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Go Home Block Party

POLITICS AUGUST 18, 2011

Block Party

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

In 2006, Democrats won a landslide victory at the polls, sweeping to majorities in both houses of Congress. And then, the Democrats proceeded to do … hardly anything at all. Their agenda consisted mainly of halting George W. Bush’s domestic agenda. Even on the Iraq war, the unpopularity of which fueled the Democratic wave, the party did not make a serious effort to defund the campaign. Ultimately, Democrats funded a troop surge.

The rough equivalent would be if Republicans this year wound up expanding the Affordable Care Act to cover illegal immigrants. (To make the parallel between 2007 and the present more exact, we’d have to imagine that Republicans control the entire Congress, not just half, and that President Obama has lost about a quarter of his current popularity.) This scenario, of course, is unimaginable. 

What are we to make of the contrast? One conclusion is that the GOP is the more disciplined, parliamentary party. I’ve made this case myself. But that is not the only implication, or the most disturbing. Why didn’t the Democratic Congress behave under Bush like the Republican-controlled House has behaved under Obama? Why didn’t it simply refuse to fund the Iraq war or to threaten financial cataclysm by holding the debt ceiling hostage unless Bush, say, raised taxes for the rich?

It is hard to formulate an answer other than: Nobody ever considered the possibility of using the power of Congress this way. Now that Republicans have demonstrated the vast power available to an opposition party willing to deploy it, the sort of crises that have gripped Washington this summer will probably become a regular feature of American politics. What’s been exposed is not merely the weakness of the U.S. economy or the paralysis of its fiscal policy, but the instability of its very political system.

The American political system, as you probably learned in high school, was not designed to accommodate political parties, but it produced them almost instantly. The first eight decades saw a series of crises, from the Alien & Sedition Acts to the Nullification Crisis to the Civil War. After the Civil War, politics calmed down, and white Northerners and Southerners settled a peace based on the persistence of racial apartheid in the South. This led to nearly a century of oddly heterogeneous parties.

In recent decades, the two parties have sorted themselves along ideological lines. An endless stream of establishmentarians has decried the rise of “partisanship.” What is actually going on is a confusion about political legitimacy that’s inherent in our system. Political scientist Juan Linz once observed that parliamentary democracies have a superior record of stability to presidential democracies. In a presidential system, he noted, the question may always arise, “Who has the stronger claim to speak on behalf of the people: the president or the legislative majority that opposes his policies?” To this dilemma the presidential system offers no solution save raw assertion of power.

Historically, we have avoided these contradictions through social norms that could sustain themselves in a government with weak parties. Congress confirmed the president’s appointments except in extreme circumstances because, hey, that’s the way we do it around here. But what if the opposition decides to do things differently? Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan had more than 90 percent of their judicial nominees confirmed. The next three presidents had 79 percent, 84 percent, and 87 percent. Obama? Just 61 percent.

Republicans in Congress have begun blocking even presidential appointees to the executive branch, sometimes for ideological reasons, sometimes to protest unrelated actions, and sometimes just to gum up the works. Republicans in this Congress have announced they will block any appointee to agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Independent Payment Advisory Board unless Obama agrees to rewrite the laws governing them. Brookings scholar Thomas E. Mann told my colleague Jonathan Cohn that this unprecedented refusal to allow the functioning of a duly passed law harkens back to nullification. But the fact that this sort of obstruction is unprecedented does not make it wrong. It merely violates custom.

The debt ceiling showdown offers a classic episode of competing claims to legitimacy. The Republicans’ position is that, having won the House in 2010, they now represent the popular will. On that basis, they could use the dire threat of failing to raise the debt ceiling to compel Obama to adopt their policies wholesale. “The principle of not raising taxes is something that we campaigned on last November,” announced John McCain this year, “and the results of the election was that the American people don’t want their taxes raised and they wanted us to cut spending.” Surely McCain of all people could think of another recent election conferring popular legitimacy on a branch of government for four years. But no, he believed the results of the 2008 presidential election had been superseded by the midterms.

As the parties have drifted further apart ideologically, they have searched ever more diligently for weapons in the war of legitimacy. The debt ceiling is merely the latest—once just an opportunity to posture against the incumbent’s fiscal record, it is now being used by Republicans as a hostage to force policy concessions.

