of citizens with a college degree is right next to Mississippi as the nation’s lowest. Indiana is becoming the Mississippi of the north.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Government-run anything is never as efficient and as supportive to the individual as privately-run anythings.
People who’ve never worked in corporate America or for privatized government contractors are so cute!
December 12th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Reprising the old high school cheer:
Barry, Barry, he’s our man!
If he can’t govern, nobody can!
December 12th, 2009 at 10:29 am
In fact that is simply a lie:
What it is dearie, is that us real Americans know this is something we need. It’s you un-American gits that need to leave if you don’t like it. Why you hate America and so many of its citizens?
December 12th, 2009 at 10:29 am
this little old rube out in Kansas
are you proud to be a little rube who doesn’t know what she’s talking about? Why? The sin of Pride is still a sin, even if feign humility.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:30 am
A-HA! But, but … what about all that institutional change that has made the country ungovernable?
Face it. Senate rules are fine when they advance your agenda and eeeeeevil when they do not. How hard is it for you to admit that simple truth? It’s nothing to be ashamed about and certainly not worth whining about ungovernability.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:31 am
jonnybutter said: “…The Senate is an anachronism which we’re (unfortunately) stuck with; at the least, the rules need to be changed…”
That’s great. How about we have a rubber stamp Congress instead, or just let the executive branch legislate by “findings”? Oh, wait. They’ve already threatened to play that card by declaring CO2 a threat to the American people.
What is it with progressives that they always seem to favor dictatorship whenever they can’t get their way?
December 12th, 2009 at 10:32 am
This is exactly what was said 30 years ago when James Earl Carter was er “running” things. The basic problem with the left was slipped in the days before the inauguration when they decreeed they would be ready to RULE, not govern.
How can it be that the “transformational” Obama even allows this thought?
December 12th, 2009 at 10:37 am
The only institutional change is that Democrats now have complete control of government.
President, House, Senate and Supreme Court, they own it all. And they still can’t pass the laws they want!
So to keep their Messiah, The Childe Of Chicago, from looking bad (and to grab more power, of course, the Democrat Party types loves them some power), they begin complaining of the country’s sudden “ungovernability”.
Well, sure, if you want to rub our noses in your incompetence, go right ahead and complain.
Losers.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:41 am
Wow, troll invasion this morning.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Funny stuff.
We’re ungovernable because of an R minority that wants us that way.
Or something.
Or, because of institutional changes.
Or something.
Karl Rove said it best, we are socially moderate and fiscally conservative.
D’s have done well on the socially moderate part, and continue to fail miserably at the fiscal conservative part.
Which is why they are currently in denial about their legislative chances.
Like I said, funny stuff.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Barry’s still voting present.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Jonnybutter misses the point: “Obama *has* a grassroots organization, which he doesn’t use for much…”
What’s keeping you from using it? You are it, aren’t you?
Just to harp on it: MattY wants to abolish the filibuster. (Me, I’d rather it go back to “present and voting”.)
What’s keeping MattY (who has a forum of sorts here), or you, or anybody else, from simply organizing in Illinois, Delaware, Missouri, Kansas, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Florida, Ohio, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah to abolish it?
Those states all have Senate races — hell, one has two.
Why aren’t you organizing where it will do the most good, to influence the guy with the most clout on the issue: you’re telling me that of all the folks bitching about Senate obstructionism, kvetching about the filibuster, and quixotically calling for the abolition of the Senate — none of ‘em live in Nevada?
Anybody up for a trip to Vegas?
LOL — you guys are milling around, bitching that our leaders aren’t leading us. This is America, doofus: we lead ourselves.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Tyro, I’ve worked for large corporations and small corporations, ma and pa businesses and now I work for myself.
I’ve worked for the government, too, the Missouri State Government.
And I’m an Army Veteran.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:56 am
[...] says Matthew Yglesias, who’s dismayed that the progressive agenda has ground to a halt. Instead of taking the [...]
December 12th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Funny that you folks call people who disagree with you trolls, while you are the ones doing the name-calling.
There is a certain lack of maturity in this group of commenters.
How many of you are over 50?
Over 40?
Over 30?
Over 10?
December 12th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Beth, with all your claimed experience, it’s funny how you speak in mindless right-wing cliché much like members of the Maoist youth brigade spouting quotations from the Little Red Book.
Sometimes government works quite well– and, honestly, in my experiences, taxpayers get their money’s worth from government employees than “privatized” contractors. Everyone knows this. Claiming otherwise flies in the face of reality. The problem, of course, is that Republicans are trying to crush our public resources and services because they are suffering under a crazed ideology that forces them to. The point being– Mitch McConnell, like many elected officials, particularly those with his ideology, doesn’t have to “do” anything. Whereas Republicans that actually have to deliver services to their constituents actually do it well. Republican ideologues, particularly of the right-wing talking points variety people who’ve never been anything, never done anything, never dealt with voters, and never accomplished anything will never understand this.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Funny that you folks call people who disagree with you trolls, while you are the ones doing the name-calling.
Because trolls, particularly the losers whose political beliefs are informed by the mindless repetition of cliché, are losers worthy of mockery. While flooding the zone with mindless talking points might work when it comes to harrassing your family, who is forced to deal with your presence, the rest of us — particularly those of us who encounter such stupidities on a regular basis in blogs like “The Corner,” — such sentiments are considered a petty annoyance from the mouths of the immature and deluded Just because you can mindlessly mouth the clichés you were taught to repeat in the “2 minutes of hate” you engage in every day does not entitle you toi be taken seriously. It means you get to be laughed at.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:06 am
“people who’ve never been anything, never done anything, never dealt with voters, and never accomplished anything…”
He he’s talking about our Barry!
December 12th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Yeah, clearly this post got linked over in RedState, at which point the discussion started to sound … a lot like RedState.
Hey, guys — psst — just between you and me, we really do want to ban your guns. Keep it on the down low, ‘kay?
