Today’s sharply polarized and strategically focused political parties fit poorly with a constitutional system that anticipates collaboration as well as competition within and across separated institutions. As we initially wrote, parliamentary-style parties in a separation-of-powers government are a formula for willful obstruction and policy irresolution. The continuation of divided party government and the promiscuous use of the filibuster after the 2012 election have largely frustrated the policy direction affirmed by majority electorates and supported in polls of voters taken since the election.
The biggest secret of the Republican [2012] triumph surely lies in the discovery that obstructionism bordering on sabotage is a winning political strategy.
Good to see that we can count on the GOP to be consistent on that score, especially with Spineless Ryan and Sen. McHypocrite still manning the Congressional command centers.
Then again, who needs sabotage nowadays when there’s a know-nothing ignoramus in the White House tweeting to his tiny mind’s delight about how quickly he can shred whatever sense of decency might have been left in D.C. post-election? Just bluster, connive, con, scheme, or weasel your way to whatever policies and rules you need to blow everything up!
Actions [non-, to be more accurate] by the Congressional GOP make that Paul Krugman observation inarguable. There are scores of articles describing the tactics used by the GOP to stall, dismantle, or simply ignore legislative proposals put forth by either their Democrat counterparts or President Obama himself for most of Obama’s eight years in office. The million—utterly pointless—votes against Obamacare; the idiotic—utterly pointless—hearings on a variety of idiotic witch-hunts; the federal government shutdown; filibusters … a seemingly endless string of denial, opposition, and obstruction. It became a badge of honor to participate. What fun!
A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress’s generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.
A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media.
Government creates the ‘public structures’ that support smaller, innovative business. Government defines the playing field for business, right down to defining and regulating the money itself. Government creates the laws that define what business even is, and the police and courts to enforce that law. Government provides the infrastructure that is the soil in which businesses thrive -or whither and die. Government educates the employees and innovators. Government negotiates the trade agreements that let businesses sell outside our country, and is supposed to protect our businesses from being undercut by those in other countries.
Government keeps larger, ultra-wealthy businesses from dominating, monopolizing and destroying the newer, innovative, disruptive, creative businesses that rise up out of We, the People.
Good thing there aren’t any consequences when nothing is being done to address these and countless other approaches to move us all forward….Now we’re in the midst of the tRump bombing runs, and I’m not sure how much longer those actions and legislative edicts from the GOP will remain consequence free. Could get dicey….
While Obama was in office, there was no need to waste time contemplating the reasons, needs, intent, or issues prompting legislative proposals. Congress could just cut out all the chatter and say “No”! The tRump Bombardiers are going to have to come up with new insane to justify and distract. At the warp-speed by which they are ignoring/destroying norms and undoing important legislation, they may have to take a time-out and work on their flash card rationales quickly.
In case there might be some who aren’t convinced that government is incompetent and ineffective, there’s still work to be done by the GOP and the Orange Crusher. Doing nothing and/or opposing/obstructing/denying are effective, but with a new sheriff in town, the Obama-era obstruction needs some fine tuning. If the government starts doing things well despite tRump’s diligent efforts, and in ways benefiting millions among us not just now but going forward, providing more of us with more opportunities to contribute meaningfully and thus expand benefits for even more of us, then … uh … uh … where are we going with this? Where, indeed.