Our government is broken. Congress can’t legislate and the Supreme Court has become a partisan institution that’s lost all credibility.
In just the most recent example, two senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, are standing in the way of passing a voting rights bill or changing the rules of the filibuster so anything can be passed (or even debated).
So this is where we are. Republicans stonewall for two years and then retake the House. We saw a similar playbook with Obama, when they blocked his nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court until a Republican—Trump—was elected and then let him install three Supreme Court justices.
They’re also gerrymandering Congressional districts and installing political appointees to oversee elections in order to guarantee permanent Republican rule.
If ever there was a reason to storm the Capitol (and, no, I’m not advocating violence), this would be it.
The irony is that the party that is actually rigging the system is the same one that tried to overturn the election when their candidate (Trump) didn’t win.
And that’s to say nothing of the Electoral College.
Twice in the last 22 years, the person who lost the popular vote actually wound up winning the presidency.
So now we have a nonstop election cycle and nothing gets done. Not just voting rights. Not just Build Back Better. Nothing. No gun control, no abortion rights, no universal healthcare. Nothing.
And the irony (there’s that word again!) is that the majority of Americans want these things.
But our system of government is inherently undemocratic.
The Senate is an inherently undemocratic institution.
Rhode Island has the same number of senators as California. The 50 Republicans in the Senate only represent a minority of the population.
So we now have minority rule.
And that’s undemocratic.
And there’s not a fucking thing we can do about it.
3 comments:
I agree. The only addition is that the Constitution was created to reduce the voice of the rabble. That was the major change from the Articles of Confederation - where the states (which was the closest the rabble got to power) which drove the nation.
I doubt the writers expected our current outcome, but our country is an anti-democratic (small d) country getting worse.
There was a great podcast about the early forming of the Constitution was a instrument of power:https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/19/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-woody-holton.html
I was surpised.
I'm with you, brother. We live in scary times. And being both gay and Jewish, the camps seem to be getting closer.
You're absolutely right. And the saddest part is, the Democrats are letting this happen. Why isn't our Democratic leadership screaming about this constantly?
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