It is not as though the presidency has fallen into helplessness. Quite the opposite: In those fields where it can avoid congressional affirmation, the executive branch has grown more powerful. The ratcheting up of executive authority over intelligence and foreign policy is well known. Obama, no less than Bush, has found new powers of office to evade congressional inaction. The Treasury Department ran tarp. The Department of Education threatens to use federal waivers in lieu of Congress updating No Child Left Behind. Rather than overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, Obama refused to defend it in court (a practice liberals might not like if applied to some other law). Other examples abound. These are not countervailing powers so much as escalatory powers.

We can only imagine what other devices lie in store, never previously deployed only due to a social convention nobody thought to disregard. Consider: Senators previously felt obliged to confirm all but the most radical Supreme Court nominees. Now that they can mount a filibuster, why should Republicans confirm even a moderate liberal? Why not demand a conservative? The frightening thing is that this age of discovery of unused weapons is young.

Jonathan Chait is a senior editor at The New Republic. This article originally ran in the August 18, 2011, issue of the magazine.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

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41 comments

"It is hard to formulate an answer other than: Nobody ever considered the possibility of using the power of Congress this way." Perhaps a better answer to your question would be that the Democrats are responsible and believe in responsible governance. They have also swallowed the rhetoric of post-partisanism and attempt to compromise as much as possible. The Republicans, on the other hand, are more than willing to move to the brink and beyond (see the 1995 government shutdown) while refusing to move more than a fraction from their initial position (they will not even accept Reid's "compromise" proposal, which calls $2.7t in cuts with no new revenue? It sounds like a Republican came up with it!).

- spmull06

July 27, 2011 at 12:59am

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Excellent piece, Mr. Chait. **. . . sometimes just to gum up the works. . .** **But the fact that this sort of obstruction is unprecedented does not make it wrong. It merely violates custom.** This behavior is what I would call Republicans actively harming the United States. Hasn't it been a while since we heard one of those delightful, intellectually bankrupt business CEO<-->elected leader comparisons, other than from the quiet corner of Mitt Romney's campaign? Oh yeah, the party who likes to make those comparisons maybe realizes how ridiculous their behavior would be if it were transposed to a private sector business environment. Also, by the way, where are the jobs? My mom's been saying it, and I heard a random lady on the news recently say it: If I performed my job the way these government leaders are doing their jobs right now, I'd be fired.

- Konstantin

July 27, 2011 at 1:13am

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Konstantin. Listen to your mom and act on her advice. Almost all Repubs, a fair number of Blue Dogs Dems-- including BHO-- need be fired. The sooner the better. Hence, pray that this debt-limit manufactured crisis doesn't get immediately resolved. In that case, there is still time for serious voter anger to induce candidate to challenge incumbents. That's difficult, but much easier to do than changing our form of Government!!

- drofnats1

July 27, 2011 at 2:58am

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Still, the thought of parliamentary systems has been crossing my mind lately. They also seem to foster a greater variety of parties - one doubts the Tea Party would control the entire Right in Britain for example.

- Sophia

July 27, 2011 at 3:40am

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Very good piece of writing. Our situation looks bleak indeed.

- paskunac

July 27, 2011 at 6:26am

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My simple-minded response: The Republicans don't mind shooting the hostage, but the Democrats do.

- simonchan

July 27, 2011 at 6:30am

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As longtime readers of TNR know, Richard Strout, who wrote the TRB column longer than any other (1943 - 1983), was a tireless critic of the presidential system and advocate for the parliamentary system for similar reasons (though in a different era and context). I trace today's crisis in government to the Brooks Brothers riot, the name given the bullies who stopped the vote count in south Florida and were "punished" for their crime when the Supreme Court appointed their candidate President. If ever there was a lesson in consequences of unlawful actions, that was it: violate the foundation of American democracy, the right of every citizen to vote and have his or her vote counted, and win.

- rayward

July 27, 2011 at 7:19am

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I should also point out that today's crisis has the same source as the financial crisis of 2008: the falacy of the efficient market hypothesis. In both instances, greed and denial have lead actors to behave irrationally and create a crisis.