December 12th, 2009 at 11:09 am
But what happens when 61% of said consituents don’t want it? Those pesky voters. How dare they be so ungovernable.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Ryan, it’s because progressives are, in their hearts, all closet dictators. If they can’t do it by themselves, they’ll do it as a tyranny of the majority.
It never ceases to amaze me how progressives can be so blind to the lessons of history. Every schoolkid learns that the United States of America is not a true democracy. It is a representative republic. Every schoolkid also learns about the Great Compromise made during the writing of the Constitution: two legislative houses, one to represent the people directly, the other to represent the states directly. This Compromise was made specifically because the small-population states feared becoming a permanent minority, unable to resist the overwhelming numbers of the big-population states. In the Senate, all states would be equal.
Every schoolkid also learns, at a somewhat older age, of the run-up to the Civil War — how the nation became polarized on the issue of slavery, and the southern states became convinced that they would be overwhelmed by the rising number of northern states and northern voters. This fear created political paralysis on the most important issue of the time, and led eventually to the bloodiest civil war ever fought in human history.
And the lesson, over and over, is the same: in a democracy, an uncontrolled majority is a terrifying thing. That was true 220 years ago; it was true 150 years ago; and it’s still true today. Thus, it should be obvious that the requirement for sixty Senate votes on critical bills is a good thing, because it places a limit on the power of the majority. And anyone who thinks they can convince me that the nationalization of one-sixth of the economy is not critical can save their breath, because it ain’t gonna happen.
And if that requirement makes the nation “ungovernable,” well, so be it, and a good thing too. I think the federal government ran out of good laws to pass a couple of decades ago. Today, the less it gets done, the better I like it. No matter which party is nominally “in power.”
December 12th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Hear, hear wolfwalker. well said.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Yglesias is full of crap. Period. Edclamation point.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Sorry…. I can’t spell when I’m pissed off!
Yglesias is full of crap. Period. Exclamation point.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:20 am
A requisite for governing is competence.
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/89912/
December 12th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Beth, you openly describe yourself as a rube out in Kansas and then go on to say something self evidently false and ignorant about health care reform. Does that not simply back up your assertionof your own ignorance and misinformation?
You know who else was from Kansas? Eisenhower. And he thought your ideology was kind of crazy. Nevertheless, he was willing to allow all people to take advantage of the benefits of modernity.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Ryan, it’s because progressives are, in their hearts, all closet dictators. If they can’t do it by themselves, they’ll do it as a tyranny of the majority.
You guys have got us all wrong. What we actually want to do is sap your precious bodily fluids and force you to embrace the gay agenda. All the rest is just a means to an end.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:23 am
“The smarter elements in Washington DC are starting to pick up on the fact that it’s not tactical errors on the part of the president that make it hard to get things done, it’s the fact that the country has become ungovernable.”
I knew that a long time ago. I guess that makes me smarter that the “smarter elements.” I’m among the “genius elements.”
Interesting that this only became apparent after Obama was in office a few months.
It’s not exactly that the country is ungovernable. It’s the government is totally unmanageable and is threatening to engulf us if we don’t start beating it over the head. Tell that to the “smarter elements,” Mr. Smart Guy.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Funny, I didn’t see Beth say anything “self evidently false and ignorant about health care reform.” I saw her say something about what she thinks are the probable consequences of the current bill before the Senate.
Or do you really want to argue that bills passed by Congress and signed by the President never have unintended consequences?
December 12th, 2009 at 11:25 am
“the bloodiest civil war ever fought in human history…”
This isn’t even close. The T’aiping Rebellion was also a civil war, and killed roughly 50 times as many.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Good…The Dems have lots of seats to defend in 2012 and 2014. Getting rid of the filibuster would mean movement on so many GOP issues after 2014 and repeal of so many leftist ones as well. Such as Davis Bacon Act, more ultra-Conservative judges, ANWAR.
It also mean the GOP could repeal the abortion that is Obamacare….be careful what you wish for Mattie
December 12th, 2009 at 11:30 am
And maybe get you to stop wearing khakis with loud polo shirts. (But my fellow progressives tell me we have to take this one step at a time. )
December 12th, 2009 at 11:32 am
The smarter elements told us that Obama was going to be the best president since Abe Lincoln. Sitting out in the boondocks, I could see that electing a person with radical roots and no experience at anything other than self promotion was a disaster, so I have been watching, with laughter and pain, to see how long it would be before those smarter elements would figure out what was happening. We are getting to the point where the smarter elements now see disaster, but since they will not let go of the belief that Obama is destined to be the best president since Lincoln, they cannot draw the logical conclusion of why we are in the mess we are in. The term cognitive dissonance comes to mind.
One of the silver linings to giving the Democrats overwhelming control of the government was that that control would make them accountable for what happens. It is amazing to read all the comments that cannot stop blaming Republicans. If there were only five Republican senators and ten Republican representatives, there are people who still would try to blame the Republicans for every problem. Hey–the Democrats won. They are responsible for what is happening.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Where were the liberals decrying this sort of thing when George Bush tried to reform Social Security? The Democrats openly cheered at the SOTU when Bush announced its defeat. The Senate rules are the way they are to keep the majority from running roughshod over the minority. That’s how you keep a
democracyrepublic together.Speaking of Bush, the Democrats wanted to end the Iraq war when they assumed power in 2007. Bush stood his ground and the war continued. Since Obama can’t get his policies through despite having a friendly Congress, perhaps that says more about Obama than about the structure of the Senate.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Ungovernable America
So which part of government studies did you miss ?
I was told in 5th grade civics that our Constitution was designed to make doing “big thing” really hard.
Welcome to reality
December 12th, 2009 at 11:41 am
I’m surprised at the naiveté of my friends from RedState. Do you think we progressives still intend to govern the country? Gazing in awe at the past eight years of well-oiled decision-making by the nation’s top minds, we realized in our hearts that we could never compete.
Our true agenda is to convince people that the nation is ungovernable, and thus bring the very idea of national government into discredit. Only then, in the anarchy that ensues, will our atheistical plan of World Government have any chance of success. Go back and spread the news on RedState. But — MWAAhahaha! — the MSM will never believe you.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Smarter elements? You mean like the people who endorsed the Afghanistan/Iraq wars, John Kerry over Howard Dean, “public health care option vs. single payer”?
