“The Problem Of Political Precedents”: When Failure Is Rewarded, It Encourages More Failure
In a democracy, fear is supposed to be a powerful motivator for policymakers. There’s a constant realization that there’s always another election coming, and those who want to keep their jobs – and avoid voters’ wrath – will have to be responsible stewards of the public trust.
But what if these norms start to break down? What if the incentives baked into the cake prove to be faulty?
Kevin Drum made a comment last week that struck a chord, noting that Americans seemed inclined to blame Democrats, not Republicans, “for the rising dysfunction of the federal government.”
[This] is especially galling for Democrats, but it’s a win for Republicans and yet another sign of change in the way Washington is likely to work in the future. Republicans have discovered that a sufficiently united party can obstruct everything and anything but largely escape blame for the resulting gridlock.
This lesson has not been lost on Democrats, and it bodes ill for the future regardless of who wins our next few elections.
I think that’s correct and it’s a point that’s not repeated nearly enough.
In a democratic model, the last couple of years have been a mess of historic proportions. Republicans, consciously or not, decided to roll the dice – they would ignore the 2012 election results, refuse to govern, and kill measures regardless of their merit, popular support, or bipartisan appeal. They would shut down the government. They would eschew compromise. They would ignore calls to present policy solutions of their own. They would create the least productive Congress in modern American history.
And then they would wait for the American people to give them a reward.
Which voters delivered yesterday with a lovely bow on top.
When there is no accountability in a political system, there is no incentive for even well-intentioned policymakers to behave responsibly. It seems quite twisted: an unpopular party with unpopular ideas failed miserably at basic governance, and was rewarded handsomely for its efforts. The process isn’t supposed to work this way, and yet we now know it works exactly this way.
The resulting precedent is more than a little discouraging. When failure is rewarded, it encourages more failure. When obstruction is rewarded, it encourages more obstruction. When radicalism is rewarded, it encourages more radicalism. When a refusal to compromise is rewarded, it means politicians will be led to believe they, too, should refuse to work on bipartisan solutions.
It’s not a recipe for sound governance.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, November 7, 2014
“The Hostility Of Latter-Day Republicans”: For Obama, No Point In Being Conciliatory Now
I didn’t watch much TV last night, but I got the impression that whenever the gabbers ran out of steam in describing what was unfolding, they’d revert to blah blah blah about whether the results would re-inaugurate some sort of Era of Good Feeling in Washington.
It’s unclear to me if this sort of talk reflects incredible delusions about the hostility to compromise of latter-day Republicans, or the belief that Barack Obama and Democrats have no play but total surrender. Either way, it makes no sense, even if both sides make the obligatory cooing sounds about bipartisanship and “solving the country’s problems” for a few days.
Last night’s results, in fact, will enormously ratchet up pressure on Republican congressional leaders to act as though their party is already in charge. We’re much more likely to hear ultimatums than peace offerings. I’d figure Boehner and McConnell will let the White House know, privately and publicly, that life can get easier if Obama (a) approves the Keystone XL pipeline, (b) indefinitely delays any DACA expansion, and (c) indefinitely delays final action on climate change regs.
Maybe (a) is a viable option; for all any of us knows, the administration has already decided to approve Keystone. But pure merits aside, backing off on DACA would squander the most important political chip Obama can play for his party before leaving office, and backing off climate change regs might well kill prospects for doing anything on the most important long-range challenge facing the country for many years to come. I personally cannot see anything within the power of congressional Republicans to offer Obama that would justify either concession. Saying “no,” on the other hand, will almost certainly cause Republicans heartburn over the inevitable divisions of opinion about how, exactly, to respond (after the shrieks of rage have subsided). Add in the fact that an awful lot of Republican activists and opinion-leaders are going to vastly over-interpret the midterm results into either a “mandate” or a sign of manifest destiny, there’s little reason to think the GOP is going to listen to those who think the next two years must be devoted to changing the party’s image. At this point, it would be a terrible idea for Obama and Democrats to help Republicans achieve a “pragmatic” makeover they’re not willing to earn by disappointing the almighty “base.”
