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The opposition party has no power in the US, as designed explicitly. If you wanted Democrats to have more power, you should have voted for them more. If you D

The opposition party has no power in the US, as designed explicitly. If you wanted Democrats to have more power, you should have voted for them more. If you DID vote for democrats, understand that the Constitution largely says they have no power. They can't do anything without swaying Republican politicians. By design. Republicans are not willing to do anything to help them, because their party committing literal blatant crimes has never hurt their election chances, but since 2000, bipartisanship makes it very unlikely to get re-elected. Unfortunately, lots of stupid people did not vote for democrats, and are now complaining that democrats aren't saving them. Democrats cannot save anyone right now. By Design.

ddaud 2y ago
Leadership is not the same as institutional power.
tpmoney 2y ago
> The opposition party has no power in the US, as designed explicitly. This seems to be in direct contradiction to the other story we’re told repeatedly by DNC leaders that the reason they can’t get anything done when they are the majority is because of those “obstructionist” republicans. One has to wonder how the GOP is so successful in obstructing the DNC but the reverse is not possible. The minority parties may be less powerful, but the US government was set up to make “tyranny of the majority” hard to accomplish. So what has gone wrong?
- specialist 2y ago
  > because of those “obstructionist” aka Vetocracy (h/t Francis Fukuyama). > but the reverse is not possible. Because holding together the GOP coalition is (comparatively) easier. > set up to make “tyranny of the majority” hard to accomplish As you note, USA has always had minority rule, by design. What's different today is one faction has a lock on power. Just like how conservative Democrats had single party rule in the southern states, up until the Civil Rights Era. What's old is new again. -- The correct answer is majoritarian rule. There's no shortage of ideas for reform to get us there. The John Lewis Voting Right Act would be a good start. Just know that any movement will have to arrise from outside of the two party system. The Democratic Party, such as it is, will not and cannot fix this problem. That's just not what political parties do. The parties get candidates elected. They (eg DNC) don't do policy, don't build movements.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > holding together the GOP coalition is (comparatively) easier So pick a better coalition. Ditch the identity-politics leftists in deep-blue cities and win back workers in swing states.
    - specialist 2y ago
      From your keyboard to god's inbox. You might enjoy Joshua Citarella's Doomscroll podcast. Repeating myself: Very few people within a system will work to reform that system. Why? System justification theory? Pulling the ladder up after oneself? Mr Smith Goes to Washington? I honestly have no clue. For example: public financing of campaigns. The painfully obvious correct solution. Initially, I naively thought every politician would be onboard. Fund raising sucks. All the players complain about it. So of course it'd be an easy sell. (I worked on adjacent issues. Us ragtag groups would support each other's causes as able. These activist communities are very small. eg fairvote.org) Now 20 years later, how many jurisdictions have public financing? And in the places which did adopt it, it's under constant siege. Ditto ranked choice voting. -- I support building a Climate Cabinet style PAC for every issue. Laser focused. Money ball for campaigns, matching contributors with select candidates. So an org fairvote.org would strategically support candidates committed to RCV. (Of course, it'd have to be new org. Because it's super hard to rewire an existing org to function differently.) I have no clue about building movements. My pathetic attempts failed utterly. I'm wide open for ideas and input.
- lern_too_spel 2y ago
  Not even remotely the same. Democrats haven't had both chambers of Congress and the presidency since the first half Obama's first term, and even then, he didn't have the courts. The best they could do was pass Dodd-Frank to prevent the next financial crisis and ACA, which the courts promptly watered down. Obama's threat of a public option in the ACA had so much money against it that the Democrats lost the legislature in the midterm election. Trump has both chambers of Congress and the courts on his side. If you want to fix things, you need to educate voters. There are no procedures that can help you if all three branches of the government are against you.
  - tpmoney 2y ago