- rayward

July 27, 2011 at 7:44am

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"What’s been exposed is not merely the weakness of the U.S. economy or the paralysis of its fiscal policy, but the instability of its very political system." Duhh. This is what I've been saying all along. It's also why no compromise that leaves this debt ceiling trigger in place is acceptable. The reason Obama shouldn't negotiate with GOP terrorists isn't that it's likely to result in a bad deal--though it will--it's that if he negotiates it means we're left to be governed by terrorists. From Watergate to Iran/Contra to Ken Starr and the Clinton impeachment to Bush v Gore to the Ashcroft Justice Dept's attacks on the Voting Rights Act to Swift Boat Vets to Citizens United to the unemployment benefits hostage crisis to the debt ceiling hostage crisis, one party (guess which one) has repeatedly shown contempt for democratic processes and democratic institutions. Obama can cling to his bipartisan schtick and to the fiction that all politicians want what's best for America and merely have differing ideas on how to achieve it, and it might just see him reelected, but until he starts dealing with today's Republicans as the anti-democratic, crypto-fascists that they are, our democracy is in grave danger.

- AaronW

July 27, 2011 at 9:01am

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Parliamentary system is better? Is the grass really greener in England? Or for that matter, in Israel?

- skahn

July 27, 2011 at 9:08am

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The Constitution assumed an informed electorate and Congress. When a large minority of the electorate is being fed anti-Democratic propaganda by Fox News, then that part of the electorate is no longer "informed" and instead votes for ideologic demagogues that will distort the power they hold in any way necessary. Their goal is no longer responsible administration of power, but instead pursuit of irrational policies. I suspect this has been enabled by two things. One is the removal of the Fairness Doctrine, though that's taken 30 years to bear fruit. The other is the increasing power given to the filibuster, or the threat of the filibuster, or even the ability of ONE Senator to do a "secret filibuster" on behalf of a friend of his. I would think that could be fixed in the next congress, IF the electorate wakes up to what Fox News has done to us.

- AllanL5

July 27, 2011 at 9:13am

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Crackerjack article! I'd like to see a reconciliation of this argument with Krugman's latest crusade against Establishmentarian "both parties are at fault" reflexes. Seems like a classic case of conventional wisdom applying comfortingly familiar heuristics to a new development in the way institutions work.

- bmoodie

July 27, 2011 at 9:13am

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"Senators previously felt obliged to confirm all but the most radical Supreme Court nominees. Now that they can mount a filibuster, why should Republicans confirm even a moderate liberal?" I think the days of the filibuster - itself a convention - are numbered. We can even predict the timing of its demise - shortly after the GOP takes control of the Senate (whenever that next is).

- interloper

July 27, 2011 at 9:19am

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Dead weight Chait --- How quickly you forget to transgressions of liberals ObamaCare was an unprecented use of procedural rules such as reconciliation and deem & pass --- no republicans voted for a bill that has a huge impact on Gov role in US. Never happened in history of US In contrast, over 50% of house and senate republicans originally voted for medicare. GOP current actions are minor transgressions compared to the betrayl of ObamaCare. Have you forgotten 2010 elections. You reap what you sow

- mr_rationale

July 27, 2011 at 9:38am

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Rat - true enough that no Republicans voted for the Affordable Care Act, but that's hardly because none of them believed it was a good idea - it's pretty much derived from ideas their party (including many of the members present in 2010) originally floated a decade earlier. Had the Republican party been acting in the spirit of that Republican party which helped pass medicare, ACA would have passed with 60% majorities, earlier, and probably in a stronger form. Yes, the Democrats "forced" it through, but they did so with firm majorities in both houses of Congress (maybe you forget that they won the 2008 election rather handily), and control of the executive branch, and used "force" only in the face of rank obstructionism on the part of the Republican party. Do you really propose a standard in which it is wrong for a party in that position to pass signature legislation on which many of them campaigned for election, but it's somehow right for a party controlling 1 house of Congress to jam a stick in the spokes of the entire economy? You can't negotiate with terrorists, and the modern Republican party is a party of political terrorists, pure and simple.

