The Republicans, for years, have run a strategy where they go after their base and try to motivate them to turnout in high numbers — winning with small majorities, instead of trying to win with a broad spectrum of support. It’s normally worked — smart politics because it’s easier to rile up angry and/or scared right-wing voters than it is to count on often ill-informed, apathetic voters who are hard to turn out in the squishy middle. They also benefit because many traditional Democratic voters are low-turnout voters — there may be more of us, but not always more of us who turn out.
This sort of strategy has existed, at this point, for a very long time, decades, in fact — and, yet, very little of the core issues for Republican “values” voters has ever passed. Far from such things being a failure on the part of Republicans, that’s the genius of the strategy: Republicans know these issues are, in fact, nonstarters. They can’t pass. They never have to worry about public backlash in making these major issues in office — or heaven forbid, actually pass these issues — because of the US Senate.
They get to run on these sorts of crazy issues, raise tens of millions of dollars on them, and get thousands of little, old ladies who go to church every Sunday to knock on hundreds of doors every major election cycle thinking they’ll be able to do something on issues like abortion… without ever having to own up to the consequences of running on those issues.
America is not alone in having government that’s traditionally run by the ‘right,’ but we are alone in having a government that doesn’t address the kinds of problems people think are important to them. We are alone, at least in 2 party systems, in having such a broken process that government completely grinds to a halt. France has had right-wing governments for most of its history in the current form of government it exists in today — more often, even, than the US. The Labor Party in the UK was long in the minority before it arose again in the 90s, and may long be in the minority again. We are not alone in having a right-wing party that’s enjoyed more dominance than its left-wing counterpart… yet we are alone in much of our policy.
Ideology is not the explanation. The American people have long wanted the same things our partners in the developed world have had — good education, high-quality, affordable universal health care and a higher standard of living for our population. Those other countries have achieved those things, but we haven’t. There may be many reasons why, but one of the biggest surely has to do with our system of government — the gridlock that is inherent in our system, where 18% of the population controls a majority of the votes and our biggest state — with an economy that’s larger than all but a few countries in the entire world — has 1/68th the Representation as the citizens of Wyoming.
Getting rid of the Senate may take a long time to come, and maybe reform may be the best option in the long run. I’m not saying there’s no role for the US Senate to play, but it shouldn’t be able to create a system where 18% of the population can subvert the will of the other 82% (or 10% subvert the will of 90% with the filibuster). Something’s gotta give. Our country today is much different than it was in 1776; what made sense then may not make sense today. The big states are much bigger and people are far more likely to move to and fro, often never returning to where they’re from. People should have an open mind and be willing to consider if having something so undemocratic as the current US Senate is going to be anywhere near as good as it is bad for our system. We must throw off the lessons we were taught as little children about how ‘important’ and ‘balanced’ the system is, because that wasn’t an education… it was propaganda. The results of the world speak for themselves, and the way the Republican Party has been able to run itself — without having to answer for their extremist positions to the American people because they never have the chance to act on them — is just the way that it is.
Being able to hold political parties accountable is imperative for the system — both for the bad, and for being able to do the good. In our current system, Republicans may never really be able to do their worst, but Democrats will never be able to do anything close to their best. It’s a broken system, and it’s quickly leading to our ruin.
In the future, I’ll remember that you don’t actually want the Senate to exist at all. Got it.
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p>So, when the campaign to replace Scott Brown heats up, I’ll assume that you won’t be backing any candidate because you’ll be too busy working to abolish the institution altogether.
First, before I get to my point, just because I think the Senate — in its current form — is fundamentally flawed to such an extent that California gets 1/68th the Representation of Wyoming, and DC gets none (even though more people live in DC than Wyoming), that doesn’t mean I should think the upcoming campaign for Senate is useless. That’s a complete and utter strawman and I’m actually shocked you wrote it.
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p>We have the current system of government that we have, and even if a movement existed to change the constitution to create a better system of government, it would take a long time to make it happen. I would be a fool not to be interested in the next Senate election, or the goings-on in the Senate.
