The system hasn’t fallen apart because the minority party doesn’t get what it wants. That’s not a bug; it’s a feature.
Liberals had a huge amount invested in ideological control of the Court. That’s how they got Roe v. Wade and gay marriage. And I understand how upsetting it must be now to see yourselves on the wrong end of a 5-4 split for the foreseeable future. But when you pin your hopes to playing politics, and then find out that the other side is better at it than you are, cries of “NO FAIR!” ring more than a little hollow.
“I am not getting what I want” != “the system isn’t working”.
And in a move surprising no one, McConnell decides that when he said that when he said that nominees shouldn’t be accepted in the last month of a presidency, what he really meant was Democratic Nominees.
The Democrats have a problem with national politics because of the system of federalism designed into the constitution. It’s especially notable in the Senate-- the EC is at least nominally correlated with population, while the Senate is not. To put it bluntly, the Democrats need to figure out a way to win the majority of the states, and not just win so-called popular vote by clinching the urban areas. Unless they think the alternative, change the way we assign Senators, is realistic.
This idea that the will of the majority is being thwarted ignores the reality of the way our system is designed. It’s not supposed to be a popularity contest, and bemoaning that fact is a waste of emotional energy, IMO. Everyone knows the rules, so figure out a way to make them work for you. You = The Democrats.
And here I could have sworn the Republicans held a majority in the Senate. But educate us by all means - which party was in the majority when Garland was nominated?
The Democrats obviously need to win more rural voters if they want to remain competitive in the current system.
But they should do that while also advocating for a better system. The Connecticut Compromise was just that–a political compromise. It wasn’t some grand principled design based on deep understandings of human behavior. We’ve already changed it substantially when we realized its flaws, and the time has come to change it again.
In the mean time, the Democrats should go ahead and add a bunch of states. That will probably lead to an arms race of creating and splitting states that will hopefully destroy the Senate. It seems like the likeliest path toward a more just system.
They have to control both houses of Congress, first. And then eliminate the filibuster to admit new states. (IIRC, only a majority vote is needed to admit new states, right?)
The idea of destroying the Senate scares the hell out of me, though. Sounds like it has the makings of Civil War II. Do you think that destroying the Senate is unlikely to destroy the Union in the process?
Yes they need both houses, and yes they would need to kill the filibuster. They are likely to control the House in November and be a seat or two from the Senate, so I’m not sure the Democrats need to radically alter their approach in order to expect that in the not-too-distant future they will control both chambers.
Something’s gotta give. As time goes on, the Senate is only getting less democratic. You can only go so far in that direction before you lose popular legitimacy. ISTM, the least risky approach is deliberate, bipartisan reform of the Senate. That won’t happen with the GOP unless they radically alter course. So what’s left is constitutional hardball or slow degeneration of legitimacy until there is some kind of crisis and some kind of revolutionary response. I think the hardball approach is less risky to the country, but not without risk.
Ooohhhh, you mean the way that anyone the America-hating fuckstick nominates is unacceptable to objective reality by virtue of the fact that they were “touched” by the America-hating fuckstick?
Yeah, I can see that.
I wonder what would have happened if Obama had trolled McConnell and nominated HIM…
This is an interesting idea, and I have not given it any thought at all until now. Can the president veto a measure to admit a state? And then you have to consider that this can’t happen in a vacuum. The Senate can flip every two years, and if it looks like the Democrats are trying to add new states, that could very well flip the Senate back to GOP control before the process can be completed. Not sure how long it takes to admit new states.
Maybe I’m blind because I live in the SF Bay area and also lived through the 60s, but I just don’t see the country to be in some kind of crisis. Things get amplified by 24-hour Cable News and Social Media, but is the country really going to be sunk because Kavanaugh is on the court instead of Garland (which is what this thread is about)? I think the biggest problem we have right now is how to get rid of Trump. Hopefully that will happen in the next election. Changing the Senate just seems like pie-in-the-sky in comparison. I’m not at all certain that “something’s gotta give”.
But you could right, and maybe it’s time for a 2nd revolution. It’s been awhile, and our constitution is looking kind of ragged these days. It’s a wonderful piece of work, but it’s still a (slightly modified) product of the 18th century.
Must it really? ISTR an entire delegation of Democratic legislators from one state went into hiding in order to deny the Republican [del]steamroller[/del] majority a quorum necessary to vote on a bill. That doesn’t seem confrontational to me.
No, it recognizes the reality that our system is designed in a way that thwarts the will of the majority. The previous system, where the leadership of the nation was decided by who was the son of the previous leader, was also not a popularity contest. And it was also a bad system, bad enough that we fought a war to get rid of it.
Churchill was right when he said that democracy was the worst system of government, except for every other system. Yes, it’s bad when a majority walks all over a minority. But it’s even worse when a minority walks all over a majority.
Resistance disrupts something that’s happening or intended to happen. In the Wisconsin legislature stunt, the Democrats disrupted the process regarding Scott Walker’s [ultimately successful] bid to weaken collective bargaining rights for the state’s public sector workers. That was a collective action. It doesn’t seem confrontational only because the only way to deny a quorum is to be somewhere else.
But let’s not quibble about language. Passive resistance still places a stumbling block that a steamroller must negotiate. That’s a confrontation even if the steamroller doesn’t much notice. Effective resistance places bigger obstacles and/or instigates bigger and more noticeable public response.
No, it’s not designed in a way that thwarts the will of the majority. The Senate is designed in a way where the will of the majority of the states is what matters. It may, at times, not reflect the will of he majority of the electorate, but it’s not designed to do that.
I’m uncertain what that argument is supposed to be about. Two systems shared a trait. The idea that one system was bad doesn’t necessarily imply that the other system is also bad. Further, unless you are saying that we should always require only a simply majority for all democratic processes, just saying that the majority doesn’t always get its way is a non-starter. Are you saying that? Maybe you are, but let’s be clear if you are.
Also, we didn’t fight the Revolutionary War because there was a king. We fought a war because of what Parliament did. George III was not king in the way Henry VIII was king either. Anyway, unless you are thinking we need another war to change things, I’m not even sure why you brought that up.
Yes, the President can veto. The likely result of adding DC and PR is that the GOP, when it eventually gains power again, would also seek to add states. This would probably require splitting states, which is politically more difficult since a state like Texas might not be too keen on the idea and since the existing states are generally more politically heterogenous than DC or PR. But as I said in the earlier post, admission of new states may well escalate into a kind of arms race, the likely outcome of which would be some major reform to or death of the Senate.
I am not saying that something has to give based on conditions today. I am saying the trend is toward a less and less democratic Senate. Maybe some technological change will cause people to stop moving to big states (on net avg.) and have them move back to small states, but it seems unlikely.
As it stands right now, a growing number of people regard the Senate as undemocratic and losing legitimacy. That number will grow as the skew gets worse. That’s what I mean when I say something has to give.
Yes. DC and PR were the two that immediately came to mind. But I suspect (read: know for sure) that Trump would veto that. Anyway, first things first: Win the House. Get rid of Trump. Win back the Senate (I don’t see it happening in 2018, but maybe). Then look at statehood. DC is tiny in area, but it has a population larger than WY and VT.
Got it. Personally, I don’t see it happening in my lifetime, but I’m pretty sure you’re a lot younger than me, so maybe you’ll see it.