- IowaBeauty

July 27, 2011 at 10:13am

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I'm sorry Rationale, but you must have forgotten how they got the 2001 Bush tax cuts passed -- I think they used some arcane something-or-other called reconciliation, which is why they were scheduled to expire at the end of 2010. I wonder what Rationale et al will do when Obama stomps Romney or Perry in the 2012 elections and Democrats take back the House. Methinks they will rediscover the virtues of the American system in its protection of minority parties and their right to thwart the tyranny of the majority through the filibuster. Kind of like they did in 2009-10.

- wildboy

July 27, 2011 at 10:19am

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@mr_rationale: "you started it." "no, you started it." "you; "no, you;" "'fraid so;" "'fraid not;" "so;" "not;" etc.

- Tgossard

July 27, 2011 at 10:19am

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Absent from Chait's article is any mention of a key component of why the opposition is so willing to bring the house down to get their way: plurality voting. Because of plurality voting, 1) we cannot have more than two parties (and least not as real players) and 2) each party must have one and only one candidate on the general election ballot. The Tea Party has taken over the process by which the Republicans achieve (2). Change the electoral system, and there will be no nomination process that the Tea Party could exploit and other Republicans would no longer have to genuflect at the Tea Party's demands.

- sighthnd

July 27, 2011 at 10:33am

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So the gist of this article is that we are so totally f'ed that we have no idea what new atrocity is coming next. Lovely day.

- cspencef

July 27, 2011 at 11:32am

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Changing the electoral system would be a start. This must include gerrymandering within states. I read yesterday of a situation in Colorado - apparently the GOP is including prisons as a way to use "minority populations for partisan gain," http://www.denverpost.com/legislature/ci_18548461 There is simply no end to the cynicism but also, the open grasping for power. Power in a democracy is something that's supposed to reside in the people, and can only be wielded by virtue of compromise. What we're seeing now, what we saw in the "election" of Bush and subsequently, has nothing to do with compromise. It doesn't even reflect the will of the majority and that is completely anti-democratic. One could see the 2000 election as a coup. We should end the electoral college immediately and also the foolish caucuses, there is far too much power in the hands of a few. And yes "FOX News" - people objected to Pravda?

- Sophia

July 27, 2011 at 12:31pm

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You know what I dont get? A good majority of Republicans are in favor of a balanced approach to deficit reduction, according to multiple polls. Where are these Republicans when it comes to voting in primaries? I swear, if the Democratic party was ever taken over by extreme lefties, I would be out there in every primary, making sure that my voice was heard for more moderate candidates.

- NR409654

July 27, 2011 at 12:33pm

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In the end, it's about balls. Republicans have them, Democrats don't. We gussy it up by calling it decency, the right thing to do, compromise, etc., but in my 20 years living in this country, the one constant has been that whether they are in power or not, Republicans stretch the envelope as far as it will go and then some, and Democrats are the exact opposite - incompetent when in power, and too easily cowed by threats when not in power. Clinton years, we had Starr and impeachment, Bush years we had "if you are against Bush, you are anti-American", and thus the Iraq war, and with Obama we have, "you make us rich or we make you dead". It's a republican strategy when in power to ensure that only legislation that will get minimal Democratic votes get passed, whereas Democrats keep trying to move the goalposts to accommodate Republican demands when in power. Why wasn't a more liberal version of ACA passed, and why wasn't it done faster - Democrats controlled both houses and the presidency, ffs. Because we had Democratic senators who wouldn't allow it. That's how incompetent the Democratic party is. Sure, the Republicans have had tactial defeats - the 1995 shutdown rebounded against the Contractors for America, they lost in 2006 and 2008 ... but compared to where we are now vs. 20 years ago ... what a fantastic victory the Republicans have won, by being able to steer the discourse to where it is now.

- NR409654

July 27, 2011 at 1:02pm

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P.S.: I'll bet that the next time Republicans control the Senate, they'll do away with the filibuster.

- NR409654

July 27, 2011 at 1:05pm

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The general voting laziness of Americans, and in particular Americans who would benefit from a more robust and assertive Democratic political style, is also a reason. There are discriminatory levers moved by the GOP, true, but a lot of Americans just don't bother.