Yeah, we all’s bedder start listenin’ to dem smart peeple.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Sorry Yglesias, your beloved “progressives” have a majority in BOTH houses and the Exec Branch, in short THEY can do whatever they want, problem is even some of those on the left see this congress and admin. as the far left power hungry socialists that they are. Maybe if there was some sense of moderate governing they would have more success. How is it that a person (such as the author) can carp and whine about “obstructionist” behavior from the GOP when they are for all intents and purpose irrelevant? Typical far left cry baby syndrome.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:54 am
As several posters have noted, Obama has a friendly Senate and a friendly House of Representatives. That said friendlies cannot muster all the Democratic votes needed says far more about the nature of the proposed legislation than it does about either Republicans or Democrats.
As for the Republicans, they have indeed offered up ideas not even considered by the Democratic leadership, but the ideas are more on the nature of tuning up an sound but ill-running vehicle rather than pulling the whole engine and adding an untested new one with 13 air intakes and 50 exhaust ports and special accelerator pedals for three counties in Florida.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Mixner took this one to 100, and the Red State arrivals have kept it chugging along. A warning to the RSers: when Mixner finally shows up (any time now) even you shouldn’t try disagreeing with him, because he’s pretty autistic about that.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Sorry Yglesias, your beloved “progressives” have a majority in BOTH houses and the Exec Branch, in short THEY can do whatever they want
Way to completely miss the point.
The way the Senate is set up, a “majority” isn’t enough to “do whatever they want”.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Our system, which gives complete control over the executive branch to the winner of the presidential election, has proven to be much more unstable in than the parliamentary system, in which control of the executive goes to the party or alliance of parties able to assemble a parliamentary majority. In that system, minority parties have a path to power –via coalition, and then being rewarded with cabinet/executive posts– other than bringing down the majority. I believe I have read, although I don’t know where, that coups have been much more common in presidential systems than parliamentary. Our system worked in this country better than in others because there was for most of our history a relatively mild animus between the two parties and, in the most part, a recognition of the basic decency and American-ness (if wrong-headed and corrupt) of the opposing party. Now that we have adopted a pattern of dehumanizing and despising our political opponents, the basic goodwill required for our fragile system to function has been seriously depleted. If we do not or will not stop indulging in the politics of hatred and hostility, and will not make institutional adjustments to switch to the more stable parliamentary model, then this crisis of ungovernability will intensify. The choice is ours. Every time we dehumanize the other party, we are moving our political cultural closer to the brink.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Ungovernable, what has changed in the last year? The inept Bush was able to govern and get much of his agenda into passed legislation with smaller majorities.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Tyro –
I am who I say I am. I use my real name on my blogs and my comments on blogs.
I have worked for telecommunication companies and software companies. I have cleaned houses. I have been a social worker. I have managed retail shops. Now, I am running my tiny little farm raising free-ranged chickens and selling their eggs, raising angora rabbits and angora goats and selling their fibers.
I served proudly in the Army Reserve back in the ’70s.
Oh, and I’m a lifetime member of the NRA! I’m one helluva good shot.
But I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. I’m probably more Libertarian than anything else.
I probably have more real-world experience in my little toe than you can ever hope to have.
I have learned in my life that those who call people names often do so because they cannot put together a coherent argument. Quite often, those people really need to take a good look at themselves and ask why they are so angry all the time.
Are you pissed off because other people can work hard and do better than you? If so, figure out what you love to do and do it.
This country is not a Democracy. It is a Democratic Republic, and I’m damn glad it is!!
The fewer laws that Congress manages to pass, the better off are most Americans.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
No, Beth, I’m calling you un-American, and a liar. I thought people like you were supposed to be about accepting consequences, owning up, that sort of thing, yet you can’t bring yourself to say that the majority of USians want a public option for health care insurance.
Which, as I said, makes you both un-American and a liar.
You mean people like me who admit to being “fiftyish”? I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find out that I am older – possibly considerably older – than you are.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Proud to be ungovernable.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
@TrollDetector: OMG — a Mixner / RedState faceoff! What an idea. Honestly, I would buy tickets.
It’s a bit like Lion vs Tiger. The raw bluster of RedState meets the red-herrings and false equivalences of Mixner. But I would put my money on Mixner, because he has more patience.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
“It’s a system in which the
minorityAmerican people benefits if thegovernmentcrappy legislation fails. It’sinsanea functioning republic, and itneeds to be changedreally pisses MattY off.”There, fixed it for ya!
December 12th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Heh. Except your claim was that “Bureaucratic decisions as to who will get health care and when and for how much is anathema to the bulk of us ungovernable citizens.” That’s objectively wrong, as any number of polls show(and of course flies in the face of the fact that private health care insurance has a considerable bureaucracy all its own that does exactly what Beth claims is an “anethma”).
So when are we going to hear a retraction from you? Or is “taking responsibility” only for other people who aren’t in your tribe?
Oh, and btw, I grew up on a farm with no electricity and no running water, and I was shooting regularly by the time I was 10. Take your heartland signifiers and stick them where the sun don’t shine.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
We were “ungovernable” under Bush when the Democrats were preventing the regulation of Fannie Mae, and Freddy Mac.
Of course, if the Democrats had never created Fanny and Freddy that would have been the best thing of all.
Recognizing fractional reserve banking as fraud and then creating laws against this fraud would be the best way to prevent the economic boom and bust cycles. Not exacerbating the problem by creating a central bank, FDIC insurance, and other institutions to prop up the fraud.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
The problem isn’t that the Democrats can’t govern this country, but rather that they haven’t tried. Instead of trying to make this country run better, they’re more interested in changing it into some other country, somewhere between a European soft socialist nation and the Soviet Union. I don’t think they could actually run the country of their dreams, either, but it’s a good thing enough Democrats think their radical agenda is too extreme to vote for or the Republicans wouldn’t have a chance of keeping them from driving us all over a cliff. We fought a revolution in 1776 because we didn’t want to be a European country, and we’re filled with immigrants who escaped the Continent and its decadent political and social structure. The Democrats are now trying to reverse those “mistakes”.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Ungovernable, my left nut.