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p>Now, to the point: Why on Earth should someone thinking the Senate is utterly flawed and we’d be better off with just the House be something you find utterly surprising? We in the United States are the aberration, not the norm, for having a bicameral legislature — many (perhaps even most) of which have higher standards of living than our own. I think the closest to 1-chamber parliamentary systems, the better, and I think the results of other developed democracies across the world reflects that. I guess that makes me a communist or something. /sarcasm off
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p>Why on earth would you find this to be some wild or crazy idea worth ‘saving?’ Hell, even when the US gets into its nation-building games, we tend to create parliamentary systems of government over our own. I don’t think you’re going to find many political scientists specializing in comparative politics who think our form of a bicameral legislature is inherently superior to other systems of representative democracy. Far from it.
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p>I really expect something a lot more thoughtful from you, AF.
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p>PS. Did you save Bob’s diary on getting rid of the Senate, too? Or how about this whopper from Christopher on Bob’s thread — that “I’m less concerned about direct reflection of the popular will when it comes to legislation.” Surely there’s some other things on this subject, both pro and con, worth “saving” for you.
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p>PPS. I’m fine with the Senate existing, so long as it isn’t single-handedly capable of totally derailing the will of the majority, at least on legislative matters. If that means reform to make it reflective of the majority, or that means its stripped of its legislative duties (but retains its abilities to make confirmations of appointees, treaties, etc.)… or it means getting rid of the entire institution, I’m fine with it. I understand people are resistant to change, though, so I’ll take whatever I can get.
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p>PPPS. Do you have any actual comment on my essential point? Or is this just a drive-by?
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p>/sigh
I would prefer that we had more pedestrian/bikeways and fewer highways, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to go out for a stroll along 95. It’s a common misconception that radicals (socialists, anarchists) are incapable of pragmatism, of working to accomplish goals when such efforts are probably more productive than planning a single great revolution. Some of the greatest forces for change against the great injustices of American history (racism, the deplorable treatment of workers and of the environment) were radicals.
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p>Then thank God for the Senate that these can’t actually pass. I fear they would if we just had a House.
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p>BTW, what’s with calling my comment about not concerned about direct reflection of the people being a whopper? I usually think of a whopper as a lie. You may not agree, but I’m certainly not lying about what I believe. I’ve always been Burkean in my theory of representation and have previously stated my dislike for direct democracy in the form of plebiscites, etc.
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p>You’ve once again in the process of staking out your own position have decided that other opinions on the matter are not worthy of respect.
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p>I say focus on the filibuster (about which I have yet to hear what happened yesterday), getting money out of politics, and play the GOP game of ginning up OUR base. The Senate is supposed to be the more rational body because the states can’t be divided into safe and extreme districts, but if the GOP has figured something out there’s no inherent reason two can’t play that game.
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p>Finally, give it a rest about the children; they are not the ones making these decisions. Some of us have grown up and can think for ourselves.
“This paragraph seems to argue against your point.”
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p>Nope.
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p>They get to run reactionary campaigns, pushing fringe ideas, without ever having to be held accountable for them. Don’t think for a second that they actually want to pass the things they say they do (well — some of these new tea baggers may — but they’re still in the extreme minority of their caucus and won’t have any real power), they just want the votes.
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p>Republicans have been using and abusing their base for decades now by running on these issues they know they have no shot to pass, but because they never go anywhere, they don’t have to deal with becoming incredibly unpopular with the mainstream of this country from those ideas. It’s a recipe they have for victory without actually having to appeal to the mainstream of this country (which would force them to have to pass good bills). This is how they gain power.
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p>If they could actually pass these things, ie if there was a representative unicameral legislative body and Republicans held power — and suddenly they had to be held accountable for those ideas by the American people, they’d be forced into a very tight corner:
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p>1. For once, not wanting to lose their base in a system where they could no longer blame the process, they’d have to do what their base actually wanted — which would be incredibly toxic to the American people and make them lose the majority quickly.
2. Realize they can’t hold the same crazy views on things like abortion or Social Security, and actually moderate their positions to appeal to the mainstream.
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p>It’s really that simple.
