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> legislation is practically impossible To add some color, federal legislation affecting fifty states equally is hard to pass without broad consensus. I agree

• jfengel 6y ago
  Unfortunately, the nation hasn't been in a mood to compromise since before social media. When was the last time that a President wasn't actively hated by the opposition? Not merely disliked or opposed, but actively considered incompetent and detrimental to the nation? The last time people talked about a "honeymoon period"? The last one I can remember is George HW Bush -- unless you want to count the brief honeymoon his son was given in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Not that people liked George HW Bush (he didn't win reelection), but he was opposed rather than actively harassed. Arguably Bill Clinton got such a "honeymoon" period, but after that he was opposed with a literal vengeance. Presidents are a very particular lens to look at this with, but I think it's illuminating. I believe it reflects the nation not being interested in compromise. (There are other interpretations, but I think it's indicative.) If there was a time that the federal legislature had no issue passing laws, it's at least 30 years ago. That's before a lot of HN users were even born. And it shows no time of abating any time soon. Indeed, it only seems to be growing.
  • aksss 6y ago
    Yeah, never in my lifetime. I remember a college prof in the late nineties telling me she though Reagan was the worst president in the country’s history. I remember thinking at the time, “jeez, that’s a bit much for a variety of reasons”. At the time though there was as much vitriol against Clinton. I guess a difference may have been that legislators weren’t as accountable in the same way as they are today, and had more room to negotiate and engage in generalized reciprocity. Today, politics has a very distasteful air of religious zealotry, where “sinning” against the orthodoxy of the true believers on both sides is shamed, purity idolized. So everyone is fighting tooth and nail for the barest majorities and procedural tricks to let them manifest their will with nothing more than that. On one hand I find the accountability good, but on the other I wish as a nation we cared less about “national conversations” and thought/acted more locally. National solutions are rarely a well-suited or efficient fit, so in a way, the harder it is for party zealots of either side to enforce their will across fifty different states, the better, IMO. The threat that either side will be successful is what keeps everyone overly-anxious and hyper-engaged/enraged. In a way, having confidence in the inefficiency is good medicine.
    • jfengel 6y ago
      I definitely wish people thought more locally -- really locally, like their towns. I don't think it's a coincidence that the time frame I outlined above is the same as the emergence of 24 hour news, which rapidly became 24 hour infotainment -- the news as a big Manichean football match. I believe that pushed people into thinking about Big Issues and lost any focus on things that actually matter in their daily lives. If there was a "golden age" of national collegiality, it was the postwar era -- exactly the time we were busily building infrastructure that made interstate commerce and travel much easier. That ended when genuinely national and world issues came to the fore -- a push to end minority abuse in some states, and a war that forced young men to participate. I believe that the lines were set then and we continue to re-fight that same fight. The issue in TFA is exactly the kind of thing that needs a national-level response: the only thing more distasteful than a national rule about robocalls is going to be 50 state rules about robocalls that would require federal court litigation anyway. Past interstates and airplanes, the Internet has replaced ordinary telecommunications, and blurred state lines almost to invisibility.
    • kelnos 6y ago
      > On one hand I find the accountability good, but on the other I wish as a nation we cared less about “national conversations” and thought/acted more locally. There are two main problems here, I think: States and localities are usually not funded very well. With the exception of high-tax states like CA and NY, most states don't take in enough revenue to do anything of significant size, and residents are generally against tax hikes. While the federal government was designed to be fairly limited, that's not remotely the case anymore, and even when states get money from the federal government, they're limited in what they can do with it. For example, several CA legislators would love to set up single-payer health insurance in CA, but federal Medicare dollars come with too many strings attached (and only the US Congress can grant CA the ability to use that money in different ways). I feel like in many ways we have the worst of all worlds. The federal government doesn't want to invest in services for citizens, but the states and cities don't have enough money to do it themselves, and aren't allowed to do things with much of the money they get.
  • AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    The real problem with this is federal preemption. What happens at the federal level isn't just that they don't do anything good, it's that they actively do something bad or ineffective, but in so doing wade into the swamp and throw out the ability of the states to do anything better because of preemption. Which implies that the problem is still that it's too easy to do things at the federal level. Let them actually do nothing so the states can do something.
    • ClumsyPilot 6y ago
      Nost state assemblies are half a joke, most people dont vote in them, half candidates are unopposed, etc.
      • AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        As compared with Congress, where... wait. And people would care more about state elections if the federal government wasn't preempting everything.
  • Spooky23 6y ago
    Nixon broke a lot of stuff
• bosswipe 6y ago
  The new routine 2/5ths veto point in the senate was not designed in as a feature. It's a recent innovation by McConnell and the GOP.
  • isoskeles 6y ago
    What is the "2/5ths veto point" you're referring to? Are you talking about cloture motions?
    • bosswipe 6y ago
      filibuster, 2/5ths of the senate can veto any legislation.