I’ve been wondering for a bit why during the time the Democrats controlled the legislature, executive, and judicial branches during Obama’s first term in 2008 more wasn’t accomplished. Shouldn’t that have been the opportunity to make Row V Way law and fix the electoral college? I understand the recession was going on but outside of Obamacare getting passed which didnt go far enough it seems like they didn’t really do much with all that power. Are there other important accomplishments from this time that didn’t get the news they deserved? It seems like the voters have done their job in the past to elect people to fix things and yet we are still here begging people to vote to fix issues like abortion rights.
Routine abuse of the filibuster rules by Republicans was a big part of it. Not the only reason, but a fairly major one as I recall.
And while I am a Democrat and I vote that way, I very readily admit the Democrats often bring a book to a gun fight when it comes to politics. They have good intentions but then they get steamrollered on things like SCOTUS appointments…
Democrats have been playing by the rules and norms for far too long. Norms only matter if both teams follow them. Same thing with the rules. If Republicans will change the rules so that they win Democrats have to follow suit or make it illegal. When one side plays dirty, the other can either play dirty or lose. Moral high ground gains us nothing.
The main difference is:
Republicans do stuff then Democrats challenge it thru the courts.
Dems challenge their own stuff first, and if they think it’s right after a year or two, they start talking about if they should do it. And Republicans will still challenge it thru the courts.
You can argue over which path is morally the right one.
But no one has a legitimate argument that says republicans aren’t more effective.
They’re skipping steps that take us years to complete.
I mean, Biden talked about all types of shit he would do when elected. And his first day he said he’d start looking into if he was allowed to do any of it.
trump ain’t waiting to ask anyone if he can do something. He’s just going to do shit, and we’re going to have to try and fight a bunch of battles at once, all the while his policies are in effect.
It’s not that they’re fighting dirty and we’re fighting clean.
It’s that when the gun goes off to start the race, we start stretching so we won’t cramp up.
Doesn’t matter how slow Republicans are if we give them a 10 minute head start on a 100m sprint.
This is it. Trump didn’t give a flying shit at all if anything he did was legal, he just went for it, and it worked.
The law is slow, but powerful.
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That IS fighting dirty
“Things are kinda shitty so we should make them all the way shitty” isn’t the argument you think it is.
Though if I recall correctly, filibuster rule can be removed with 51% majority but obviously Democrats are too nice to remove that.
While I disagree with it, there is a valid argument that getting rid of the filibuster would become an absolute disaster once Republicans gain the majority.
It’s an easy rotating villain they can pull out at their convenience
The current state of US politics is a direct consequence of Mitch McConnell’s campaign of obstruction and spin. When we go to civil war in November and your fellow Americans are bleeding out in the streets because we wouldn’t get on board with support for Zionist genocide, think of him.