American democracy has ground to a halt.

[Beet]

This site is dedicated to elections. Elections are part of a larger system of "American democracy" that has existed, in one form or another, for hundreds of years. Until very recently, and this was even true at the time when I first joined the Forum, this system seemed triumphant, expanding, confident, and at the very least secure.

What we are seeing this year is that Steve Bullock would rather have a 0.1% chance of getting elected president than an actual decent shot at getting into the Senate. Beto O'Rourke would rather be president than Senator. So would Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris. Stacey Abrams is more likely to run for president than Senate. The news this spring is full of stories about how 23 people want to run for president, but the same Party has trouble recruiting for Senate. In a little article recently about the frustrations of Joe Manchin, some insight is gleaned:

"He said, ‘I’m out of here.’ He was all pissed off and said, ‘I’m going to be out of here,’ ” the lawmaker said.

Manchin often talks about his fondness for his time as governor. He doesn’t think his current Senate job is nearly as fulfilling. The Senate has spent most of 2019 churning through President Trump’s judicial and executive branch nominees, rarely voting on bills that have a chance to become law.

“The part that senators like Manchin who used to be executives, in particular, struggle with is the fact that literally nothing gets done. Everybody knows the outcome before the votes even happen. There is no real desire to move legislation or solve problems, it’s all about politics, posturing and positioning,” the strategist said.

“The reality is most of the other senators don’t have other options. They can’t go be governors. I guess they can join the pool of candidates running for president,” the source added.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/448287-manchin-eyes-senate-exit

The parties today are so polarized that anything that makes it out of the House can't make it past Mitch McConnell, and vice versa. So lawmaking is increasingly passe to the Courts, and the Senate's job becomes nothing but to hyperpoliticize the Courts -- in effect delegating their lawmaking powers over to them. And of course, the Executive Branch is insisting on doing more and more things unilaterally, going around Congress. Trump's dramatic government shutdown in the winter backfired-- but was his logic really wrong? If Congress can't get its act together and do something, then it puts more and more pressure for the Executive to start governing unilaterally. The most dramatic example of this, was the breakdown of the Weimer Reichstag during the Great Depression, which forced multiple Chancellors to invoke Article 48, rule by decree. By the time Adolf Hitler made this arrangement permanent, the Reichstag was already a failed institution. His opponents had no alternative to defend.

Thus none of the branches of government is working properly. The Congress is frozen-- the exact opposite of what it is supposed to do, which is govern. The Courts are partisan-- the exact opposite of what judges are supposed to do, which is to be impartial. The president openly says he would do things that his own FEC says would be illegal-- the exact opposite of what he is supposed to do, which is execute the law.

None of our politicians, or our media, is talking about this problem. It is lost in the day to day news cycle. Every day that goes by, is another day when the glory days of American democracy -- the great victories of the Cold War, World War II, industrialization -- fade further away, and the present state of dysfunction and paralysis drags on longer. Meanwhile dictators like countries like China, and Russia, and wannabe dictators in places like Brazil and the Philippines, are watching. The whole world is watching as the beacon of freedom flails an fails...

[T'Chenka]

Let's get money out of politics altogether, and make senate and congress jobs much more meaningful and impactful but less lucrative.

Sanders 2020

[junior chįmp]

Congress worked fine until Reagan got elected and inspired an entire generation of true believer legislative bomb throwers to go into politics. Polarization is primarily the GOP's fault but the media with its insistence on bothsidesism doesn't want to say so.

Yes, Polarization Is Asymmetric—and Conservatives Are Worse

Tribalism Isn’t Our Democracy’s Main Problem. The Conservative Movement Is.

