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I think what separates us is less policy than belief in the health of the Republican Party fionwe1987 Send a noteboard - 19/07/2022 03:44:01 PM

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Ah but what if it passes both Houses?


I'd be ecstatic and I'll take the win. But why would it? I can't quite see how a party that is nominating election deniers, passing laws to cut mail ballot drop boxes, or the host of other measures you see at the state level, would ever do this.

Part of the problem for the GOP is that they claim their issue is fraud, but all their actions point to other goals. When you have that kind of mismatch, a broader goal that incidentally deals with fraud while maximally enabling voting is not going to fly. I'd be glad to be proved wrong, but can't see what logical sequence of events lead to it, unless something fundamental changes.



One never knows, does one?

Ummm, if one fails to keep track of the legislation being passed around the country, sure. But with that knowledge, its not particularly hard to answer my question, which is why I posed it.

Bah, when you and I actually agree on a list of important things, it gives this cynical old man hope that just maybe this country can work things out.


But I've never doubted we agree on a lot of things. We have certainly had shared views before. I guarantee you if I list my top 10 priorities for what needs to happen in this country, we're very unlikely to disagree too much on most of them.
And that is broadly true of the country as a whole. Any number of measures that are broadly popular are blocked from legislation. Fuck passing, they don't even come up for debate.

Where we may disagree is perhaps on the solutions. I want the filibuster removed, or, better, altered so all 40 dissenting Senators have to be on the floor, and have to make their case. Pocket filibusters must die.

Along the same line, the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader in the Senate do NOT get to set what bills come to the floor. Any bill with 30-40% support (I'm movable on the number) must be brought forth to the floor for debate, regardless of the priorities and political considerations of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy. You don't, as a Senator or Congressperson, get the right to silently oppose shit. You're the people's representative. Openly vote no on stuff you disagree with, and face the consequences. I loathe the ways the US Congress is built to insulate it's members from public scrutiny.

Nothing like this will happen, of course, because such a staggeringly large portion of the GOP agenda is so deeply unpopular that anything that increases democratic control and public taking of stances on these issues is going to get torpedoed. And till Republican voters realize they're fenced into the political positions and strategies used by their leadership to continue staying in power, nothing will change.

On the Dem end, there's some realization of all this, but total failure to take bold measures to combat it. There's a nostalgia for a former time when Congress functioned better, without any deep understanding of why it functioned better, and what it's blind spots and failures were in the past.

So we have sniveling weasels being take on by geriatric pandas unable to do much more than weakly chew at some bamboo shoots.


Also, I'm sipping a Bombay Sapphire G&T thinking, why hasn't this excellent spirit been renamed Mumbai Sapphire?

I don't. I grew up in Bombay. Mumbai just doesn't seem to fit the place. I get why the city got renamed, though the people doing the renaming weren't far different from the GOP, and basically did it to use their supposed patriotic fervor to cover for their completely cluelessness on how to actually govern.

The Brits who make Bombay Sapphire are probably blissfully unaware of all of that.

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