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> Attack our norms and institutions... both sides deserve it, just in different proportions. Okay true, different proportions. It's roughly 1000 to 1 that Trum

> Attack our norms and institutions... both sides deserve it, just in different proportions. Okay true, different proportions. It's roughly 1000 to 1 that Trump is messing with institutional norms over liberals.

int_19h 8y ago
I agree. The point isn't that, but that many on the left don't see a problem with messing with institutional norms per se, so long as it is done to advance their goals. Also, at this point, "liberals" and "left" aren't synonyms. I'm a liberal myself, and I'm quite used to hearing that used as a slur coming from the right, but lately that has been increasingly coming from further left. It was always common sentiment for socialists (the real ones - I don't mean people like Obama, Sanders, or AOC) - but now it's also becoming more common among progressives, who appear to be arguing that some of those norms are constraining their ability to advance social progress. And there's a lot more of them, which is why you no longer have to deliberately go seek that stuff to find it anymore. I have already mentioned filibuster, but now we're also seriously talking about e.g. Supreme Court packing. That concerns me, because one party deliberately going after those norms is bad enough, but if both become convinced that it's in their best interest, it becomes an arms race. Worse yet is that it creates perverse motivations - the more you dismantle those norms for the sake of being able to implement your agenda, the more you fear the other side taking over (because they would have that much more power to implement their agenda). If the other side can take over democratically, this means that you're motivated to be undemocratic. Republicans have had that problem on the federal level for a while, and I don't think that their penchant for voter suppression is a coincidence. But Democrats also have that problem on state level in many states, and on the federal level in the Senate. If they succumb to the temptation to solve it in the same way, there won't be anybody with a vested interest to consistently enforce those institutional norms, and they will erode that much faster.

int_19h 8y ago

I agree. The point isn't that, but that many on the left don't see a problem with messing with institutional norms per se, so long as it is done to advance their goals. Also, at this point, "liberals" and "left" aren't synonyms. I'm a liberal myself, and I'm quite used to hearing that used as a slur coming from the right, but lately that has been increasingly coming from further left. It was always common sentiment for socialists (the real ones - I don't mean people like Obama, Sanders, or AOC) - but now it's also becoming more common among progressives, who appear to be arguing that some of those norms are constraining their ability to advance social progress. And there's a lot more of them, which is why you no longer have to deliberately go seek that stuff to find it anymore. I have already mentioned filibuster, but now we're also seriously talking about e.g. Supreme Court packing. That concerns me, because one party deliberately going after those norms is bad enough, but if both become convinced that it's in their best interest, it becomes an arms race. Worse yet is that it creates perverse motivations - the more you dismantle those norms for the sake of being able to implement your agenda, the more you fear the other side taking over (because they would have that much more power to implement their agenda). If the other side can take over democratically, this means that you're motivated to be undemocratic. Republicans have had that problem on the federal level for a while, and I don't think that their penchant for voter suppression is a coincidence. But Democrats also have that problem on state level in many states, and on the federal level in the Senate. If they succumb to the temptation to solve it in the same way, there won't be anybody with a vested interest to consistently enforce those institutional norms, and they will erode that much faster.