Political Scientist: Republicans Most Conservative They've Been In 100 Years

[smoltchanov]

I would agree, that polarization WAS mainly GOP fault until, may be, 2010. It began in late 1970th, probably, when liberal Republican Senators Case and Javits were defeated in primaries by relatively unknown candidates, who modeled their campaigns on Reagan's challenge to Ford in 1976 (interesting, that Republicans couldn't elect single Senator in New Jersey after Case, and while Al D'Amato served 3 terms, he was endangered most of the time). But after 2010 - Democrats are rapidly catching up in their desire to be "pure", and now are only slightly less polarized than Republicans. I will not even speak about "real conservaties" - not only there are none on federal level (Manchin, Peterson, Cuellar, Lipinski and so on are centrists, not conservatives!), but even on state legislative level there is only a handful of moderate conservatives (none - "real", though 8-10 years ago there were some) among Democrats, and vengeful cries "primary him/her!!" directed against candidate, who strayed even a little from party "orthodoxy", became as frequent in Democratic party as they are in Republican. "Plague on BOTH your houses" phrase comes to mind instantly.... You got what you wanted and promoted, guys. And 1/3 of your people, who call themselves "moderates", essentially have no one to vote for. Is it a democracy? IMHO - it's a Bolshevism in BOTH parties... You simply have two varieties of Bolshevicks....

[Ban my account ffs!]

“Two sides are forming and neither’s very nice”. Now that the furies are here.

[Frodo]

Pretty soon we as a country will have some profound decisions to make -shall we continue our current trajectory of evolving into the American version of the Roman Principate in which all the real power is in the hands of the President but we keep the charade of the old Republic, or can we rise above our partisan tribalism and remain a Republic by ensuring that no one (not even the President) is above the law?

[dead0man]

I think it's because the dummies started paying attention.  In the great push to get more dummies out to vote both parties have to keep scraping lower and lower in the barrel to trick these half wits into caring about something.  Both sides use racism as a hook, both sides use life and death, both sides use "won't someone think of the children" (sometimes literally dragging them to events they know may get violent, what kind of moron does that?) both sides abuse science.  If you don't think your side does those things, well, maybe you're one of the dummies.

[QAnonKelly]

I think the Senate and gerrymandering in the house are the problems. McConnell is nothing short of a legislative terrorist. The House R caucus is full of a bunch of whackos who only care about Fox News hits.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Congress worked fine until Reagan got elected and inspired an entire generation of true believer legislative bomb throwers to go into politics. Polarization is primarily the GOP's fault but the media with its insistence on bothsidesism doesn't want to say so.

Yes, Polarization Is Asymmetric—and Conservatives Are Worse

Tribalism Isn’t Our Democracy’s Main Problem. The Conservative Movement Is.

Political Scientist: Republicans Most Conservative They've Been In 100 Years

The 1980s were one of the least polarizing decades since the 50s at least when it comes to the public.

 

[Grassroots]

We need a multi-party system now!

[T'Chenka]

We need a multi-party system now!

We have one in Canada.

Conservative = Republican
Liberal = Democrat
New Democrats = further left than Democrats
Green = Far left and environmentalism

...and it seems like literally half the people that want to vote NDP always vote Liberal or Conservative because they think NDP is a "wasted vote". If they all stopped thinking this way, it wouldn't be a waste at all. NDP usually gets 20 to 40 percent in every election (provincially and nationally).

It's VERY frustrating for Canadian progressives.

[HillGoose]

nah man it's all good in the hood from what i can tell

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

A republic is supposed to be deliberative, not efficient. If Congress wants to reclaim power from the Presidency then getting rid of the filibuster would be a good place to start.

[The Mikado]

"No one wants to be in the Senate" is something I feel a lot of posters on the Congressional Elections board really fail to grasp.

Like, I think Steve Bullock would legitimately rather be retired than be a Senator.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Yes, obviously.

[GP270watch]

 This is the feature not a bug of the big money spending in politics. Because despite all the hand-wringing you hear from conservatives we live in a low tax and low regulatory environment for corporations and wealthy individuals where government doesn't do much oversight of moving targets.

 The Koch brothers and others like them bought a congress not to keep government small but to keep the status quo and chip away at things thye don't like the social safety net while losing nothing and increasing giveaways to them.

[Grassroots]

We need a multi-party system now!

We have one in Canada.

Conservative = Republican
Liberal = Democrat
New Democrats = further left than Democrats
Green = Far left and environmentalism

...and it seems like literally half the people that want to vote NDP always vote Liberal or Conservative because they think NDP is a "wasted vote". If they all stopped thinking this way, it wouldn't be a waste at all. NDP usually gets 20 to 40 percent in every election (provincially and nationally).