    > The best they could do was pass Dodd-Frank to prevent the next financial crisis and ACA, which the courts promptly watered down. Why the heck are we ok with an entire wing of US politicians that even when they have total control over the government can only give us "watered down" "the best they could do" effort? And why are we ok with not holding them at least partially responsible for anything that happens when they don't have control over all parts of the government? Why do we have any faith at all that these objectively ineffectual and cowardly children are going to do anything to save us from would be dictators and mad men? If they're just going to lie back and watch the country slide into oblivion with only the mildest of protests, shouldn't we just fire them and at least save the tax money their salaries are costing us? I've long felt the DNC's fatal flaw was that a lot of the really important issues that they're strong on are also hyper local issues that just don't connect broadly. That is, gun control might be extremely relevant and important to the NYC "high crime is killing our children" contingent, and so far down the list for the Rocky Mountain "pollution is ruining my wildlife preserves" contingent that actually gathering and holding support at a national level on those positions is extremely difficult. Combine that with a messaging and broad set of policies that despite lip service to being about "unity" is continually asking us to divide ourselves into special interest groups (and sometime even be at odds with each other). That would explain why states that are "red" on the national elections often have "blue" state level governments. But I'm starting to wonder if the reality is no one actually believes they're capable of getting anything done at all. After all, if even their most ardent supporters believe that they can't get anything done without full control of the government, how is anyone else supposed to believe it? It's not just that the minority party is strongly disadvantaged, it's that the DNC is actually a terrible and ineffectual minority party and barely better as a majority party. God help us all if these are the people we need to rely on to fix things.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> opposition party has no power in the US, as designed explicitly The Republicans have shown this to be superbly untrue when they were in the opposition. The Senate should be hellbent on delaying and disrupting. The House should be constantly throwing a spanner in everything. Governors? Arrest the DOGE kids for breaking state law. Arrest the ICE agents defying court orders. They’ll be released, eventually. But you’ll buy time until the midterms. Ban Tesla FSD and promise to pardon people who non-violently cross the line. Ban the law firms who struck deals with Trump from state business for 20 years. Fight like the Republicans do; laws and republics don’t survive if the side defending them lays down its arms.
- igor47 2y ago
  This unfortunatey highlights an assymetry between the two parties. The Republicans want to delay and disrupt, the Democrats want to keep things running. Shutting down the government works for Red team because that's their goal. If Dems start to throw spanners into the works, that will just add to all the spanners the Republicans are already throwing into the works.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > If Dems start to throw spanners into the works, that will just add to all the spanners the Republicans are already throwing into the works “A treatment known as the Milwaukee protocol, which involves putting people with rabies symptoms into a chemically induced coma and using antiviral medications in an attempt to protect their brain until their body has had time to produce rabies antibodies, has been occasionally used” [1]. I’m not advocating for shutdown, mind you. Just delay, distraction and disruption. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies
a_thro_away 2y ago
May I add; the Democrats In Name Only(DINOs) of Manchin, Synema, and others? destroying the slight majorities Democrats seem to put together when ostensibly "in power"... They need to exert more control over the membership, as the Rs do. But I get the impression that the Ds take as many as they can't get, but only to get screwed over later.
maxerickson 2y ago
The Constitution doesn't actually say that the party with a majority share of seats in the house or senate gets all the power. It's a practical matter of the rules that the members choose to implement. So for instance, groups that were nominally from 2 different parties could elect leadership that planned to work with the groups, rather than whichever party had the nominal majority. This is kind of an abstract point, but it's useful for reasoning about things. The so called "centrist" members of a given party are actually aligning themselves with the most extreme members, not some 'center'.

