Comment by cipheredStones
3 years ago
1. The much-mythologized founders disagreed on how strong the federal government would be; the first political parties were the Federalists and Anti-Federalists (technically the Democratic-Republicans, but carrying on that same ideology).
2. Filibusters are not in the Constitution, weren't possible for decades after it was signed, weren't used for half a century after it was signed, and didn't become the "sixty votes required for anything" tool they are today until 10-15 years ago. The founders had nothing to do with it.
You're incorrect, the first filibuster was 11 years after the Constitution was ratified and have been common since 1917 and common in their current form since 1970 (that's 53 years not 10-15)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_in_the_United_State...
Using the filibuster the way it's used now and not actually trying to come to a compromise is definitely new. It's not something that changed about the rule itself, but about the way it's used. See the graph in this article: https://www.statista.com/chart/25929/number-of-senate-filibu...
IMO it all comes down to the insight that the opposition party has nothing to gain from cooperating. If something good gets passed, the majority party gets the credit. If nothing gets passed, the majority party gets the blame, regardless details how that outcome was achieved and what role the minority party played. So blocking everything is the best strategy. IMO, it's disgusting to have politicians put party over country, but here we are.
I wonder if there has been a change in how senators are judged by their constituents. We’re they judged on their individual records rather than party records in the past?
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> common in their current form since 1970 (that's 53 years not 10-15)
A chart of filibuster usage over the past ~century speaks for itself: https://bit.ly/3mL6IOU
And that's not even fully up to date: the 2019-20 session ended with 298 cloture votes and the 2021-22 session with 289, per https://www.senate.gov/legislative/cloture/clotureCounts.htm .
> the first filibuster was 11 years after the Constitution was ratified
Sure, whatever - your citation is "wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_in_the_United States_Senate" and mine is "wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster#Senate". The exact details don't matter: the relevant points are that it's not a mechanism created by the Constitution, was not common in the lifetime of the Constitution's drafters, and has massively different effects on the governance of the country now than it did in the 20th century, much less the 19th or 18th.
Not coincidentally, 10 to 15 years ago is around when people started viewing the "other" party as "evil." You can justify a lot of behavior when you declare yourself full of righteous indignation.
You were not alive in the 80s then. Democrats and civil society hated Reagan for what he did to this country. He was definitely seen as evil.
No. The media and democrats hated him. He was an amazing president that ended the Cold War. Ended inflation and kick started 20 years of economic growth.
People forget how quickly Carter screwed up the economy.
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Yes many did, but it was mainly the activists and people who follow politics closely, not the average person. The average Democrat didn't think that about Reagan, as evidenced by the re-election results and the fact that H.W. rode Reagan's coat tails.
I'm not sure that makes sense. The modern filibuster is a bipartisan agreement for inaction.
It's really a bipartisan agreement to defer to Senate Republicans on everything controversial, and to let them take both the blame and credit for it. Democrats are happy with that because when their votes don't count, they can pretend to support anything. When Democrats lose, it energizes their base. Republicans are happy to take credit for economically liberal and nationalistic legislation. And for the legislation that just rewards the wealthy for being wealthy (say, bailouts), movement right-wing and libertarian Republicans can vote against it (and they're mostly in the House) while small consistent groups of Democrats can cross over to make sure it passes anyway.
This is friends cooperating.
You definitely could be right. The motivations of the politicians there make perfect sense. Plus it allows them to fit in the "republicans are evil" to their base, and the republicans can fit in the "democrats are evil" to theirs. Meanwhile the politicians are working together.
Seems like a fair number of democrats probably thought Nixon was a criminal and Reagan was satan and ghwb was a liar and gwb was a warmonger and trump was a fraudster. Also seems like a fair number of republicans probably thought Clinton was a degenerate and Obama was subhuman and Biden is illegitimate, which makes 10-15 a pretty low estimate.
> Seems like a fair number of democrats probably thought Nixon was a criminal and Reagan was satan and ghwb was a liar and gwb was a warmonger and trump was a fraudster.
Yes true, but it didn't feel widespread then. It was mostly just people who follow politics closely. Now it's nearly everyone.
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Yet shutting down the government for sport wasn’t a thing.
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The fact that they founded a nation that has last as long and successfully as the USA is extremely impressive, in the same way Apple is impressive even though Steve Jobs was not a perfect person, except the USA is orders of magnitude more impactful.
Simply on the basis of accomplishments, whether for good or bad, the founders rank amongst the greatest people to ever exist.
Where not otherwise stated, the branches of government are free to decide how to conduct their own internal business. The House and the Senate, for instance, get to decide the rules on how to conduct the votes for legislation, how the bills are even made ready for voting in the first place, etc.
It can really be no other way, short of stuffing all the parliamentary rules like that into the Constitution.
The filibuster began its current form almost immediately after the Constitution was amended to require the election of Senators.