It's VERY frustrating for Canadian progressives.

Hey, look at the Brexit Party and Lib Dems in the UK and how they have literally leveled the playing field.

[T'Chenka]

We need a multi-party system now!

We have one in Canada.

Conservative = Republican
Liberal = Democrat
New Democrats = further left than Democrats
Green = Far left and environmentalism

...and it seems like literally half the people that want to vote NDP always vote Liberal or Conservative because they think NDP is a "wasted vote". If they all stopped thinking this way, it wouldn't be a waste at all. NDP usually gets 20 to 40 percent in every election (provincially and nationally).

It's VERY frustrating for Canadian progressives.

Hey, look at the Brexit Party and Lib Dems in the UK and how they have literally leveled the playing field.

It's even more frustrating to see the system work in Europe and not work in North America. It's a cultural thing I guess? I know Americans will never have a Libertarian or Green president, at least not for decades.

[Progressive Pessimist]

It's not just us either. Many formerly successful democracies, even if imperfect like us, seem to be more prone to such peril lately also. The United Kingdom is a perfect example. But even Austria and Israel are having their fair share of chaos within their political systems. Humanity's imperfections are becoming too much to bare for what used to be solid institutions of liberal government.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

It's not just us either. Many formerly successful democracies, even if imperfect like us, seem to be more prone to such peril lately also. The United Kingdom is a perfect example. But even Austria and Israel are having their fair share of chaos within their political systems. Humanity's imperfections are becoming too much to bare for what used to be solid institutions of liberal government.

Is it an emergent failure from happenstance, or is liberal democracy under deliberate assault?

You don't need to believe in any sort of grand global conspiracy to think that  both the privileged hyper-wealthy, and the kleptocratic rulers of autocratic states have means, motive and opportunity to attack successful democracies using the new tools of the 21st Century.

[junior chįmp]

Congress worked fine until Reagan got elected and inspired an entire generation of true believer legislative bomb throwers to go into politics. Polarization is primarily the GOP's fault but the media with its insistence on bothsidesism doesn't want to say so.

Yes, Polarization Is Asymmetric—and Conservatives Are Worse

Tribalism Isn’t Our Democracy’s Main Problem. The Conservative Movement Is.

Political Scientist: Republicans Most Conservative They've Been In 100 Years

The 1980s were one of the least polarizing decades since the 50s at least when it comes to the public.

 

The public is never polarized. The public has no deeply held political beliefs. It is the elites and activists who are polarized, not the public. For the umpteenth time....only the political parties are polarized.

[Mr. Smith]

Congress worked fine until Reagan got elected and inspired an entire generation of true believer legislative bomb throwers to go into politics. Polarization is primarily the GOP's fault but the media with its insistence on bothsidesism doesn't want to say so.

Yes, Polarization Is Asymmetric—and Conservatives Are Worse

Tribalism Isn’t Our Democracy’s Main Problem. The Conservative Movement Is.

Political Scientist: Republicans Most Conservative They've Been In 100 Years

The 1980s were one of the least polarizing decades since the 50s at least when it comes to the public.

 

The public is never polarized. The public has no deeply held political beliefs. It is the elites and activists who are polarized, not the public. For the umpteenth time....only the political parties are polarized.

But there are plenty of eras where these elites and activists have less reason to drag the public in, and then there's what the media landscape looks like.

From the 1920s-1980s, the radio and TVs and their limited, thus more universal set of facts allowed for a less polarized atmosphere.

Whereas the 1840s-1920's and everything up from the 1990's has/had media with so many angles and therefore separate realities pretty much made polarization inevitable.

It's just a bummer that each of those turns, the Dems decided the process was more important than the outcome and the consequences.

[junior chįmp]

Congress worked fine until Reagan got elected and inspired an entire generation of true believer legislative bomb throwers to go into politics. Polarization is primarily the GOP's fault but the media with its insistence on bothsidesism doesn't want to say so.

Yes, Polarization Is Asymmetric—and Conservatives Are Worse

Tribalism Isn’t Our Democracy’s Main Problem. The Conservative Movement Is.