Besides, Democrats have another task that should absorb their time for the next year or so: coming up with a agenda for keeping the economic recovery going while boosting its tangible benefits for the 99%. Making progress on that front would be better medicine for the Democratic Party and for the country than considering concessions to the people who think there’s not enough inequality today.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Political Animal, The Washington Monthly, November 5, 2014
“The Right Makes The Case Against Governing”: The Goal Isn’t To Advance The Nation’s Interests
Rush Limbaugh told listeners today that congressional Republicans may have a popular mandate after their midterm successes, but they “were not elected to govern.”
That’s not a typo. One of the nation’s most prominent Republican media voices wants to make one thing clear, right now, in the wake of a GOP triumph: there are those within the party who are eager to prove that Republicans can govern. And those people are wrong.
National Review, a leading conservative outlet, fleshed out a very similar argument this morning, warning their GOP allies of “the governing trap.”
The desire to prove Republicans can govern also makes them hostage to their opponents in the Democratic party and the media. It empowers Senator Harry Reid, whose dethroning was in large measure the point of the election. […]
A prove-you-can-govern strategy will inevitably divide the party on the same tea-party-vs.-establishment lines that Republicans have just succeeded in overcoming…. Even if Republicans passed this foolish test, it would do little for them. If voters come to believe that a Republican Congress and a Democratic president are doing a fine job of governing together, why wouldn’t they vote to continue the arrangement in 2016?
It’s a fascinating perspective.
1. Governing would require some compromise.
2. Compromising makes you a “hostage,” which is unacceptable.
3. Ergo, don’t try to govern.
The goal of this attitude isn’t to advance the nation’s interests, even incrementally. Rather, the argument – reaching levels of public cynicism that are truly awe-inspiring – is that the sole focus of a political party is to do nothing until that party has absolute power over all branches of government.
Danny Vinik had a good take on the piece, describing it as “indicative of how dysfunctional Washington has become.”
When most legislation could pass by majority vote and policymakers frequently crossed party lines, divided government could still enact new laws and programs. That is no longer the case. We’re rapidly entering an era where a party must control the White House, House and Senate – the latter with a filibuster proof majority – to move legislation. If you don’t control all three, then your best political and legislative strategy is not to compromise, but to play politics so that you can control all three in the future. The National Review editors have figured this out.
The question now becomes whether congressional Republicans find the argument persuasive.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, November 5, 2014
“Theatrical Posturing, Not Much Lawmaking”: What We Talk About When We Talk About A Republican Senate
Presuming we have a Republican Congress next year, there’s going to be a lot of talk right after the election about what that will change 1) politically and 2) substantively. While I’m ordinarily an advocate of more substantive discussion and less political discussion (not that I have a problem with political discussion, since I do plenty of it myself, it’s just that it should be leavened with consideration of the things that actually matter), there’s a potential problem in the substantive discussion that I think we should be on the lookout for.
For instance, this morning on the radio I heard some energy expert whose name I didn’t catch say that if Republicans take over the Senate, we’re likely to see the government shift its focus toward fossil fuels and away from renewables. Which sounds perfectly logical until you ask how such a shift is supposed to take place.
This is what is often missing from policy discussion: enough acknowledgment of the institutional processes that determine how policies actually get set and altered. If you’re going to say that a Republican Congress is going to produce a particular policy change, you have to be clear that you’re saying the following events will occur:
1. Republicans will write a bill to do the thing.
2. The bill to do the thing will not only pass the House but more importantly garner 60 votes in the Senate, which means it will get the votes not only of Republicans but also of some Democrats, thereby overcoming a Democratic filibuster.