- ironyroad

July 27, 2011 at 1:24pm

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Rat says, "In contrast, over 50% of house and senate republicans originally voted for medicare." Did you miss the part of the article where Chait talks about unprecedented obstructionism? This has everything to do with the change in the Republican party. Today's Republicans would not vote for Medicare: for one thing, it contained tax increases, so Grover Norquist would give them all wedgies or whatever it is he would do in such a case. So even if reconciliation and "deem and pass" really *were* unprecedented, well, unprecedented problems need unprecedented solutions.

- frippo

July 27, 2011 at 1:41pm

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Iowa Beauty: I generally agree with your post, but what do you do with a Prez who insists on negotiating with terrorists--- in fact, gives them half their demands before starting to negotiate? From a negotiating strategy standpoint, this is worse than Neville C negotiating with Adolph H over Czechoslovakia to prevent open warfare. At least Neville started out intending to negotiate away no part of the Czech Republic. We have a Compromiser-in-Chief negotiating with intractable opposition whose primary goal is his destruction and eventual capitulation-- and using a strategy that offers most of what they want before getting any agreement. We all better pray the negotiations fail and BHO doesn't make a deal proclaimed as "Economic peace in our time" that guarantees an economic collapse in 6-12 months for which BHO and the Dems will be blamed and in a weakened condition. Better a manufactured debt crisis now that has some quick-fix solutions rather than a second Great Depression in 6-12 months with no easy fixes [Advocating WW III as a fix won’t work this time around.] Better a chance for voters to see the calamitous policies of BHO and the Repubs for what they have mutually wrought-- with some (small) hope of a Progressive challenge to BHO before primaries begin.

- drofnats1

July 27, 2011 at 2:36pm

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IowaBeauty is right. Republicans are economic and political terrorists, and you can't negotiate with them. Grover Norquist said he wants the government to become so small that he can take it to a bathtub and drown it--something only a Bolshevik would think of. Mitch McConnell said it would be good if our economy crashed again, because it would make Obama a one-term president. The Republican Party has been taken over by anarchic Tea Partiers, wacko Rapturists, and the Bolshevik-like Grover Norquist. NR409654 is right, too. Republicans will continue to be a terrorists until Republican voters have the courage to vote against wacko leaders whom not all of them agree with. Republican voters get in lock-step with crazies on election day. Not all Democrats do. When LBJ and Hubert Humphrey refused to give up on the crazy war in Vietnam in 1968, I refused to vote for Humphrey in the election that year. Courage, Republican voters! Stand up and say No to insanity!

- magboy47.

July 27, 2011 at 2:58pm

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Sight, I don't know what alternative there is aside from some form of proportional representation, which has its own problems. Theoretically, the check on (2) ought to be that, if a sufficiently extreme nominee is chosen by one party in the primaries, the other party will defeat them, but Democrats seem, at this point, unable to play politics effectively, or to mobilize majority support, even against Tea Party Radicals. (Let's hope I'm wrong, and 2010 was just a recession-induced bubble for the far right)

- Curran1

July 27, 2011 at 3:35pm

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If you don't have this president being conciliatory and post-partisan, then you have a president who is a scary angry black man and then it's just confirmation of what the right always said (or intimated).

- ironyroad

July 27, 2011 at 3:38pm

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Sophia: redistricting reform is an initiative which has value in its own right. However, it will do little to elect more moderate politicians. If you want an idea of its effect, look at the US Senate where there is no gerrymandering. You get occasional moderates from either solidly Republican states electing Democrats or solidly Democratic states electing Republicans, otherwise you just get pols reflecting their party bases. This includes evenly matched states. The electoral college is irrelevant to whether the median voter is favored or disfavored. Your example of Bush's election does provide a vehicle to explain how election methods do affect things. In the first stage of the 2000 campaign, Bush defeated McCain despite the fact that McCain won virtually every state with open primaries before the outcome was decided (your point about caucuses is valid along those lines, though primaries are little improvement). During the subsequent 8 years, McCain abandoned everything that endeared himself to the independent voters and thus was able to win the nomination in 2008. An alternative electoral system that actually would change things to help median voters elect officials representing them would be one in which for the 2000 election, Bradley and McCain could have run in the general election causing no disadvantage to either themselves or to Gore and Bush. Two methods that would accomplish this are range voting and pairwise-ranked voting. In addition, approval voting would come close to achieving this aim without the need to change out voting hardware.

