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Actually the Democrats had 60 seats from July 2009 to January 2010 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_Senate_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/w

Actually the Democrats had 60 seats from July 2009 to January 2010 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_Senate_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_Senate_elec...).

Alupis 2y ago
Yes, and the OP's understanding (and in fairness, many people's understanding) of how the US government is supposed to work is at odds with how it works in reality. > Congress has been effectively gridlocked and do-nothing for at least 35 years--all of my adult life. Gridlock is a design feature. It literally means there isn't consensus on whatever the topic may be. Do you really want a government that rams through unpopular policies constantly, then 4-6 years later whiplashes back again? What people often express as "congress not doing their job" is in reality "they aren't passing the policies I want!". > The executive branch's powers are being quickly eroded by SCOTUS. OP means "restored" instead of "eroded". POTUS was never supposed to be as powerful as they have become. Executive Orders are the worst way to run a country, yet we've had several presidents in a row that have abused EO's to get whatever they want done... only for the next person in office to undo it all with the stroke of a pen. The only take-away one can have here is we need better civics classes in our schools...
- tzs 2y ago
  The problem is that they are also not able to ram through popular policies that a majority of both liberals and conservatives in the general population are in favor of.
- singleshot_ 2y ago
  Running a country by executive order seems neither much better nor much worse than running it by political judicial decision.
  - Alupis 2y ago
    > than running it by political judicial decision Which country are you referring to? Because it's not the US.
    - singleshot_ 2y ago
      The US.
      - Alupis 2y ago
        The Judicial system does not work the way you described in the US.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        jcranmer 2y ago
        That's not the way it's supposed to work, but it is absolutely the way it is working right now (especially if you happen to live in the Fifth Circuit).
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  I am not sure why you're downvoted. I assume it's people who took offense at your last paragraph or who believe that the US Constitution is an antiquated document with no relevance to the troubles of today.
- ProfessorLayton 2y ago
  What? We constantly have this embarrassing song and dance where the government faces a shutdown because they can't pass a budget, and they literally can't do their job.
  - Alupis 2y ago
    > We constantly have this embarrassing song and dance where the government faces a shutdown because they can't pass a budget, and they literally can't do their job It's congress' job to write a budget, and it's the president's job to accept or veto it, after-which it's congresses job to amend or override the veto. The dance you're referring to is all posturing to compel one of the sides of that equation to compromise. In the end, they always compromise. To be clear - it is not congress' job to write a budget the president will accept. Congress is a separate branch of government and is as-powerful as the president. This process was designed to compel the two branches to compromise with each other - and it works (admittedly after a dog and pony show). "Shutting down the government" is a stunt designed to get people riled up - and it apparently works.
    - JadeNB 2y ago
      But "works as designed" isn't the end of argument; things can be working exactly as the founding fathers expected (though only Scalia, with his powers of divination, could tell us for sure what they would think of today's world), and it can still be a bad thing. You advocate for better civics classes, but better classes would teach people to question things and act for the changes they see needed in today's world, not to accept a historically frozen government.
      - Alupis 2y ago
        The disconnect with reality is people often find themselves inside "information bubbles" where it feels like everyone thinks the same policies need to be enacted. Then they are dumbfounded when the policy doesn't actually get passed. When this happens, it's easy to fall into the propaganda and believe "the other side" is actively trying to subvert the country/constitution and destroy everything. Reality is there is not consensus for those policies. It's that simple. I promise you, there aren't any congress critters that are actually trying to destroy the country. They are each doing what they believe is best, and what they were elected to do... even if personally we don't favor those viewpoints.
- rstat1 2y ago
