52-47.
We couldn't do it. And there will be diaries about this all day on this site for sure.
It's becoming a mantra for this session of Congress. We lost again. If it isn't a presidential veto, it's Republican obstructionism in the Senate. While we can muster significant majorities in the House, we can't move much forward without victories in the Senate. Even in the minority the Republicans have become a bottleneck stymieing attempts to govern this nation according the views of constituencies and the general public.
In holding the People hostage, they threaten the nature of our democracy--just as would "the terrorists".
I used to think Republicans were decent people--people with whom I frequently argued. But people, nonetheless, I could share a table at lunch and talk about important matters of the day. What has happened to those Republicans? When did being a member of the GOP mean that debate itself was rejected in favor of knee jerk idiocy? or worse, deliberate attempts to subvert the mission of government and the Constitution to enforce narrow rule by elites over the masses?
But I keep circling back to why this was all supposed to change after the 2006 Elections.
Did we simply deceive ourselves that those victories were a significant -- indeed tidal shift by the American electorate in favor of the Democratic party? Are the Democrats in the Senate in particular simply hamstrung and unable to achieve victory because Senate control is so razor thin that dubious "allies" like Sen. Lierberman thwarts any reasonable attempt to pass legislation? Or are there issues of competency that lie at the core of our leadership and our ability to channel massive support on many issues of the day into compelling legislative solutions?
How could the Republican Party from 2001-2006 achieve so many unbelievable victories in Congress --- victories that slowly but surely are ruining this nation? Why was it that, despite the ability to marshall the same opposition to Republican legislative proposals, our party failed on measure after measure to stop the Congressional rollback of the American Way of life to the 1890s?
Is there any precedent for this? And in that precedent were there any seeds of hope?
I despair now that while Republicans in Congress successful deny the will of the People at all levels of essential legislation in the Senate, the Executive Branch continues to fashion a presidency that opprates more like Caesar and less like the steward of the Law. And I worry that when this showdown between the Democrats who apparently do not or cannot control Congress and the Bush Administration occurs, it will be up to a Supreme Court stacked with conservative and Federalist Society judges that will warp our democratic reality into sometime we will not be able to recognize. Into something that historians 100 years from down will say was the pivotal moment when the American experiment was decisively replaced by something sinister and dangerous to the entire world.
Has it reached that point where we cannot rely upon the Democratic Party to stand up and succesfully oppose this dark turn? Do we as activists and highly networked individuals have the power to steer our own party towards a direction that will at least demonstrate we fought bravely to the last person? or even better that we were able to actually halt this slippery slope to national madness?
I sincerely hope so. But I'm scared that we will not. And fear is not a firm foundation from which to operate.
Clearly, I've raised many many questions in this post. This isn't a diary about my ingenious plan for changing the Democratic Party. This isn't some pithy breaking news piece. Nor is it a empirical assessment of of the current electoral reality.
It is however a broad inquiry into what happens next. And it is a request to other community members to help fill in the gaps between all of my questions. To speculate with me. Or to ground such speculation in detailed analysis. Or to counter it with fact-based hope.
I do hope you'll offer your comments here.