Biden faces scrutiny over reliance on executive orders

[David Horn]

(02-01-2021, 06:45 PM)mamabug Wrote: What defines and who is in the majority/minority shifts over time.   I can be geographical, philosophical, identitarian, etc. one era and something else the next.  Each side will cast the narrative of past events in terms that depict their interpretation of them because we like our grand political narratives of 'right' vs. 'wrong' instead of what is typically just a case of people with competing interests trying to figure sh*t out.  Your view of obstructionism and partisanship since GWB is as distorted and biased as the inverse from a Republican.  Or, as Terry Pratchett put it, where the story starts depends on which arbitrary point in time you pick to begin.  From my perspective, it is the role of the majority to advance their agenda and the role of the minority to advocate for their constituents to the best of the ability, not to simply put up their hands and say 'oh, well, I guess 2% more voters wanted you so do as you will.'

When the nation is closely divided, comity and common sense call for some form of compromise politics (variety TBD, but the concept stands).  My point was simple: not only has that not happened, but the built-in structural advantage to say no (the default conservative position) added to the structural advantage given to conservative voters (i.e. rural v. urban) means the progressive voice only gets heard when things go so far off the tracks, that the conservative option is no longer viable.  That's not balance or fairness.  It's an unacceptable thumb-on-the-scale, whether it was intended or not.

FWIW, we may finally be there.

mamabug Wrote:I don't want to live in a political system where 50.00001% of the population can impose an effective dictatorship on the other 49.99999% for however long until the next election.  I live in a state with one party rule (thanks Sullivan decision) and we are definitely the worse off for it.  Those who are disappointed conservatives still exist spend a lot of time complaining about 'structural imbalance' or 'obstructionism' but never put forth a reasonable alternative that doesn't fall into Churchill's 'mob rule' trap.  I believe the Constitutional system that requires plurality as well as majority is about as fair as you can get when seeking balance, as are the historical conventions and standards that require general popular support to overcome.  

Let me share the opposite situation.  I moved to Virginia from New York in 1972. It was like moving to the antebellum South.  Political power in the state resided in the rural counties and was enforced through gerrymandered districts and a slight population advantage to the conservatives (almost all Democrats even then).  As demographics shifted, that diminishing rural tail wagged the more urban dog until just a few years ago when population increases in Northern Virginia (NoVA) made even those structural obstacles inadequate.  This time redistricting will be done by a neutral commission rather than the dominant party.

Already, the rural counties are aligning as 2nd Amendment Sanctuaries and promoting private militias to 'defend their rights', when for decades they lorded it over the opposition with zero mercy.  So tell me, is turnabout fair play? The old system dated to the 1870s.  Isn't it fair and right that they stand aside, or at least acquiesce to a bit of balance?  They ran the show for 150 years.  They think not!

mamabug Wrote:Whinging about partisanship is just another way of saying the policies being proposed haven't been embraced.  It is so much easier to blame your opponent for not joining the program than it is to look critically at the solution being offered.  It is so much easier to blame 'reactionaries' than to consider that they may have a point about potential consequences.  If the polices are right and what is best, they will triumph without coercion and authoritarianism.

True to a point, but if something is embraced by 60+% of the population, but opposed by an obstructionist minority, then no, I don't agree with that.  The case of obstructionism is and has been common with the party of 'no' for decades -- since before Reagan, but dominant since then. That's 40 years giving the practice the benefit of the doubt, and long past its sell-by date.  The pendulum swings both ways, you know.

mamabug Wrote:Last point on this topic, I find it almost comical how those proposing to change the structure of American institutions in order to push through their favored agenda because they are unable to get enough pluralistic support for it, never stop to realize that it will be used against them.  If not by the GOP (who spent the last 4 years thanking Harry Reid for invoking the nuclear option) then certainly by the next group of Prophets who will seek to overthrow whatever 'utopia' is built.  I guess that may be the one thing I can look forward to in the coming 2T - watching the yet unborn generation dance on the graves and tear down the statues of the current 'greatest generation.'

FDR's policies were both popular and advantageous for most of the 50 years before Reagan.  Economic growth was the best its ever been, and the benefits of that growth were widely shared.  The fracture lines were race and war.  Both were, in retrospect, easily identified as issues long before they triggered a breakup of the FDR coalition.  So now, they are being addressed, along with pandemic response, climate change and the return of income and wealth inequality.  If the GIs had been less dogmatic, they may have fixed those in the '60s and'70s -- but they didn't. Progressive change is both necessary and scary for the risk averse. It still must happen, or decay sets in.  It won't matter to me personally. I'll be dead.  It matters to my children and grandchildren.