Obama’s party controls all of Congress, and a majority, albeit slight, of registred voters.
Obama is a campaigner, not a leader. His complete lack of executive experience has never been more obvious. I even question his much vaunted “organizing” skills. They can’t even organize security for a State dinner, for God’s sake.
It’s not that the country is ungovernable, it’s that Obama himself is incapable of governing.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
So what are you advocating, Matt? A one-party totalitarian system, as long as it’s “your” people in charge? Do you not understand the nature of the Senate as a deliberative body?
December 12th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Hmmm. Typical argument from the ‘progressives’ (yes, it’s air-quoted) – “Wah. I failed. Who can I blame.”
Jeez, man up. You have super-majorities and you can’t get stuff done. It’s not anyone’s fault but your own.
Stop looking for someone else to blame – get a mirror.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Matt is way off the reservation here. When the governing party is able to put its ideas out there in a way that makes sense and shows they have considered the implications of what they propose— including looking long and hard at the potential unintended consequences (which politicians are especially poor at, it would seem) — then the public that elected them will get behind their ideas.
Until then, it’s gridlock city and maybe that’s how it should be.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Liberals, just to bring you up to speed on our current political status you have a filibuster proof senate and an overwhelming majority in the house and a newby inexperienced president who will sign anything put in front of him. Still you want to whine about republicans or the system when according to the system the republicans couldn’t block anything from happening in either branch of government.
I understood why the liberals whined throught the Bush years, even with lesser majorities than liberals have now Bush was effective at getting his agenda passed. You are still whining though and I believe it is because whining is all you know.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Look, it’s called representative government. Just because the Dems have control of the the exec and leg branches doesn’t mean that they can do whatever they want. There is still an active minority here that is digging in its heals, and for good reason. The Dems are over reaching. The problem here is that Dems such as yourself were under impression that ya’ll had a mandate when in truth, ya’ll did not. Obama swept the electoral votes, but his margin in the popular vote was 52% to 48%. This should have been a clear message to Dems that they needed to govern from the middle.
December 12th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
It is about time that people started figuring out that our system is broken. We have institutionalized Minority Rule with the filubuster. We are psychologically back in the years before the Civil War where Southern reactionaries simply cannot accept or reconcile themselves to the fact that they are no longer in control and are a losing minority out of step with the rest of the nation. So they are attempting to effecively destroy the government which they no longer control, just as the Plantation elite did when the nation elected a president committed to preventing slavery in the new territories, which meant being committed to the confinement of the South as a junior partner in the national federation, which the South would never accept.
Times have changed, the states no longer control militias the way they once did, so we are not in danger of armed Civil War once again. But politically the dynamics are the same.
The founders created a system with enough checks and balances to prevent mob rule and tyranny of the majority but at some level there was the assumption that there would be at least some good faith effort on the part of contending parties to work together between elections. That is completely gone in today’s polarized environment in which the Republican base punishes any officeholder who works with Democrats.
A powerful right wing media with FOX and talk radio that allows conservatives to control the narrative and invent reality for a significant portion of the voting public has also contributed to this polarization and radicalization of our politics. We might as well be speaking two different languages, and there is really no profit for telling the truth or punishment for lying. So that is what we get. It is obstruction for obstructions sake, and it is important to note that the GOP thinks it wins if the government fails, and as Matt points out the system gives Republicans the ability to make sure it fails.
The idea that we need 60 votes to pass all legislation in this deliberately obstructionist and hyperpartisan environment ensures that the government will be completely deadlocked.
Walter Lippmann said a long time ago in Public Philosophy that the inability of democratic governments to govern effectively was a pathway to dictatorship. A people can subsist without having a voice in government, but they cannot go for long, he said, without a government which can and does in fact govern. People will choose dictatorial government that threatens to be paternalitic in favor of weak government that threatens to be fratricidal every time, he said. And that is where the Radical Right, being authoritarian themselves, wants to take us.
December 12th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
America became ‘ungovernable’ after the Democrats took power. Coincidence?
December 12th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Ted Frier:
I am one of the most conflict-averse, non-confrontational, conciliatory people walking around. One consistent thing I heard before retirement, in feedback from peers and in performance reviews (which were intertwined where I worked) is that I was “too nice” when I needed to dig in my heels and/or be tougher.
Yet now I DO oppose a lot of what is being “pushed” by the majority and their aligned interests in Washington. Frankly, if it’s a choice between a government that essentially does nothing for the time being and a government that acts like a bull in a china shop, I’ll take the latter. I truly believe we are in danger of going over the cliff as a nation financially, and I WILL stand in the way to the extent I can. I can do that at the same time I sympathize with many of the agenda items you probably advocate.
Sometimes, in business, we had to accept (while hating to do it) of cutting back in order to save the enterprise from total collapse. It’s gut wrenching— but it’s life.
Greece is learning the hard way that it’s impossible to put toothpaste back into the tube once you squeeze it out. Let’s not go down that path.
December 12th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
I meant to say, “if it’s a choice between a government that essentially does nothing for the time being and a government that acts like a bull in a china shop, I’ll take the former over the latter.”
December 12th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Mr. Yglesias, your comprehension of the deliberate interia of the United States Constitution is shockingly slight, if that much.
December 12th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
How pathetic you leftists have become. You own the White House, and Congress. You dominate the media and the education system and yet, you still can’t get the rest of us to buy into you Socialist agenda. This state of affairs isn’t becuase the country is ungovernable, it’s because normal americans (the ones that actually take responsibility for their own lives and put focus on the welfare of their families before all else, the ones you and your ilk derisively call “Teabaggers”) do not now and will not ever buy into to your Leftist Bullshit!!!
December 12th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
[...] Matthew Yglesias has suddenly realized that he’s living in the United States of America, a constitutional republic whose system is still essentially conservative in the sense that it makes government centralization and self-aggrandizement more, not less difficult – despite the long and determined effort of those who wish they lived under other arrangements. [...]