ddaud 2y ago

Leadership is not the same as institutional power.

tpmoney 2y ago

> The opposition party has no power in the US, as designed explicitly. This seems to be in direct contradiction to the other story we’re told repeatedly by DNC leaders that the reason they can’t get anything done when they are the majority is because of those “obstructionist” republicans. One has to wonder how the GOP is so successful in obstructing the DNC but the reverse is not possible. The minority parties may be less powerful, but the US government was set up to make “tyranny of the majority” hard to accomplish. So what has gone wrong?

specialist 2y ago
> because of those “obstructionist” aka Vetocracy (h/t Francis Fukuyama). > but the reverse is not possible. Because holding together the GOP coalition is (comparatively) easier. > set up to make “tyranny of the majority” hard to accomplish As you note, USA has always had minority rule, by design. What's different today is one faction has a lock on power. Just like how conservative Democrats had single party rule in the southern states, up until the Civil Rights Era. What's old is new again. -- The correct answer is majoritarian rule. There's no shortage of ideas for reform to get us there. The John Lewis Voting Right Act would be a good start. Just know that any movement will have to arrise from outside of the two party system. The Democratic Party, such as it is, will not and cannot fix this problem. That's just not what political parties do. The parties get candidates elected. They (eg DNC) don't do policy, don't build movements.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > holding together the GOP coalition is (comparatively) easier So pick a better coalition. Ditch the identity-politics leftists in deep-blue cities and win back workers in swing states.
  - specialist 2y ago
    From your keyboard to god's inbox. You might enjoy Joshua Citarella's Doomscroll podcast. Repeating myself: Very few people within a system will work to reform that system. Why? System justification theory? Pulling the ladder up after oneself? Mr Smith Goes to Washington? I honestly have no clue. For example: public financing of campaigns. The painfully obvious correct solution. Initially, I naively thought every politician would be onboard. Fund raising sucks. All the players complain about it. So of course it'd be an easy sell. (I worked on adjacent issues. Us ragtag groups would support each other's causes as able. These activist communities are very small. eg fairvote.org) Now 20 years later, how many jurisdictions have public financing? And in the places which did adopt it, it's under constant siege. Ditto ranked choice voting. -- I support building a Climate Cabinet style PAC for every issue. Laser focused. Money ball for campaigns, matching contributors with select candidates. So an org fairvote.org would strategically support candidates committed to RCV. (Of course, it'd have to be new org. Because it's super hard to rewire an existing org to function differently.) I have no clue about building movements. My pathetic attempts failed utterly. I'm wide open for ideas and input.
lern_too_spel 2y ago
Not even remotely the same. Democrats haven't had both chambers of Congress and the presidency since the first half Obama's first term, and even then, he didn't have the courts. The best they could do was pass Dodd-Frank to prevent the next financial crisis and ACA, which the courts promptly watered down. Obama's threat of a public option in the ACA had so much money against it that the Democrats lost the legislature in the midterm election. Trump has both chambers of Congress and the courts on his side. If you want to fix things, you need to educate voters. There are no procedures that can help you if all three branches of the government are against you.
- tpmoney 2y ago
  > The best they could do was pass Dodd-Frank to prevent the next financial crisis and ACA, which the courts promptly watered down. Why the heck are we ok with an entire wing of US politicians that even when they have total control over the government can only give us "watered down" "the best they could do" effort? And why are we ok with not holding them at least partially responsible for anything that happens when they don't have control over all parts of the government? Why do we have any faith at all that these objectively ineffectual and cowardly children are going to do anything to save us from would be dictators and mad men? If they're just going to lie back and watch the country slide into oblivion with only the mildest of protests, shouldn't we just fire them and at least save the tax money their salaries are costing us? I've long felt the DNC's fatal flaw was that a lot of the really important issues that they're strong on are also hyper local issues that just don't connect broadly. That is, gun control might be extremely relevant and important to the NYC "high crime is killing our children" contingent, and so far down the list for the Rocky Mountain "pollution is ruining my wildlife preserves" contingent that actually gathering and holding support at a national level on those positions is extremely difficult. Combine that with a messaging and broad set of policies that despite lip service to being about "unity" is continually asking us to divide ourselves into special interest groups (and sometime even be at odds with each other). That would explain why states that are "red" on the national elections often have "blue" state level governments. But I'm starting to wonder if the reality is no one actually believes they're capable of getting anything done at all. After all, if even their most ardent supporters believe that they can't get anything done without full control of the government, how is anyone else supposed to believe it? It's not just that the minority party is strongly disadvantaged, it's that the DNC is actually a terrible and ineffectual minority party and barely better as a majority party. God help us all if these are the people we need to rely on to fix things.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> opposition party has no power in the US, as designed explicitly The Republicans have shown this to be superbly untrue when they were in the opposition. The Senate should be hellbent on delaying and disrupting. The House should be constantly throwing a spanner in everything. Governors? Arrest the DOGE kids for breaking state law. Arrest the ICE agents defying court orders. They’ll be released, eventually. But you’ll buy time until the midterms. Ban Tesla FSD and promise to pardon people who non-violently cross the line. Ban the law firms who struck deals with Trump from state business for 20 years. Fight like the Republicans do; laws and republics don’t survive if the side defending them lays down its arms.

igor47 2y ago
This unfortunatey highlights an assymetry between the two parties. The Republicans want to delay and disrupt, the Democrats want to keep things running. Shutting down the government works for Red team because that's their goal. If Dems start to throw spanners into the works, that will just add to all the spanners the Republicans are already throwing into the works.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > If Dems start to throw spanners into the works, that will just add to all the spanners the Republicans are already throwing into the works “A treatment known as the Milwaukee protocol, which involves putting people with rabies symptoms into a chemically induced coma and using antiviral medications in an attempt to protect their brain until their body has had time to produce rabies antibodies, has been occasionally used” [1]. I’m not advocating for shutdown, mind you. Just delay, distraction and disruption. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies

a_thro_away 2y ago

May I add; the Democrats In Name Only(DINOs) of Manchin, Synema, and others? destroying the slight majorities Democrats seem to put together when ostensibly "in power"... They need to exert more control over the membership, as the Rs do. But I get the impression that the Ds take as many as they can't get, but only to get screwed over later.

maxerickson 2y ago

The Constitution doesn't actually say that the party with a majority share of seats in the house or senate gets all the power. It's a practical matter of the rules that the members choose to implement. So for instance, groups that were nominally from 2 different parties could elect leadership that planned to work with the groups, rather than whichever party had the nominal majority. This is kind of an abstract point, but it's useful for reasoning about things. The so called "centrist" members of a given party are actually aligning themselves with the most extreme members, not some 'center'.