- sighthnd

July 27, 2011 at 3:41pm

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Sophia writes: "Power in a democracy is something that's supposed to reside in the people, and can only be wielded by virtue of compromise." Notwithstanding, Sophia, that your comments are always insigtful and useful, this confuses me. Where, among the basic principles of Democracy, is there a demand that government only function by compromise? If anything, majority rule is closer to being a fundamental democratic principle. I really don't understand this comment, except as being representative of the (in my opinion, naive and counterproductive) Liberal belief in a certain wishy-washy ideal (I'm trying to think of a way to say it in a less insulting way, but, for my own lack of vocabulary at this moment, failing) that only sometimes matches reality. It'd be fine if both parties were interested in compromise, and under those circumstances it's a fine mode of doing things, but it's far from being the 'only [way power should be] wielded' in a Democracy. In the UK, Canada, and many other Democracies, ideological one-party-rule is often the norm. As for the US, one party has a different political vision, and so isn't interested in that ideal, so we have to move on, and fight the political battles as they come. This is a perfectly normal state of affairs. Some things can only be achieved over the objections of the minority--you know, things like creating the welfare state and ending slavery. Granted, when we all work together, everyone benefits, but that isn't always a possibility, and so it's not a fundamental organizing principle of our system of government. Never has been. 'Bipartisanship' as an ideal really only dates from the mid-60s or later, when southern Democrats wanted an excuse to oppose or slow civil rights legislation through siding against their party, calling for a broader consensus (or so I have read).

- Curran1

July 27, 2011 at 3:49pm

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I'm reading this book called 'Endgame' by Derrick Jensen about the needed collapse of civilization to 'correct' centuries of pillaging by those in power. Whether or not you agree with his premises regarding how good or evil civilization is or can be. I am beginning to think he is very much correct. I'll extend his premise with regards to the the GOP party and the Dems as well. It is one thing to be a liberal and thinking, that collectively, society has an obligation to see that everyone is on equal footing. Then I see the maximalist approach that the Republicans are currently practicing and this is basically how they 'see' the world: Any attack upon the GOP, the wealthy & powerful individuals, large multi-national corporations and extractive industries is something to be destroyed/quashed/dismantled/trashed/prosecuted and is therefor a righteous thing to do. That anyone who would question or dare to stand up to their skewed view of the world is to be viewed with contempt and treated as some sort of social criminal and subsequently made to think that those in power really do have a right to screw the rest of society because it benefits the powerful. How else to explain that the GOP would defend an entity like Massey Energy and their wholesale destruction of a state and its citizens as "patriotic, American, and necessary for progress" while anyone that protests such destruction is labeled an eco-fascist, eco-terrorists, socialist or unAmerican? The GOP takes the same approach to the wholesale destruction of America through its maximalist approach to economics because the important thing isn't that America remains but is simply a shell that exists solely to funnel money, power and resources to the top 2%. One wonders if the GOP really does have the best interests of America at heart and over the last 12 years I haven't seen much proof that they do. It appears they kowtow to the narrowed interests of the Koch Brothers and their ilk. And that they have successfully convince a vast majority of Americans into thinking that continuing policies that benefit the top 2% is a benefit to all (even while the bottom 90% get bent over and f=d while thanking the GOP for f-ing them) is all the more infuriating. Maybe the average citizen will start waking up to the realities of our broken political system and start realizing that it is in need of serious fixing or maybe we just let civilization collapse and try starting all over again. I'm not sure which is the best path but I'm pretty convinced that the GOP really need to be dismantled as a starting point.

- singlspeed

July 27, 2011 at 5:22pm

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Milo Minderbinder: what's good for M&M Enterprises is good for the world! I never understood that aspect of Catch-22 until recently. I honestly didn't get it. Now, I get it.