December 12th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Waaah! Forcing people to do stuff is hard.
December 12th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
The democrats can pass anything they like if they unite. They have 60 votes in the Senate. That not only makes the country “governable” it makes it rather easily governable. It’s obvious that the policies of B. Hussein Obama, Reid, and Pelosi are too far left for even some democrats.
December 12th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
It’s not that the Republicans are unusually stubborn or that the country has become ungovernable, but that the Democrats have become ungovernable. The Democratic strategy for obtaining Congressional dominance has been to grab seats in red states. These “Blue Dogs” are Democrats in name, but are considerably more conservative than their progressive brethren, so passing bills like health care reform are still close run affairs. The Republicans are more homogenous–aside from the ladies from Maine (now that Spector has made the switch wholesale), the Repubs are a solidly conservative party. If anything, it’s still easier to pass conservative legislation than any progressive measure. Go ahead, try passing a tax cut–you’ll get every Republican and all those Blue Dogs and then some. It doesn’t mean that the system is broken–it means that your big tent party may be too big to govern.
December 12th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Shorter Ted Frier:
~ If I could have an operation that could allow me to choose to become Howard Zinn or Barbara Mikulski I would pick both.
~ If the Federal government will not pay for that operation the system is broken.
~ The American people are generally incapable of discerning their own values, virtues, rights, duties, and honor; they’re lazy and I’m just trying to be helpful.
~ I heard Walter Lippman wrote stuff, not sure what.
December 12th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Great! Let’s have Obama and the Democratic Party explain their cowardice and failure by calling the country ungovernable, a state of affairs that induces national malaise. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
December 12th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Whiny liberal and his miserable failure of a “president” can’t ram their fascism and marxism down America’s throat fast emough and it’s because WE’RE ungovernable… What a sad weak bunch you libs are.
December 12th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Want some cheese with that whine?
Ungovernable my ass.
I didn’t hear you all say that when the Republicans were in the minority.
Just another stupid progressive whining because you cannot get your way… Waaaaah!
Idiot.
December 12th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
If there’s ANY doubt that Matthew Yglesias can be, from time to time, a complete moron, this post post dispels it.
December 12th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
We fought a revolution in 1776 because we didn’t want to be a European country, and we’re filled with immigrants who escaped the Continent and its decadent political and social structure.
Yes, we fought a revolution against post-WWII European social democracy. You are a fucking idiot.
A also like the idea of forcing fascism ADN Marxism on you. Ahh what Jonah hath wrought.
December 12th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
No, no. Malaise Matt is spot on. We are too stupid, too cynical, too lazy. Allowing us to vote is madness. We need bright smart people like Matt to take charge of our lives.
And Malaise Matt, I’m sure if you simply BELIEVE! you are fixing us for our own good, Pope Gore will throw you a few papal indulgences for your efforts.
December 12th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
No, no. Malaise Matt is spot on. We are too stupid, too cynical, too lazy. Allowing us to vote is madness. We need bright smart people like Matt to take charge of our lives.
You guys do realize that Matt’s “ungovernable” refers to gtthe setup of institutions in Washington, and not to the American people or you personally, right?
December 12th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
[...] make lame excuses that the America has become “ungovernable.” “We’re suffering from an incoherent institutional set-up in the senate. You can have a [...]
December 12th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
I read about half the comments, so I’m sorry if the latter half finally addressed this obvious point:
Everyone is complaining about the Republicans’ obstructionist tactics, but the Democrats have a filibuster-proof majority. The fact that the Democrats’ agenda isn’t being passed easily is not solely due to any tactics by the Republicans or Mitch McConnell. Obviously, not all the Democrats are happy with the agenda either.
December 12th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
The problem lies in the fact that half of the Democrats aren’t really Democrats. Its hard to pass progressive legislation when your guys might as well be working for the other team.
What would help add more democracy to our Republic and shift power back to places where people actually live is to revoke the State status of States when population density goes below a certain point. This would require a Constitutional amendment of course but would be very beneficial.
In essence if your population density is less than X, you become a territory instead of a state. This keeps underpopulated rural states from having as much power as California or New Jersey and makes the country far more governable.
Another thing we need is a serious ban on the revolving door and all the glad handing. If politicians could not benefit from service beyond their pay and they were not able to fund (or did not need to) raise (100% public financing) they would be more likely to be able to vote for ideas.
It still might fail to fix anything but at least the two biggest hurdles would be gone.
December 12th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
“the Democrats have a filibuster-proof majority….”
That isn’t quite right, and it isn’t MattY’s point, either.
For one thing, “the” Democrats isn’t accurate. One of the main obstacles to a 60 vote Democratic majority allowing 51 Senators to pass legislation is Joe Lieberman, who lost his Democratic primary, and then won re-election anyway with largely Republican and independent voters. Lieberman caucuses with the Democrats, but that doesn’t make him less institutionally idiosyncratic. (There are no “Republican” Senators who lost their Republican party nominations and stayed Senators.)
For another, the two parties have become ideological in a way that is historically unusual, if not unprecedented. Republicans and Democrats used to be more regional in character, in the sense that you had Republicans from the Northeast (Jacob Javits) and the Midwest (Everett Dirksen) who were more liberal than Democrats from the South (James Eastland).
Both these factors are important, because they are new: they didn’t exist when a coalition of Republicans and Democrats defeated filibusters and moved even highly controversial legislation (like the two bills that killed Jim Crow), back in the day.
So most of all, MattY is arguing that it is not at all clear than the opposition, including both a unanimous Republican caucus and a couple Democrats, could sustain the true filibuster that requires at last 17 opposing Senators present at all times, and at least 34 whenever the majority chooses to force a vote.
I’d be willing to bet money that a dozen or 20 Republican Senators would simply go MIA within a month, and we’d have health care reform with a public option — and ya know what? Half those guys would lose their primaries when their Republican base back home demanded to know what was so important that they couldn’t stay in the Capitol 24/7.
