If it was meaningless, politicians without much DC experience wouldn’t expend so much effort running against DC. The last out and proud DC apologist to win was LBJ. Carter, Clinton, and Obama all ran against “Business as usual”, “old-style politics”, etc.
Carter and Clinton actually did implement some real changes, so it’s not JUST a campaign slogan. Hillary isn’t going there though, she’s standing by Obama, which by necessity means supporting the status quo. Besides which, she’s become very good at learning how DC works, she’s not going to upend the very system she’s been so good at working in.
While I agree that’s really, really bad, replacing conservative justices with liberal justices is also not changing Washington or changing politics.
Now if Obama nominated someone who didn’t have a liberal record, but nominated someone strictly based on their qualifications and intelligence, that would be change. But I don’t see either party going that far anytime soon.
On the contrary, as I said above, the last Democratic candidate to win promising only policy change rather than changing Washington or politics in general was LBJ. Carter, Bill Clinton, and Obama all ran against “politics as usual”.
Candidates who ran as Clinton did, proposing only standard Democratic policies without attacking the WAY DC does business: Kerry, Gore, Mondale, Humphrey.
This has been a rather long debate, but my argument is simple: Trump’s argument that the political class has failed and that Clinton represents that political class is the most effective argument he has. I’m not sure why that’s in dispute. Do any of you believe he has a MORE effective argument than that, or must we defend the Democratic nominee against all attacks no matter their accuracy?
To contend that Clinton has oodles of experience, the most experience we’ve ever seen in a Presidential candidate, but also represents change, is to engage in Trump-style hyperbole.
that wasn’t the point. You claimed “All the GOP blocked him on was standard Democratic policies…” and I pointed out that your claim was false, eg blocking a supreme ct nominee, and rather than acknowledge that your statement was in error, you moved the goalposts to “but it’s not changing Washington”.
Please clearly acknowledge that your statement “All the GOP blocked him on was standard Democratic policies…” is false.
I’ll wait.
But a) a real political strategy Clinton is not pursuing, and b) it can translate into real changes. The GOP made significant changes both times they won back Congress, and Carter and Clinton made changes early in their tenures to how the executive branch works. Nothing they did required Congress, so it was one of those “First 100 days” acts which were very helpful at demonstrating seriousness to those who elected them.
DC being DC, no matter how much you change things there will be attempts to get around the changes or restore the status quo that special interests benefit from, so it’s a constant battle. But it’s not JUST politics. If Trump is elected, he’s going to actually do more within the executive branch to change the way things work than he will with Congress.
Um, appointing a liberal SCOTUS nominee is a fairly standard Democratic policy. When was the last time a Democratic President nominated a conservative or even swing vote on the court?
You’ve got your semantics all messed up. The GOP is engaging in non-standard tactics to block Obama’s actions, but the actions being blocked are standard. The GOP has not been standing in the way of Obama wanting to change Washington. He hasn’t actually proposed any changes to the way Washington does things. In fact, he’s embraced business as usual as the best way to get his policies passed.
I know this is pointless, but c’mon. I’ve got my semantics screwed up? Obama nominated a Justice, and the Rs refuse to even have a vote. That goes way beyond your “all the Rs did…” line. What the Rs did was unprecedented. Quit dragging your sideshow of “but it isn’t really change…” thing, that isn’t the point.
As opposed to real change, like Congressmembers agreeing among themselves that they’ll prepend the text “In accordance with Article 1, Section 8…” to the beginning of all bills, at least until they don’t feel like it any more?
I mean, that’s right up there with resolutions to rename post offices. And you don’t get much bigger changes than that.
Did the GOP block proposed changes that Obama proposed that change the way DC does business or change politics? This shouldn’t be a tough question to answer.
Without comment on the rest of the reasons it might be silly, I will point out that “fictitious,” is not a correct characterization here. There are actual real people who have this goal, and have taken substantial steps to further their goal. See Newdow v. Rio Linda Union School District.
Thanks for the information. I was unaware of this case and after a cursory googling, yes there was at least one attempt to remove those words. But I maintain the point that conservatives obsess over this way out of proportion to its importance, which I claim is zero.