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p>One of the symptoms of a broken, gridlocked system is it ‘breeds’ dysfunctional politicians who are able to benefit from the very way the system works — gaining power from a evangelical base, while not actually operating with their interests at heart (the GOP’s singular interests have always and will always be powerful corporations and the wealthy elite who run them). If we change the system, we deprive them of their ability to act in that way. In the end, we force the Republican Party to act more like the right-wing parties of other developed democracies across the world… sane.
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p>I’ve never understood “whopper” to just mean a lie. To me, it’s always been something big and unbelievable as in, “I can’t believe he just said that.” Maybe I’m wrong on that. I’ll have to consult the Urban Dictionary later :p
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p>I just have a very hard time wrapping my head around the idea that you don’t rank passing bills that reflect the will of the majority as imperatively important. I view it as one of the two most important and fundamental aspects of a modern representative democracy — (1) it protects the civil rights of people (from free speech to due process, etc.) which is accomplished through our constitution and the courts, but (2) pretty much anything beyond that should reflect the will of the people.
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p>By all means, we should of course focus on the filibuster (among the other things you mentioned). The filibuster reform that’s being proposed is something we have a legit chance of getting done, that will be an immense help. I’ve only pushed the greater issue of the Senate because such a huge and fundamental change doesn’t happen in a vacuum — it would take decades if not a century for that kind of change, but it won’t ever happen if no one raises the issue. That’s my only purpose here.
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p>It was tabled yesterday — not the kind of tabled that means “it’s dead,” though. It’s very much alive… I think everyone’s gearing up for all the legislative maneuvers that will be used to stop the Dems, and maybe for some more whipping. Everyone should be calling Kerry’s office about this in MA, and everyone around the country should be calling Chuck Schumer’s office (he’s been put in charge of this whole thing).
Fair enough, my earlier comment was kind of a cheap shot. But it does beg the question of just how you’re going to call a Constitutional Convention to radically alter our structure of government without inviting in all the crazy nuts who want to get rid of, say, separation of Church and State.
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p>The Senate may be broken, but that is more a reflection of how broken our politics has been for a little over the last decade.
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I pointed to some data from Ezra Klein in the other post. Here’s the one graph anybody needs to see to understand the problem. Basically, just in the last few congresses has the filibuster become totally uncontrollable.
Getting rid of the Senate simply ignores that with reasonable filibuster reform, the Senate can much more easily function as it is intended.
Senate or no Senate, positive progressive change is going to be slow going and difficult to accomplish.
-We are still dgoing to have to deal with a Tea Party (or whatever they’ll call themselves) coming up with insanely irresponsible ideas.
-We’re still going to have to deal with moderate Democrats or their equivalent.
-We’re still going to have to deal with the 24/7 news “perpetual panic conflictonator.”
-We’re still going to live in a world where fundamental freedoms are threatened, true equality a far off dream, economic security always in doubt. Only now, if and when Democrats do lose the unicameral Congress, the far right can pretty much do whatever they want with only the threaten of a veto.
-And let’s say we have Congress and Republicans have the Presidency. Great, now the President just vetoes everything we pass left and right and then we have to do veto reform because we need 2/3 to override anything. Maybe.
My point is we’ll still have issues because fundamentally, our politics is broken. Fixing the Senate won’t fix that, and it may even hurt.
I will absolutely agree with you about this: the filibuster is the most dysfunctional aspect of the Senate and reforming it will do a lot to improve the functionality of the institution. Removing it would do even more. I will be thrilled to see that reform happen, and very much concede my greater problems and issues with the Senate will take a very long time to address — quite likely longer than my lifetime.
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p>That said, the problems are legitimate and just reforming or even removing the filibuster will not cure them. It will not suddenly make legislation passed through the Senate more reflective in all cases of the American people — I brought up several examples in Bob’s thread to a comment of yours in which the Senate is at the forefront of passing flawed bills largely because of the power of small and/or rural states over large and/or urban ones. A Senate that was more representative of the population at large would pass better bills, without question. Being able to get rid of corn subsidies alone would be worth abolishing or completely revamping the makeup of the Senate.