Political Scientist: Republicans Most Conservative They've Been In 100 Years

The 1980s were one of the least polarizing decades since the 50s at least when it comes to the public.

 

The public is never polarized. The public has no deeply held political beliefs. It is the elites and activists who are polarized, not the public. For the umpteenth time....only the political parties are polarized.

But there are plenty of eras where these elites and activists have less reason to drag the public in, and then there's what the media landscape looks like.

From the 1920s-1980s, the radio and TVs and their limited, thus more universal set of facts allowed for a less polarized atmosphere.

Whereas the 1840s-1920's and everything up from the 1990's has/had media with so many angles and therefore separate realities pretty much made polarization inevitable.

It's just a bummer that each of those turns, the Dems decided the process was more important than the outcome and the consequences.

One of the great BS stories of American politics is the notion that voters are rational actors that seek information, weigh the available evidence, and then rationally choose the government with the best policies to deliver on those pledges. Of course none of this is happening in real life and frankly it isn't happening anywhere in the Democratic world.

Political parties are conduits for activists with grievances they seek to redress. They poke and prod political parties till they get elected then slowly take over the whole party apparatus but the voters themselves could care less about the policies and choose the parties based on demographic allegiances/short-term circumstances.

Voters take cues from their political parties/leaders. So when activists persuade a political party to change its platform and policies to match their needs...the voters who identify with that party just mindlessly adopt those positions not because they care about them but because they identify with that party for whatever reason.

It takes 1% or less of the people to be politically conscious and engaged to change conditions or policies, so long as they represent a majority opinion. All of the great political changes in American history doesn't come from persuading mass opinion in the average American voter but comes from the tyranny of the minority that agitates the political parties till random historical circumstances allot them with majorities wide enough to pass their desired policies.

In America today...it's not the mass of voters who are polarized but the political elite who make up that small percentage at the top who are running the political parties. This is evidenced in all political polls asking voters where they stand on the issues which always seems to contradict what the moron elite are talking about.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Congress worked fine until Reagan got elected and inspired an entire generation of true believer legislative bomb throwers to go into politics. Polarization is primarily the GOP's fault but the media with its insistence on bothsidesism doesn't want to say so.

Yes, Polarization Is Asymmetric—and Conservatives Are Worse

Tribalism Isn’t Our Democracy’s Main Problem. The Conservative Movement Is.

Political Scientist: Republicans Most Conservative They've Been In 100 Years

The 1980s were one of the least polarizing decades since the 50s at least when it comes to the public.

 

The public is never polarized. The public has no deeply held political beliefs. It is the elites and activists who are polarized, not the public. For the umpteenth time....only the political parties are polarized.

Ok let me say voting patterns were the least polarizing in the 80s then it has in any decade since the 50s

[junior chįmp]

Congress worked fine until Reagan got elected and inspired an entire generation of true believer legislative bomb throwers to go into politics. Polarization is primarily the GOP's fault but the media with its insistence on bothsidesism doesn't want to say so.

Yes, Polarization Is Asymmetric—and Conservatives Are Worse

Tribalism Isn’t Our Democracy’s Main Problem. The Conservative Movement Is.

Political Scientist: Republicans Most Conservative They've Been In 100 Years

The 1980s were one of the least polarizing decades since the 50s at least when it comes to the public.

 

The public is never polarized. The public has no deeply held political beliefs. It is the elites and activists who are polarized, not the public. For the umpteenth time....only the political parties are polarized.

Ok let me say voting patterns were the least polarizing in the 80s then it has in any decade since the 50s

Once again...voting patterns weren't that polarized in the 80s because the political elite that made-up the parties weren't polarized and still tried to find common ground. (remember this was before right wing talk radio and FOX ''news'') That shiit is gone today. Mitch McConnell is a sociopath who has no problem tearing down whatever norms exist in his way and Trump has no problem launching a borderline civil war to keep himself in office.

The voters have no real opinions on anything. Their opinions are whatever the party tells them to believe and under Trump, they will continue to be borderline insane with a fervent need to punish the other side for made-up reasons.