  No I think OP was pretty clear in what they actually meant and it wasn't what you said. This current GOP led circus known as the 118th Congress is widely considered one of the most (if not THE most) unproductive, dysfunctional Congresses in history. And when all they do is sit around and whine about how one side is "weaponizing" the government (ignoring the fact that the side in question is them) or Socialism this or "Biden bad", its really not hard to understand why.
  - stass 2y ago
    Considered by who? By which metric?
    - Alupis 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - rstat1 2y ago
        >By one-sided political propaganda Yea because things are only factual if they agree with your chosen team policies. Metrics on how many bills this congress has passed by this point in term vs previous ones are not hard to find. But you'd just dismiss that as "political propaganda" because it disagrees with you.
        Alupis 2y ago
        What do these metrics measure? Productiveness - no. Consensus? Yes. Which means... there is a lack of consensus currently. That's how it is supposed to work.
        ImJamal 2y ago
        Progress for the sake of progress is dumb. If Congress passed 1 million new laws it would be progress, but would anybody want that?
    - bnj 2y ago
      Here’s one about bills passed: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/apr/03/donna-brazile/is-the-current-congress-the-least-productive-of-ou/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/apr/03/donna-braz...
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Gridlock, or the inability to adapt to changing times and keep up with technology that itself is shaping society, is one of the USA's government's biggest and most embarrassing design flaws. How much of the regulatory environment we are subject to today was written before the IBM PC debuted, by people who used to travel on horse-drawn carriages? This is not a design feature. Taking a civics class does not mean you lose your ability to identify a dysfunctional system.
  - pdonis 2y ago
    > the inability to adapt to changing times and keep up with technology that itself is shaping society None of that changes the basic principle that the US government was supposed to uphold, namely, that the role of government is not to solve whatever problem someone thinks should be solved, but to protect everyone's basic rights and make sure there is a level legal playing field, and stopping there. The problem is that the US government has gone far beyond that, the current regulatory megastate being only one aspect. To the extent the US government is dysfunctional, it's not because it doesn't do enough; it's because it does far, far too much. Net neutrality is a case in point: it's only necessary in the first place to undo the effects of all the government-granted privileges that ISPs have. In a US that was run according to the way the US was supposed to be run, ISPs would have to compete in a free market and none of them would have monopoly privileges over particular areas, and none of them would have been able to get huge government grants supposedly to build infrastructure and then pocket the money instead. In that US there would be no need for net neutrality because nobody wants to buy Internet service that gets throttled depending on what website you go to. The only reason ISPs can even think of offering such a non-service is that they have monopolies granted by the government.
    - Jcowell 2y ago
      > None of that changes the basic principle that the US government was supposed to uphold, namely, that the role of government is not to solve whatever problem someone thinks should be solved, but to protect everyone's basic rights and make sure there is a level legal playing field, and stopping there. Where is this said in the constitution ? Or any papers that isn’t the Federalist papers? > Net neutrality is a case in point: it's only necessary in the first place to undo the effects of all the government-granted privileges that ISPs have. In a US that was run according to the way the US was supposed to be run, ISPs would have to compete in a free market and none of them would have monopoly privileges over particular areas, and none of them would have been able to get huge government grants supposedly to build infrastructure and then pocket the money instead. In that US there would be no need for net neutrality because nobody wants to buy Internet service that gets throttled depending on what website you go to. The only reason ISPs can even think of offering such a non-service is that they have monopolies granted by the government. The only means in which these infrastructures can be built is either: Companies with enough capital to do so without governmental assistance, the government, or not at all. The later is at odds with your first point (unless you believe the restriction not to apply to state and local governments) and the first leads to the same issues since competition is impossible for an eventual finite resource
