History suggests we will always have a two-party system. But if one of the parties is going to consistently put up people of Trump’s caliber and still win half the time over the long run, democracy has failed.
The only two times court packing was successfully used, it did in fact coincide with the collapse of the party on the losing end of the packing: the Federalists and the anti-Reconstructionist Democrats (the Democrats, of course, came back, but not for a generation). In the former case, the Federalists had packed the Court prior to losing their majority, and the Jeffersonians subsequently re-packed it. Nothing new under the sun.
Who the hell knows? There are only like four people in the world whose opinions actually matter at this point, and We Have No Idea. I take some hope from Flake’s saying nothing today, but we’ll all find out together.
I just couldn’t help thinking that a woman who behaved the way he did, getting red-faced, loud, hyper-emotional, talking back, etc. would have elicited comments like “She’s a hysteric, unstable, and needs a few minutes to compose herself.”
Care to put some numbers behind these predictions?
In 2002, Dems got almost 34 million votes in the HoR. In 2006, it was over 42 million. In 2010, Dems were back down (just) below 39 million. In 2014 they got less than 36 million. What do you think it’s going to be in 2018? 42 million again? more? less? care to put any money into a wager?
I very much trust the military to competently maintain order in some hypothetical scenario where the government collapses or the rule of law breaks down due to “economic crisis” (it would have to be the kind that hits you in the stomach, not just in the bank account - i.e. riots over food and water, no electrical power or refrigeration, etc.) For all of America’s faults, I do believe we have people with integrity, a sense of responsibility, and a pragmatic and realistic outlook, leading the military.
The “insanity” part is the idea that the Democrats could somehow co-opt the military into a coup, which is what the guy you quoted seems to be implying, or that they’d resort to “extra-constitutional rehabilitation” of some specific group of people.
America’s system of representative democracy is an ongoing experiment and there’s no reason to think it will NEVER in the future have to go through some periods of catastrophic failure (or that if it does so, it can’t also be restored at some point.) And temporary oversight by the military is one such way that it could be restored in this hypothetical. But that quoted posted with the “rehabilitation” sounds suspiciously like a Stalinist.
Other organizations, prominent people agreeing with the organizations, and it all being reported in the news and discussed. I don’t think the ABA is enough, but it’s a good legit start.
I was heartened by the Flake/Collins/Murkowski/Manchin private meeting tonight. I expect Flake is going to vote to allow the matter to go to a vote on the floor, but hope the 4 of them together will oppose the nomination. Manchin is pretty safe, and that will give cover to Heitkamp and McCaskill to vote for the wingnut if needed to save their seats in the mid-term.
The Republicans are Nazis. Once we can put an end to their antidemocratic practices, they should shrivel away and we can have a sensible party take their place.