So why aren’t we doing that?
December 12th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
The simple fact is that the majority of Americans do not want big government shoved down their throats. It’s that simple.
December 12th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
The Democrats have majorities in the House and the Senate, and they have the presidency. So stop whinning about the republicans. The Democrats have the votes to pass anything they want. But still they don’t because their ideas are UNPOPULAR.
This post is BS
December 12th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
If they are obstinate and shove big government down our throats, they will pay a dear political price.
December 12th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
If MattY thinks America is “ungovernable,” why is he trying to govern it (health care bill, climate change bill, jobs program, and the rest of his legislative agenda) when he thinks the attempt is futile?
He obviously does NOT think America is “ungovernable.” He’s just frustrated that his legislative agenda doesn’t have enough support in the Senate or among the American people to succeed.
December 12th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Quite an interesting comment, by the author. Unfortunately, not one likely to be accepted. Diffidently, I point out, lots of people had claimed this would happen -even SOS Clinton. There’s something intrinsically Democrat about nominating persons who are bereft of accomplishment based on their group identity. For evidence, I mention not only Deb Stabenow and Patty Murray but the brief nova that was Caroline Kennedy. Still, we have the specter (spectacle?) of 3 more years of someone over his head . No one would let a 3rd year resident try a CABG but here we are. He’s accomplishing the really hard jobof making GWB look good.
And that brings me to a G and S moment;
When I was a lad , I served a term as intern in an Organizing Firm
I held long meetings and I polled the poor,
And I polished up the handle on the big brass door.
ta ta ta ta ta etc
I polled the poor so successfully,
that now I am the leader of the whole country
“He polled the poor so successfully,
that now he is the leader of the whole country.”
Want more?
December 12th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
[...] The smarter elements in Washington DC are starting to pick up on the fact that it’s not tactical errors on the part of the president that make it hard to get things done, it’s the fact that the country has become ungovernable full story [...]
December 12th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
If only the Democrats had a 60 vote majority in the Senate so they could bypass those obstructionist Republicans and get the progressive agenda passed. Oh, wait a minute.
Seriously, if the Democrats wanted to pass something, they could. It’s not the Republicans stopping them, it’s public opinion, which is not in favor of the progressive agenda. Democrats aren’t passing it because they want to get re-elected.
December 12th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
If only the Democrats had a 60 vote majority in the Senate so they could bypass those obstructionist Republicans and get the progressive agenda passed. Oh, wait a minute.
It’s like you people have never even HEARD of Ben Nelson…
December 12th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Isn’t Ben Nelson the tight end for the Patriots?
December 12th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
“Ungovernable”? Ridiculous. It’s that in respect to actually getting things done and actual governing, Obama and the Democrats suck. That’s part incompetence, but mostly because a lot of the governed don’t like what they want to do. That’s a democracy/republic. If you want to change that, you’ll get far more opposition.
But go for it, if you want fireworks.
December 12th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
If voters think the Senate rules are making it too difficult to pass legislation, they are free to lobby their Senators to change the rules. If voters think their Senators are abusing the rules, they are free to lobby their Senators to use the rules more responsibly. If the Senators refuse to change the rules or use them more responsibly, voters are free to replace them at the next election.
Given the complete lack of evidence that either of these issues — the rules themselves, or the way they are used — is a significant concern among voters of either party, I’d say the chances of significant change in this area are very low.
The rules in question are a peculiar obsession of Matthew Yglesias and a handful of other incestuous beltway lefties. They refuse to accept the reality that most Americans don’t support their left-wing agenda. So they look for procedural excuses for their failure to pass it into law.
December 12th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Since when has “governing” been defined by what legislation can be passed ?
Perhaps we need to review the 3 branches of government.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Ah, dear progressives…
Always blaming “the system” for the fact that their policies are inherently unpopular. I guess it’s time to head back into the swamps of academia where the realities of democracy shan’t invade.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
What a profoundly cynical statement – that this country and its people are “ungovernable.” It wouldn’t be that you aren’t getting what you want, would it Mr. Yglasias? In case you may have flunked this class, our system of government with its checks and balances was set up to make it difficult to make sea changes, and rightfully so. What you consider an impediment in the Senate is part of this, and I say thank God.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
bogus premise for this article. what is excluded from the article is the total corruption of both parties. the DLC / DSCC / DCCC and almost all repuglyKKKans are about serving corporate interests. the Dems try to hide it, but the have essentially reduced themselves to being the ‘concern trolls’ of our political system.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
all the anti-progressive rhetoric make me realize how many ignorant people patrol these blogs. all surveys show that the progressive agenda is what people want and what congress ignores.
electability has more to do with campaign contributions and media influence. people were trying to change that by electing Obama and the Dems. Incumbents from both parties will pay at the pols, starting with the primaries, for these blatant betrayals.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Elitist twaddle. The reason you can’t get republicans to jump on board and become good little obamabots is that the liberal/progressive agenda is crap and it promotes crapulence.
But what do I know? I’m apparently ungovernable. So go piss up a rope and continue your navel gazing.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Bascombe, are you saying you don’t think the media had any influence on electing Obama? Seriously??!
With regards to the polling, every poll I have seen shows opposition to Health Care reform increasing every week.
When asked, most Americans will say they would like everyone to have health care, because Americans are kind hearted as a rule.
If we were asked if we wanted everyone in America to own their own home, have two cars, and be able to send their children to the top universities, we’d also say yes, of course, but most Republicans and Independents have enough common sense to realize that we can’t afford to pay for that for everyone, and the same is true for health care.
There are ways to make insurance more available to people, but upending the entire sytem is not the way to do it.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
Good grief! “Interia”? Why did I type that?! INERTIA, Mr. Yglesias. I meant to say that our Constitution deliberately imposes inertia on the legislative process. To keep the rubberstamp of demagogues like Barack Obama from destroying a great economy.
December 13th, 2009 at 12:20 am
The problem is not Senate minority voting rights…
The problem is the disproportionate weight of low population states AND the disproportionate influence of high dollar contributors.