- nindalf 2y ago
  > The only take-away This snide put-down has no place here. Please review the HN guidelines.
  - Alupis 2y ago
    If you are offended by this remark then you are exactly the person it was aimed for. We need better civics lessons in schools. The evidence is prevalent right here in this thread. Too few people actually understand government - and that's a serious issue. An issue that enables the masses to be manipulated and controlled by political junkies. People need to be better educated on government in general.
- michaelt 2y ago
  > Gridlock is a design feature. [...] Do you really want a government that rams through unpopular policies constantly, then 4-6 years later whiplashes back again? Speaking as a Brit, it's really not as bad as you make it sound. In the UK system there is basically only one elected body - parliament - and if we elect a party that pledges to X, they have the power to X - meaning they can be held to account if they fail to deliver it. And generally that means X gets done - that sounds pretty democratic to me. It has the downside that if people vote for Brexit you get Brexit, which ain't great, but I much prefer it to if people vote for Brexit and we don't get Brexit. Whereas in the US system, as far as I can tell, you can elect a party that pledges to do X, then gridlock blocks them from doing it, then everyone just says "oh yeah that's understandable" and re-elects them? As a Brit, it seems obvious to me that the legality of abortion is a political question. Isn't the whole point of the political process to have a national conversation, figure out what the public want, then representatives to represent that? The fact that America made this obviously political decision by... just handing the decision to a load of unelected judges? Then spent about 50 years not legislating on the matter, not amending the constitution, but instead giving judges the role of unelected pseudo-politicians who rule for life? And the legality hinges on when these elderly judges die? To me that doesn't sound like a system that was designed at all.
  - Alupis 2y ago
    The main reason why this is different for the US is the language of the Constitution effectively forces a two-party system, despite several of the framers really not wanting political parties as we have today. The US doesn't have the same concepts of coalition building as many other types of governments do (coalitions being a way for many smaller parties to compromise with each other, reach consensus, and pass policy). In the US, if you don't quite fit into one of the two major parties, then your "say" is effectively nullified. This is why the two parties have a huge range of voices - but are compelled to rally behind a singular set of views (usually their presidential candidate's) in order to gain power and accomplish anything. For example - Bernie fans have been snuffed a few times, and their voices effectively silenced from the mainstream discussion. Even if you disagree with those viewpoints, they should get representation. Coalition building would force their voices to be heard in a meaningful way via compromises with other similar-but-not-quite-the-same parties. Another example - Democrats held a primary election and chose their presidential candidate, which later dropped out of the race. Now Democrats are being told who they must vote for otherwise they will lose power. Many Democrats will hold their nose and vote for the new Democrat candidate, despite not liking the candidate or their policies, because they don't really have another choice. The wide range of views held within the Democrat party will be boiled down into whatever the candidate's views are - everyone else loses their "voice". Many smaller, more focused parties would help solve this issue as well. In short, the US needs more political parties.
- throw0101b 2y ago
  > Gridlock is a design feature. Gridlock is a design misfeature. > Do you really want a government that rams through unpopular policies constantly, then 4-6 years later whiplashes back again? Yes. Because people will realize the next the Other People get in they'll repeal anything that (they think) is truly awful, so there's not much passing it in the first place. Or if there's anything that is (thought to be) 'only' kind of bad it will be tweaked/corrected. A negative feedback loop tends to increase stability.
TheCoelacanth 2y ago
False, they had 58 and two independents who usually cooperated with them. One of the 58 Democrats had also endorsed a Republican for president only a year earlier, so they were hardly a party loyalist.
dralley 2y ago
Actually, they had 60 seats for about 7 weeks. Ted Kennedy was dying of cancer at the time and couldn't come in to vote. Then he died and got replaced with a temporary Democratic replacement which didn't have that availability issue, then the special election occurred and a Republican took the seat.

