Alex Massie's article in Foreign Policy about how the SOTU and more broadly the American system of government is functioning. He subtly hints at his opinion of our unique political system in the title, "An Aggregation of Nincompoops".
The American has no time to tie himself to anything, he grows accustomed only to change, and ends by regarding it as the natural state of man. He feels the need of it, more he loves it; for the instability; instead of meaning disaster to him, seems to give birth only to miracles all about him.
~ Alexis de Tocqueville
Massie begins his article by contrasting our government as it is with the way it was seen in the 1939 film, "Mr Smith Goes To Washington".
In the Capra film, Jefferson Smith used the filibuster to heroically resist the system. Today, the mere threat of a filibuster is enough to persuade the majority party to run screaming for the hills.
I think to some degree this is 'nostalgia for an age that never existed' - I recognize that legislative processes are more tendentious than ever before - but I think this is a quantitative difference, not a qualitative one.
Source: Hahn, Scott, & Carvalho. "Sparse Factor-Analytic Probit Models". Duke University, 2009.
That said, Massie points out one of the most confusing parts of the current situation when he talks about the 'Through The Looking Glass' importance of the minority party, thanks to the increased frequency of technical obstruction.
Excepting the Democrats' rare, tenuous, and wasted supermajority, power generally resides, however improbably or quixotically, with the minority party, which attempts and often succeeds in stymieing every majority initiative.
I think many people on Dailykos would take issue with Massie's claim that the Democrat's temporary supermajority was an exception to the rule that 'power resides with the minority party' - but I doubt many would disagree with the rule in general. The capacity for the minority party to lead, to unilaterally determine the political narrative was even apparent in Barack Obama's State of the Union speech, with its targeted references to clean coal, nuclear power, and offshore oil drilling.
In particular, Massie talks about the disappointment that he claims Europeans feel in our president's
inability to deliver upon the promises he made, not merely to American voters, but to the entire planet. Campaign aspirations are always snuffed out by brutal political reality. But rarely has the contrast between campaign poetry and governing prose been quite so clear.
Particularly on closing Guantánamo and delivering at the Copenhagen climate change summit.
Massie ends with a call that will sound familiar to anyone here
Unless they do show some spine, it's hard to see what they're for -- and far less why voters should bother endorsing Democratic candidates in November. The system may be ridiculous, but it is what it is -- and when managed correctly, things can be changed and done. The game remains the game. Unless the Democratic Party realizes that, then it can hardly complain if voters -- and the international community -- decide it's a lost cause.
I think ultimately that it is inconsistent of Massie to suggest that the international community can write off the Democratic Party, given his earlier criticism
Another irritant, imposed upon the rest of the international community by the world's most ridiculous deliberative body, is the lack of U.S. diplomatic representation in key spots. Brazil went nearly a year without an ambassador because of a senatorial hold, while important positions at the World Trade Organization and other bodies still remain unfilled.
I'm not even going to argue that the Senate is not "the world's most ridiculous deliberate body" - but I don't believe the rest of the world has sufficiently decoupled from U.S. influence to permit them to write us off as a "lost cause".
It is almost never when a state of things is the most detestable that it is smashed, but when, beginning to improve, it permits men to breathe, to reflect, to communicate their thoughts with each other, and to gauge by what they already have the extent of their rights and their grievances. The weight, although less heavy, seems then all the more unbearable.
~ Alexis de Tocqueville