A Rant

[stdesjardins]

The Republicans are effective politicians doing horrible things. The Democrats are ineffective politicans who (when they have the chance) govern reasonably well. Under these circumstances, complaining about Democrats' political tactics is straining at gnats while swallowing camels.

If you nevertheless choose to strain at gnats, however, it would be wise to consider root causes. If your complaint is of incivility in politics, ask who is at fault, not merely who is "shrill". Clinton chose to govern in a bipartisan way; he got NAFTA through Congress with mostly Republican votes, for instance, because he thought it was good policy, and he asked Orrin Hatch to submit a list of Supreme Court justices he'd find acceptable, and nominated two of Hatch's choices. Bush and the Republican Congress, on the other hand, have pursued a policy of working as little as possible with Democrats, actually rewriting bills to make them objectionable to Democrats who they worried might vote for them. (The avowed goal being to concentrate power, and hence self-interested campaign contributions, entirely within the Republican party.) Under the circumstances, the only way Democrats have to influence policy is through public shaming, denunciations of policies that go too far, which in the absence of restraint the Republicans produce constantly. The alternative to shrillness is, effectively, acquiescence.

I will consider a reasoned argument that different opposition tactics might be more effective. But I will not tolerate pleas for the Democrats to just be nice or make less than a fuss, any more than I'd tolerate the plea that they should just shut up and let the Republicans do whatever they want, because without anything more the two are the same thing.

Tangentially, I found myself considering the abstract case where one party has strict party discipline and the other party doesn't. When the lax party has a majority, they can only pass laws that have overwhelming support within their own party, or that the minority party agrees to, or that they can persuade defectors from the minority party to agree to. But when the strict party has a majority, they can pass laws that only have minority support within their party for as long as their members are unwilling to break ranks, without any support from the opposition party. The conclusion? Lax parties will tend to produce good policy when they're in the majority, but be ineffective as a minority. Strict parties will play a useful role when in opposition, but will be abusive and divisive when in power. Sound familiar?

The other conclusion: If you want more civility in politics, work to weaken the Republican party. They'll only play nice if they have to, and until they start playing nice, there's no advantage in being civil. Unilateral bipartisanship is the same as surrender.

Comments

[helcat.livejournal.com]

I was not communicating well this morning. Fatigue. I am working on a different opposition tactic but mine is going to take more time than this appointment or this election. Mine involves tapping the cynicism of our generation and turning into focus rather than rage. I hunger for leadership, and I keep finding it in places other than the democratic party. I hope you understand that I have found a place where activism is happening at a grass-roots level that speaks to me, and the more I see of that, the less patience I have for single-issue hysteria. I know I triggered this rant of yours, but I feel like we rolled over back when Gore lost, when Kerry lost, and we should gather our forces for the real fights. Roberts is far from ideal, but careful what you wish for. It could always be worse.

I'll let the special interest groups command their forces, but mine is a different calling. And I suspect it may be in leadership, because god knows I never have enough money to contribute to any of these causes, but I can write a hella fight. I may be a moderate, but I'm a moderate progressive, and just because I believe in the power of compromise doesn't mean I've sold out. It means I want to find a better way.

Thank you for contesting me, though. It never hurts to challenge someone with a different point of view and force them to rethink what they are critiquing or what their position is.

[stevendj.livejournal.com]

I for one don't see the appointment of Roberts as a small thing; I see it as possibly the most significant act of Bush's Presidency. Even the invasion of Iraq matters less, in the long run, than who will serve as 1/9 of the body that decides what our laws are. I agree that we probably can't win this fight, but I don't think that means we shouldn't try. The thing is, I think giving up on fights we can't win is bad political strategy. I think we should use the fights we can't win to make the differences between the parties clear.

So I believe we should gather evidence that Roberts is in fact dangerous (not difficult--anyone who thinks bans on contraception are constitutional, but environmental protection laws aren't, is so far from the average American he might as well be on Pluto), and blitz the talk shows with well-expressed, tempered attacks on his suitability, then hold up the nomination long enough with extended debate to force the news media to cover the Senate fight, so everyone knows which side we were on and what the issues are. We can't sustain a filibuster, but we surely ought to be able to delay the nomination a few days while a tag-team of Dems read some of his more questionable memos into the Congressional Record and discuss the regrettable unsuitability of someone with such radical ideas for the highest court in the land.

I very much doubt that the Democratic party will be this aggressive in fighting the nomination or in making their case against it, however. And, ironically, I think that's because too many of them believe in "the power of compromise" and don't recognize that being willing to compromise doesn't help if your opponent isn't.

[daviddesj.livejournal.com]

I entirely disagree that fighting political fights that you can't win is a useful thing to do. The problem with "making the differences between the parties clear" is that, when you do it on issues where the public generally supports the Republican line rather than the Democratic one, then you are just digging your hole deeper. And, often, even when they started out with some sympathy for you, they end up with less. Republican obstructionism on fights they couldn't win, during the Clinton years, cost them substantially, even when they fought the losing fight on issues that should have been popular with their base.

John Roberts is much, much closer to the "average American" than you are.
The "average American" (at least, in the swing states where you actually need more votes in order to win a national election or to alter the balance of power in the Senate) has no patience for the sort of obstructionism that you suggest, especially over what they see as puerile issues.

My guess is that, in any of the states that Bush won in the last election (i.e., the ones the Democrats need to pick up votes in) you won't find less than 2/3 of the voters thinking that Roberts should be easily confirmed. And you aren't going to budge that more than a couple of percentage points (at MOST) with the kind of tactics you describe.

(Personally I still think that Roberts sounds way better than anyone that I expected Bush to nominate. I'm still surprised he didn't nominate someone much more conservative and much less smart [see: Clarence Thomas], just in order to provoke a huge fight with the Democrats that the latter would lose, thus energizing his base. I still think you may see that, when Rehnquist dies.)

Rehnquist dies

[daviddesj.livejournal.com]

OK, I admit that I didn't expect it would happen within the next hour.

But I still predict a new nominee who's a lot worse than Roberts. And also, that the fight against him will help the Republicans far more than the Democrats.