In short the polity is corrupt to its core and we don’t know if it is redeemable. Look at the Soviet kleptocracy or even the Chinese system to understand what is really going on under the Potemkin village of American democracy – powerful industries and economic sectors write their own laws and Senators do their bidding.
December 13th, 2009 at 12:47 am
Seems more like a feature then a flaw to me.
The United States was not set up to make radical changes every time someone broke the right political wind, but to progress on a long term course with the power in the hands of the people. Progressives have slowly removed this power and handed it over to the government and are now upset that the system is doing what it was intended to do.
Try governing as if the constitution and the people’s power mattered and you won’t be so frustrated.
David
December 13th, 2009 at 5:58 am
There is an old story about a boyscout trying to earn a merit badge. He comes home he is cut and bruised. When his mother asks what happens he says, “I helped a little old lady cross the street.”
His mother asks, “How did you get so beat up and bruised?” The boy answers, “Well she didn’t want to go across the street.”
Is America ungovernable? Only if you’re trying to govern her in a way she doesn’t want to go.
December 13th, 2009 at 6:02 am
“We’re suffering from an incoherent institutional setup in the senate”?
What is “incoherent” about 68% of the US population only getting 32% of the vote in the senate? (68% of the US population lives in the 16 most populous “states”).
Wouldn’t it be more diagnostic to say that we’re suffering from an “undemocratic” institutional setup in the senate?
What are the disadvantages of having an undemocratic US senate that blocks the federal executive and thwarts the US house of
representatives?
What could be the advantages of having a democratic US senate that blocks the federal executive and thwarts the US house of
representatives?
Is equal representation by jurisdiction in the US senate a holdover from the holy roman empire, just like the US electoral college?
Is anybody interested in a constitutional convention to bring our method of self-government into the modern era, where democracies can be structured so they can be trusted?
December 13th, 2009 at 6:11 am
Hot Air: Has America become “ungovernable”?
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/12/12/has-america-become-ungovernable/
December 13th, 2009 at 6:30 am
There are so many “veto” points or “choke points” in legislation making that empowers many petty actors to stop movement. But that is what happens when one uses an 18th century governance structure for a 21st century country. Why does China respond so quickly [sure with errors, but that just means they find out quickly what doesn’t work and can fix it quickly] to economic changes? What does China not have in the governance mix that the United States does? Oh,…. Lobbyists, bribed err campaign contribution fueled elections, a United States Senate perhaps, except for the House of Lords, the least democratic electoral body in the world which has a turnover rate slower than the old Soviet Politburo. I’m sure readers can identify other choke points like the filibuster, anonymous holds, the United States is beginning to fail as a state. But then that is to be expected since the governing elite care more about invading Iraq on false pretenses than providing health insurance and health care for its own.
December 13th, 2009 at 7:25 am
[...] Interesting debate underway, as Matthew Yglesias and Ezra Klein keep trying to wake people up to Congress’ structural obstacles to real and [...]
December 13th, 2009 at 9:56 am
Translate this into “it’s my party and YOU HAVE TO PLAY THE GAME THAT I WANT! WAH!”
What delusion were some operating under when they thought that having a majority of Senators and Congressmen with ‘D’ after their name, meant that they had guaranteed votes? Guaranteed passage of progressive idea bills? Guaranteed results? Is this the playground?
It’s not about one party’s obstructionism, it’s about the overall will of the American people. Freedom and liberty to think in the way that they choose. Washington isn’t as powerful as it likes to think that it is. You really cannot force us completely to be at your mercy. It really pisses off the serfs that you’ve been trying, and there are more of us than there are of you, and we’re saying no. It’s that simple. Take the healthcare bill for example, the last CNN poll states 61% of the public don’t want it. Are we supposed to support it just because you like it and if we don’t, we’re ‘ungovernable’? No, we’re looking at the same facts and getting a different conclusion. It’s a crap bill.
My first line stands. You sound like a petualant spoiled child at a birthday party. This is where your mother says ‘Now son, you’re acting ruding and inappropriate. They are your guests and you’re treating them badly. Continue to act that way and no one is going to want to play with you. Go apologize and see what the group wants to do.”
Children, however, can be taught.
Being ‘governed’ comes with the consent of the governed. It’s something that we give to our politicians. You have to earn trust, respect and support. It’s not a given. We can vote you in, and we can vote you out.
Personally, just with the attitude that the entire system should be changed because you cannot seem to force your will on others without resistance… that alone is reason for you to be gone. You really don’t know your role.
December 13th, 2009 at 9:57 am
[...] Matthew Yglesias does not use those words, but, you get the basic idea The smarter elements in Washington DC are starting to pick up on the fact that it’s not tactical errors on the part of the president that make it hard to get things done, it’s the fact that the country has become ungovernable. For example, here’s Steven Pearlstein on minority leader Mitch McConnell: The bad Mitch, as most Americans know by now, is the charmless and shameless hypocrite who offers up a steady stream of stale ideology and snarky talking points but almost never a constructive idea. McConnell has decided that the only way for Republicans to win is for President Obama to lose, and he will use lies, threats and all manner of parliamentary subterfuge to obstruct the president’s programs. [...]
December 13th, 2009 at 10:16 am
This is quite possibly the most intellectually bereft assemblage of words, phrases and punctuation I’ve ever read.
A country founded on the principles of economic freedom and individual liberty, and populated with people who believe in such things should be “ungovernable” by a devoted disciple of Karl Marx, raised on the tenets of radical leftism, with the raw sewage of Chicago thug politics flowing in his veins, and who finds such principles offensive and considers them an obstacle to power.
This “ungovernability” of which he speaks is a feature, not a bug.
Seems to me like he’s all bent out of shape over the realization that the American people are, by and large, so darned “uncontrollable”. What’s wrong with us? Don’t we know what best for us???
According to Yglesias and all the other like-minded “smarter elements” polluting our nation’s capital, we should all roll over and let Obama, Pelosi, Reid and Holder have their way with us and our families.
For our own good.
Yeah, I’m gonna have to pass on that option.