3. President Obama will sign the bill to do the thing.
It’s possible that that sequence of events could occur in some cases. For instance, Republicans have had a feverish desire to build the Keystone XL pipeline for some time, and they’ve come to attach an importance to it that’s way out of proportion to its actual impact. They seem to say with all sincerity that building the pipeline is a key to American prosperity, which is beyond absurd—building the pipeline would create a few thousand temporary jobs, and the number of permanent jobs maintaining it would literally be in the dozens. But President Obama never seemed adamantly opposed to the pipeline, and one could imagine him signing on if he got something in return. You could also see the pipeline getting a few Democratic votes from red state Democrats who want to show that they love the world’s dirtiest fuel (tar sands oil) and are therefore not hippies, so it could get 60 votes.
That might or might not happen, but it’s at least conceivable. It wouldn’t, however, represent some massive shift in our nation’s energy policy, whatever else you might think about it. And it’s an extremely unusual case.
On almost everything else Republicans want to do, either the bills they write won’t overcome Democratic filibusters, or they’ll be vetoed by the President. Much of the time, that will be because instead of embarking on a good-faith effort to find some accommodation with Democrats, they’ll just propose the thing they really want. It might be possible to forge a compromise on tax reform, but that would be a lengthy and involved process, so Republicans will just try to pass a bill slashing corporate tax rates, which won’t become law. There are ways the Affordable Care Act could be improved, but instead of working with Democrats to find them, they’ll be much more inclined to just pass repeal votes, whether it’s repeal of the entire law or repeal of individual provisions one by one (or, more likely, both).
In other words, we’re going to get an awful lot of theatrical posturing, and not very much lawmaking. We shouldn’t mistake the latter for the former.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, November 3, 2014
“Evangelical Myth Won. Wall Street Won. The Banks Won. America Lost”: Since Lies Worked So Well For Republicans, We’ll Have More
The Republican Party base is white evangelicals. So no wonder the GOP lies about the country, the economy and the president worked. The folks who base their lives on religious mythology have spent lifetimes being trained to believe lies. And if you point that out then they kick into victim mode and denounce people who question them as persecutors. Last night they won. Lies won.
As the New York Times noted:
“Republican candidates campaigned on only one thing: what they called the failure of President Obama. In speech after speech, ad after ad, they relentlessly linked their Democratic opponent to the president and vowed that they would put an end to everything they say the public hates about his administration. On Tuesday morning, the Republican National Committee released a series of get-out-the-vote images showing Mr. Obama and Democratic Senate candidates next to this message: ‘If you’re not a voter, you can’t stop Obama.’ The most important promises that winning Republicans made were negative in nature. They will repeal health care reform. They will roll back new regulations on banks and Wall Street. They will stop the Obama administration’s plans to curb coal emissions and reform immigration and invest in education.”
Since the economy has rebounded, health care reform has worked, all that remained for the GOP was to lie. And since the base of the GOP is white aging southern evangelicals the GOP was in luck. These are easy folks to lie to. That’s because they already accept an alternative version of reality. Also, of course since the lies are about a black man, that doesn’t hurt. Yes, race is “still” an issue.
The midterm election boiled down to xenophobia about the “Other.” Ebola was the president’s fault! ISIS was coming to get us! We aren’t safe!
None of this is true, but no matter. In fact judging by actual facts the Obama presidency has been successful in spite of the GOP obstruction. The economy is back. Jobs are up. Health care reform is working. We’ve been kept safe from terror attacks. America is strong.
What we’ll now see is a reinvigorated religious right. And since lies worked so well we’ll have more. Creationism, anti-gay initiatives, anti-choice initiatives, and of course pro-Koch-Brother-Financed lies upon lies to bury climate change debate is on the way.
The Republican-dominated Supreme Court stands ready to back corporate and religious right-financed attacks of the environment, pro-Wall Street laws and all the rest.
Racism won. Evangelical myth won. Wall Street won. The banks won. America lost.
By: Frank Schaeffer, The Huffington Post Blog, Movember 5, 2014
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