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p>Of course they will, but that doesn’t mean you don’t reform government to reduce their ability to do that, or to force Republicans to be more representative of the people. If larger and more urban states suddenly had more representation in the Senate, you’d just see more Republicans come into office that were willing to represent those people — they’d still be Republicans, but they would be better ones. They’d have to be, or they wouldn’t be elected. As much as I don’t like Scott Brown, he is a better Republican for this country than Jim DeMint.
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p>There’s the flip side to it — it can more easily stop good legislation. I again implore you to look at the differences between France, Germany, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and a boat load of other places — versus the United States. In all those other countries, they’re either unicameral or their upper chamber has little real power. They all have also passed good legislation that’s far more reflective of the people — and when they pass bad legislation, they’re almost certain to risk defeat in the next election, as will probably happen in the UK after Tory overreach, as well as Ireland and other countries. Much of that bad legislation will then be reversed.
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p>To continue with my point, what I really want — what I think is completely necessary in any good representative democracy — is accountability. When you structure your government in such a way that you’re so terrified of bad bills passing that you make it almost impossible for really good bills to pass that will dramatically improve the quality of life for the American people, I submit that’s a bad system of government.
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p>Yes, a unicameral system, or a system in which the legislation that was passed was actually reflective and representative of the people of that government, you’re going to occasionally get overreach on the part of a party — but that’s why we have elections. If we want a good government that works, that’s able to pass truly good bills, you have to trust the people of your government to be able to look at what passes, judge it, and hold those politicians accountable. What you’ll get from that system of government are smarter parties that will be more reflective of their people — the right-wing parties of Europe that are often in power are only different from the Republicans insofar as they know they have to be able to be elected, because their parliaments are actually representative of their population.
I think the core of our disagreement comes down to this. With a unicameral legislature, you have greater swings in ideology. See for example: 2005 –> 2007 Congress and 2009 –> 2011 Congress. The Senate, while majorly altered by big wave elections, is often less affected than the lower chamber. That gives our system more inflexibility and, yes, a slower pace of change. I’ll grant you that it prevents us sometimes from passing good legislation, just as you granted me that it sometimes prevents us from passing bad legislation. But that’s the whole point – there is stability in that system.
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p>Stability is not good for stability’s sake. But in these particularly polarized times, I think maintaining stability can often be a very good thing. It seems like you’d like a system where we can make more progress. I would, too, but not at the cost of losing much of that progress in the low part of that rollercoaster ride.
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p>No, there’s brokenness.
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p>Furthermore, on certain issues, it doesn’t “sometimes” prevent us from passing good legislation, it always does. I brought up having enough investment in cities and the fact that the farm subsidies bill is so utterly broken, with absolutely disastrous consequences to this country and the world at large. I’m waiting to see how you or others think these issues can be solved without at least altering the composition of the US Senate.
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p>Perhaps, but I don’t see this as a serious problem in most parliamentary systems of government — particularly in other two or three party systems.
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p>Yet, I think this issue is besides the point. Let’s take away the idea of unicameral legislation for a second, because it’s just become a big distraction to you or others, and it’s secondary to my main concern.
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p>What I care about is having representative representation — which is not actually a redundant way to put it. If someday we reformed the Senate to make it a more representative body of this country, that would absolutely thrill me and I’d be a very happy camper. If that’s how reform can happen, great.
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p>At the end of the day, if you look at highly developed countries that have truly representative governments, the ‘right wing’ parties are much further to the left… because they have to appeal to the population. If Republicans had to win Senate seats in California and New York to win a reformed Senate, you better believe they’d run further to the left to appeal to those populations — and, over all, we’d have a Republican Party that was more reflective of the population. (Democrats, btw, wouldn’t have as many DINOs for that matter.)
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p>So, there may still be some bigger ‘swings’ in ideology, but it’s going to much more firmly entrenched in mainstream public opinion than it is today. Right now, even in the past two years, we started from the right of mainstream popular opinion because of small-state power in the US Senate… and having to do so is only giving Republicans increased power in the system.