Actually the Democrats had 60 seats from July 2009 to January 2010 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_Senate_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_Senate_elec...).

Alupis 2y ago

Yes, and the OP's understanding (and in fairness, many people's understanding) of how the US government is supposed to work is at odds with how it works in reality. > Congress has been effectively gridlocked and do-nothing for at least 35 years--all of my adult life. Gridlock is a design feature. It literally means there isn't consensus on whatever the topic may be. Do you really want a government that rams through unpopular policies constantly, then 4-6 years later whiplashes back again? What people often express as "congress not doing their job" is in reality "they aren't passing the policies I want!". > The executive branch's powers are being quickly eroded by SCOTUS. OP means "restored" instead of "eroded". POTUS was never supposed to be as powerful as they have become. Executive Orders are the worst way to run a country, yet we've had several presidents in a row that have abused EO's to get whatever they want done... only for the next person in office to undo it all with the stroke of a pen. The only take-away one can have here is we need better civics classes in our schools...

tzs 2y ago
The problem is that they are also not able to ram through popular policies that a majority of both liberals and conservatives in the general population are in favor of.
singleshot_ 2y ago
Running a country by executive order seems neither much better nor much worse than running it by political judicial decision.
- Alupis 2y ago
  > than running it by political judicial decision Which country are you referring to? Because it's not the US.
  - singleshot_ 2y ago
    The US.
    - Alupis 2y ago
      The Judicial system does not work the way you described in the US.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - jcranmer 2y ago
        That's not the way it's supposed to work, but it is absolutely the way it is working right now (especially if you happen to live in the Fifth Circuit).
readthenotes1 2y ago
I am not sure why you're downvoted. I assume it's people who took offense at your last paragraph or who believe that the US Constitution is an antiquated document with no relevance to the troubles of today.
ProfessorLayton 2y ago
What? We constantly have this embarrassing song and dance where the government faces a shutdown because they can't pass a budget, and they literally can't do their job.
- Alupis 2y ago
  > We constantly have this embarrassing song and dance where the government faces a shutdown because they can't pass a budget, and they literally can't do their job It's congress' job to write a budget, and it's the president's job to accept or veto it, after-which it's congresses job to amend or override the veto. The dance you're referring to is all posturing to compel one of the sides of that equation to compromise. In the end, they always compromise. To be clear - it is not congress' job to write a budget the president will accept. Congress is a separate branch of government and is as-powerful as the president. This process was designed to compel the two branches to compromise with each other - and it works (admittedly after a dog and pony show). "Shutting down the government" is a stunt designed to get people riled up - and it apparently works.
  - JadeNB 2y ago
    But "works as designed" isn't the end of argument; things can be working exactly as the founding fathers expected (though only Scalia, with his powers of divination, could tell us for sure what they would think of today's world), and it can still be a bad thing. You advocate for better civics classes, but better classes would teach people to question things and act for the changes they see needed in today's world, not to accept a historically frozen government.
    - Alupis 2y ago
      The disconnect with reality is people often find themselves inside "information bubbles" where it feels like everyone thinks the same policies need to be enacted. Then they are dumbfounded when the policy doesn't actually get passed. When this happens, it's easy to fall into the propaganda and believe "the other side" is actively trying to subvert the country/constitution and destroy everything. Reality is there is not consensus for those policies. It's that simple. I promise you, there aren't any congress critters that are actually trying to destroy the country. They are each doing what they believe is best, and what they were elected to do... even if personally we don't favor those viewpoints.
rstat1 2y ago
No I think OP was pretty clear in what they actually meant and it wasn't what you said. This current GOP led circus known as the 118th Congress is widely considered one of the most (if not THE most) unproductive, dysfunctional Congresses in history. And when all they do is sit around and whine about how one side is "weaponizing" the government (ignoring the fact that the side in question is them) or Socialism this or "Biden bad", its really not hard to understand why.
- stass 2y ago
  Considered by who? By which metric?
  - Alupis 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - rstat1 2y ago
      >By one-sided political propaganda Yea because things are only factual if they agree with your chosen team policies. Metrics on how many bills this congress has passed by this point in term vs previous ones are not hard to find. But you'd just dismiss that as "political propaganda" because it disagrees with you.
      - Alupis 2y ago
        What do these metrics measure? Productiveness - no. Consensus? Yes. Which means... there is a lack of consensus currently. That's how it is supposed to work.
      - ImJamal 2y ago
        Progress for the sake of progress is dumb. If Congress passed 1 million new laws it would be progress, but would anybody want that?
  - bnj 2y ago
    Here’s one about bills passed: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/apr/03/donna-brazile/is-the-current-congress-the-least-productive-of-ou/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/apr/03/donna-braz...
ryandrake 2y ago
Gridlock, or the inability to adapt to changing times and keep up with technology that itself is shaping society, is one of the USA's government's biggest and most embarrassing design flaws. How much of the regulatory environment we are subject to today was written before the IBM PC debuted, by people who used to travel on horse-drawn carriages? This is not a design feature. Taking a civics class does not mean you lose your ability to identify a dysfunctional system.
- pdonis 2y ago