December 13th, 2009 at 11:01 am
[...] says Matthew Yglesias, who’s dismayed that the progressive agenda has ground to a halt. Instead of taking the correct [...]
December 13th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
[...] There is one unifying cause that the libertarian leftists and the socialist liberal left is their inbred hatred of war and of anything military. Further more, the libertarians and liberals hate the current state of the Government, albeit for very different reasons. The libertarians hate the size of the Government and the fact that it has become too large, and too regulatory — Which is something I can indentify with myself. The socialist left, however, is angry because they cannot control that large Government. The Socialist left does not mind big Government, as long as they can control it. A perfect example of this can be found here. [...]
December 13th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Okay, I’m starting to see some of the commenters sniveling about the disproportionate influence of the small states, and how it benefits the GOP. Time for a little fact check.
The 10 smallest states and their senate delegations, 2009
(Population estimates are 2008 US Census Bureau figures)
Wyoming – R/R
Vermont – D/I (Bernie Sanders is essentially a D)
North Dakota – D/D
Alaska – R/D
South Dakota – D/R
Delaware – D/D
Montana – D/D
Rhode Island – D/D
Hawaii – D/D
New Hampshire – R/D
Hmmm, the partisan breakdown appears to be 14D (plus 1I) and 5R. Now, which party is benefiting more from the inequitable distribution of the senate?
December 13th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
[...] Obama’s poll numbers plunge, and statist health care comes down to final pre-Christmas votes, Yglesias ignorantly laments that the system is the problem (HT Instapundit and Ed Morrissey at Hot Air): The smarter elements [...]
December 14th, 2009 at 12:13 am
[...] Shameless blame shifting and navel gazing at work here: The smarter elements in Washington DC are starting to pick up on the fact that it’s not tactical errors on the part of the president that make it hard to get things done, it’s the fact that the country has become ungovernable. For example, here’s Steven Pearlstein on minority leader Mitch McConnell: [...]
December 14th, 2009 at 1:04 am
NewsBusters — In Record Time: Lib Not Getting His Way Calls America ‘Ungovernable’
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2009/12/13/record-time-lib-not-getting-his-way-calls-america-ungovernable
December 14th, 2009 at 6:28 am
For a partisan such as Yglesias to say that America has become ungovernable is a rare opening of a window to his soul.
From both a personal view and from an empirical view, our government continues to function normally. While there are many aspects that are not ideal, the reality is that our government is comprised of mortal humans and will always have the faults that come with it. In my entire life I don’t ever remember a time when our government didn’t face difficult problems. Not even during the “glory” days of the Reagan and Clinton administrations. Our government will never be perfect because our world is not perfect.
So when Yglesias whines with such a false statement, it is clear that what he is really saying is that he is frustrated that the minority Republican Party does not bend to his will and the will of his “Progressive” movement. This is an arrogant group of conformist populists who demand the right to speak on behalf of the American people.
He goes even further to demand the loyalty of his opponents without earning it. Yglesias badgers them for not giving in 100%. His philosophy is to shame them by rewarding Republicans that he paints as compromisers. In reality the “moderate” Republican that he praises (Mitch Daniels) has given in rather than compromised. This fact is not missed by the targets of Yglesias’ ire.
However, this post is not really for the consumption of rightwing Republicans, it is aimed at unquestioning “Progressives” and uninformed independents who might be swayed by irrational arguments based on sensationalism.
Perhaps a one-party system would be more to Yglesias’ liking, but not to me. What ever happened to “dissent is patriotic”? All of a sudden that phrase has died a quick death among “Progressives” loyal to the Democratic Party.
December 14th, 2009 at 7:05 am
Would you like some cheese with your whine?
Get a clue — the Dems have a supermajority that the Pubs only wish they ever had. Yet the Pubs didn’t whine like you do.
If legislation is not passing now the Dems have ONLY themselves to blame.
December 14th, 2009 at 9:30 am
What’s so laughable about this complaint is that Democrats have something Republicans never had — 60 votes in the Senate (and for that matter, a 75-seat majority in the House). Mitch McConnell, the primary target of your ire and your Exhibit A of ungovernability, simply can’t stop anything the Democrats want to pass, if they unite as a caucus. The problem for you, Obama, and Harry Reid is that your agenda is so far Left that even some Democrats object to it.
Obama and Reid thought that red-state Senators would act like San Francisco liberals once Obama took office, but forgot to account for the fact that they represent real constituents who don’t support the progressive agenda. And some of those Democrats would like to win their next election and have to answer to center-right electorates that don’t like government interventions, high taxes, and economy-killing attacks on the energy industry.
(via instapundit)
December 14th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Totalitarian control and suppression of individual rights?
December 14th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
[...] Yglesias is upset and considers America to be “ungovernable” because Obama can’t just wave his hand [...]
December 14th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
What a stupid premise. The Democrats have enough seats to push any legislation they desire, IF the Democratics leadership can convince a majority to vote for whatever neo-Marxist legislation the leadership is peddling.
The problem is that the Democratic leadership forgot that they had a majority because a fair number of Democrats ousted Republicans by promising fiscal responsibility. (In case you forgot, the Republicans began spending too much money, alienated voters concerned about spending, and thus got kicked to the curb) That is why the Democrats got control of the House and Senate in 2006.
A majority of the public has now realized that they were hoaxed by Dear Leader. He campaigned as a “moderate” promising tax cut and is governing as a far-leftist. How else do you explain the independents fleeing the Democrats?
December 15th, 2009 at 10:26 am
[...] people can’t be governed Posted by December 15, 2009 I don’t know what part of this post about “Ungovernable America” is more laughable — the pro wrestling-esque notion that Republicans should know their role [...]
December 16th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Um, the Ds have huge majorities, and they aren’t interested in a bi partisan program.
The reason we don’t have a health care take over is that moret han 50% of the public don’t want it, plain and simple.
December 18th, 2009 at 10:43 am
[...] any rate, I recall that conservatives really hated my “Ungovernable America” piece, but if they think about it honestly I think they’ll see that the situation was the [...]