- Sophia

July 27, 2011 at 5:29pm

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As for compromise in a democracy - to Curran et.al. I guess I see "democracy" as more than "tyranny of the majority." To me, it means respect for the minority, for opposing points of view. Above all, it means "e pluribus unum" otherwise you don't have a state - or a civil society; you get to the point of armed conflict, of a "democracy" like you have in Lebanon, in which political parties have armies. This is why I say power should be wielded through compromise (if possible.)

- Sophia

July 27, 2011 at 5:31pm

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Sophia, thank you for your cogent response. I see your point.

- Curran1

July 27, 2011 at 6:15pm

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What I find most interesting is the disintegration of the Republican’s traditional advantage: discuss amongst yourselves, but at the end of the day, everyone lines up behind the talking points / initiative support of the day, else expect the chain-mailed fist to the neck. Does the Tea Party movement really have the muscle to thwart Boehner and the rest of the traditional Republicans? Apparently so, and if so, how have the Democrats not found a way to exploit this weakness effectively? “I swear, if the Democratic party was ever taken over by extreme lefties, I would be out there in every primary, making sure that my voice was heard for more moderate candidates.” NR – Couldn’t agree more.

- OkiSaru

July 27, 2011 at 8:43pm

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I have no comment on the systemic idioms and their virtues or liabilities. I've been willing to entertain those parts of the Republican arguments that have a ring of truth to them but these latest posturings and threats are going to cost them. Having watched Obama handle the economic realities that he inherited has been a profile in courage what with his having to go forth with very necessary provisioning that was going to be politically targeted as convenience would have it. There was nothing but political liability and thanklessness that accompanied the task. Still he did what was required though his choices offered no satisfactions personally. I am an independent who is going to go to bat for Obama. He is the Republicans scorched earth target. I'll do my small part to see that he stands to see another term. Though I would appreciate it if he would be less accommodating to Middle-Eastern intransigence and the bogus equivalence of culpability per Israel and those who wish to see her vanish from the face of the earth. The contentions are not parallel.

- jacko

July 27, 2011 at 8:47pm

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Testing.

- elmont

July 28, 2011 at 7:18pm

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Well, okay, I'll try for a third time to post a comment. Why is this so damn hard?? Twice, my comment was lost in cyberspace. Anyway, my simple addition to this discussion is to note that while I generally agree with the article, I wanted to especially applaud Rayward's note about the 'Brooks Brothers riot.' (I actually like BB shirts, but that's another matter.) To this day, I cannot fathom how people could so obviously, and on camera, violate federal election law in such an important way, and not even be prosecuted, much less imprisoned. If the Dems had done something like that with like result, the Repugs would be loudly and rightly screaming until this day. How did we let this happen? As the saying goes, where is the outrage?

- elmont

July 28, 2011 at 7:30pm

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Going back to Chait's argument, it's a little bit of a reach to claim that our political system is unstable when one party (Republican) is willing to violate customs and another party (Democratic) is trying to restore them. We don't have an unstable system, we have unbalanced actors. Obama has a very strong claim for circumventing Congressional inaction even more than he has done so far. But he wants the process (the customs) to work, instead of the system (the powers) to work. A noble but flawed view.

- polcereal

July 29, 2011 at 12:32pm

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Now that the Republicans have decided to use the debt ceiling as a tool of legislative extortion, it creates a fundamental and devastating structural imbalance in American politics that draws into question the legitimacy of the system. The debt ceiling can only be used effectively by the party in favor of making the Federal government ineffective. The debt ceiling can be used to weaken or repeal environmental and financial regulation, the ACA and any other Democratic initiative, not just fiscal legislation. It can be used to cripple and doom to failure any Democratic president. And it can be wielded by just 41 Republican senators, even if the Democrats retain control of the Senate and regain control of the House. It can't be done away with until the Democrats occupy the presidency and control both houses of Congress, with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (and when will that happen?). It's true that the Republicans might shrink from using the debt ceiling in the face of strong popular disapproval, and in some very unusual circumstances it might work to the Democrats' advantage. But in nearly all situations likely to arise, if the Democrats try to use it, the Republicans will be only too happy to sit back and let the government shut down and the country go into default.

- BillW

August 4, 2011 at 10:09am

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