  > the inability to adapt to changing times and keep up with technology that itself is shaping society None of that changes the basic principle that the US government was supposed to uphold, namely, that the role of government is not to solve whatever problem someone thinks should be solved, but to protect everyone's basic rights and make sure there is a level legal playing field, and stopping there. The problem is that the US government has gone far beyond that, the current regulatory megastate being only one aspect. To the extent the US government is dysfunctional, it's not because it doesn't do enough; it's because it does far, far too much. Net neutrality is a case in point: it's only necessary in the first place to undo the effects of all the government-granted privileges that ISPs have. In a US that was run according to the way the US was supposed to be run, ISPs would have to compete in a free market and none of them would have monopoly privileges over particular areas, and none of them would have been able to get huge government grants supposedly to build infrastructure and then pocket the money instead. In that US there would be no need for net neutrality because nobody wants to buy Internet service that gets throttled depending on what website you go to. The only reason ISPs can even think of offering such a non-service is that they have monopolies granted by the government.
  - Jcowell 2y ago
    > None of that changes the basic principle that the US government was supposed to uphold, namely, that the role of government is not to solve whatever problem someone thinks should be solved, but to protect everyone's basic rights and make sure there is a level legal playing field, and stopping there. Where is this said in the constitution ? Or any papers that isn’t the Federalist papers? > Net neutrality is a case in point: it's only necessary in the first place to undo the effects of all the government-granted privileges that ISPs have. In a US that was run according to the way the US was supposed to be run, ISPs would have to compete in a free market and none of them would have monopoly privileges over particular areas, and none of them would have been able to get huge government grants supposedly to build infrastructure and then pocket the money instead. In that US there would be no need for net neutrality because nobody wants to buy Internet service that gets throttled depending on what website you go to. The only reason ISPs can even think of offering such a non-service is that they have monopolies granted by the government. The only means in which these infrastructures can be built is either: Companies with enough capital to do so without governmental assistance, the government, or not at all. The later is at odds with your first point (unless you believe the restriction not to apply to state and local governments) and the first leads to the same issues since competition is impossible for an eventual finite resource
nindalf 2y ago
> The only take-away This snide put-down has no place here. Please review the HN guidelines.
- Alupis 2y ago
  If you are offended by this remark then you are exactly the person it was aimed for. We need better civics lessons in schools. The evidence is prevalent right here in this thread. Too few people actually understand government - and that's a serious issue. An issue that enables the masses to be manipulated and controlled by political junkies. People need to be better educated on government in general.
michaelt 2y ago
> Gridlock is a design feature. [...] Do you really want a government that rams through unpopular policies constantly, then 4-6 years later whiplashes back again? Speaking as a Brit, it's really not as bad as you make it sound. In the UK system there is basically only one elected body - parliament - and if we elect a party that pledges to X, they have the power to X - meaning they can be held to account if they fail to deliver it. And generally that means X gets done - that sounds pretty democratic to me. It has the downside that if people vote for Brexit you get Brexit, which ain't great, but I much prefer it to if people vote for Brexit and we don't get Brexit. Whereas in the US system, as far as I can tell, you can elect a party that pledges to do X, then gridlock blocks them from doing it, then everyone just says "oh yeah that's understandable" and re-elects them? As a Brit, it seems obvious to me that the legality of abortion is a political question. Isn't the whole point of the political process to have a national conversation, figure out what the public want, then representatives to represent that? The fact that America made this obviously political decision by... just handing the decision to a load of unelected judges? Then spent about 50 years not legislating on the matter, not amending the constitution, but instead giving judges the role of unelected pseudo-politicians who rule for life? And the legality hinges on when these elderly judges die? To me that doesn't sound like a system that was designed at all.
- Alupis 2y ago
  The main reason why this is different for the US is the language of the Constitution effectively forces a two-party system, despite several of the framers really not wanting political parties as we have today. The US doesn't have the same concepts of coalition building as many other types of governments do (coalitions being a way for many smaller parties to compromise with each other, reach consensus, and pass policy). In the US, if you don't quite fit into one of the two major parties, then your "say" is effectively nullified. This is why the two parties have a huge range of voices - but are compelled to rally behind a singular set of views (usually their presidential candidate's) in order to gain power and accomplish anything. For example - Bernie fans have been snuffed a few times, and their voices effectively silenced from the mainstream discussion. Even if you disagree with those viewpoints, they should get representation. Coalition building would force their voices to be heard in a meaningful way via compromises with other similar-but-not-quite-the-same parties. Another example - Democrats held a primary election and chose their presidential candidate, which later dropped out of the race. Now Democrats are being told who they must vote for otherwise they will lose power. Many Democrats will hold their nose and vote for the new Democrat candidate, despite not liking the candidate or their policies, because they don't really have another choice. The wide range of views held within the Democrat party will be boiled down into whatever the candidate's views are - everyone else loses their "voice". Many smaller, more focused parties would help solve this issue as well. In short, the US needs more political parties.
throw0101b 2y ago
> Gridlock is a design feature. Gridlock is a design misfeature. > Do you really want a government that rams through unpopular policies constantly, then 4-6 years later whiplashes back again? Yes. Because people will realize the next the Other People get in they'll repeal anything that (they think) is truly awful, so there's not much passing it in the first place. Or if there's anything that is (thought to be) 'only' kind of bad it will be tweaked/corrected. A negative feedback loop tends to increase stability.

TheCoelacanth 2y ago

False, they had 58 and two independents who usually cooperated with them. One of the 58 Democrats had also endorsed a Republican for president only a year earlier, so they were hardly a party loyalist.

dralley 2y ago

Actually, they had 60 seats for about 7 weeks. Ted Kennedy was dying of cancer at the time and couldn't come in to vote. Then he died and got replaced with a temporary Democratic replacement which didn't have that availability issue, then the special election occurred and a Republican took the seat.