> Congress has passed nearly a hundred bills in the last year alone.

Honest question - Have you read most of the descriptions? Because I have (literally every single one) and with exception for a few aimed at Russia, the vast majority of them are the equivalent of legislative bookkeeping. They are nothing of substance.

The most common are simple names changes of federal properties, or grants of federal properties to cities nearby so they can assume management.

Then come the "award" bills, that grant a medal to someone, or put a statue somewhere.

Then we have a few relatively minor infrastructure funding bills, and a couple changes to how the federal military programs handle training. A couple of these are simple extensions of existing programs (ex: SB4119/SB2102)

Then a few "planning" bills - which basically outline that "something bad" is happening and we should probably attempt to figure out why (ex: SB66). Or the "something bad happened, we know why, it's mostly been addressed, but congress will pass a bill anyway to look good" (ex: HB3182)

-----

Basically, I take away from your comment that you're actually agreeing with the top poster, and you simply don't know it.

> We don’t hear about them because Congress agrees and does it job is not interesting or newsworthy.

Yes - they passed a bunch of bills that are not interesting because there is nothing substantial in them - they mostly just don't matter. They are COMPLETELY business as usual. No attempt to address the more critical issues that we face.

Conspicuously absent? Climate action, Tech regulation, Energy funding and independence (again - outside of the context of russia). Basically - few of these bills have ANY impact on 99% of us.

They definitely did pass SB4160 though - have to make sure the supreme court is protected in case their decisions blow up in their face.

It seems kind of disingenuous to dismiss useful bills like infrastructure ones as "minor" and "few". A single bill can contain many changes and carry huge amounts of funding, like HR3684 or perhaps better known as the "Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act". Seems like a pretty major omission from your bill summary.

I'm not sure what you're expecting, The US Congress doesn't and shouldn't be passing a lot of huge sweeping changes every single year. When it's not passing huge sweeping economic changes, legislative bookkeeping is another critical job. It's not "nothing substantial". Planning bills, department/agency confirmations, and grant renewals are all important duties that keep the country running which does impact 99% of us.

The OP's comment did not say "Congress doesn't move fast enough", it said Congress doesn't do anything beyond expand police/military and social issues. That's evidently not true.

> The US Congress doesn't and shouldn't be passing a lot of huge sweeping changes every single year.

If everything were going great I'd agree with you, but "a lot of huge sweeping changes" is what we need and it's exactly what the American people have been asking for. Where's the federal law America wants to end prohibition on marijuana? Campaign finance reform? Internet privacy? Gerrymandering? Immigration? Consumer protections? Healthcare? Domestic Surveillance? Mass incarceration? Climate change? Education?

Congress isn't doing just fine, it isn't "not moving fast enough", it's broken. It's failing to serve the interests of the American people year after year after year. There is so much that needs done and so many people being hurt because none of it is getting addressed.

The American people ask for conflicting things. Marijuana is a partisan issue, campaign finance reform, gerrymandering, immigration, healthcare, education, climate change, mass incarceration etc are intensely partisan issues. Polarization rightfully makes change slow in a representative democracy. No matter how you as an individual feels about the urgency or necessity of your favorite causes, there are people who feel just as strongly about doing something different or not doing things at all.

The issues you call partisan aren't really partisan but they are made partisan by politicians and those with power.

A large majority of the country is for making marijuana legal at the federal level. Most people don't like corporations and billionaires funding our elections. Most people are against gerrymandering. Most people are for legal immigration. Most people agree that out healthcare system is broken and way too expensive. Most people want education to be affordable and effective. Most people care about the environment. Most people don't want people to be jailed for petty things or people wrongly convicted.

The things people disagree on are the way these issues are framed by politicians and the powerful and the proposed solutions. However it's easy to agree that all of these things are a problem. I'm not saying everyone agrees but a lot more people agree on things then you are lead to believe by those who benefit from keeping the country divided.

> The issues you call partisan aren't really partisan but they are made partisan by politicians

Literally what does an issue being “really partisan” mean besides there being a sharp distinction between (in a two party system) the major parties or (more generally) between some group of parties and some other group of parties on the issue?

“Not really partisan but made partisan by politicians” is a nonsense description.

It's a perfectly appropriate description. To take abortion as an example, most people are in the middle ground where abortion up to a certain point (~12 weeks iirc) is ok with abortion until birth allowed in extreme cases. This is also how things are in a lot of other countries. Yet the rhetoric is dominated by the extreme positions of either no abortions or abortions until birth because not properly addressing the issue is convenient for politicians (after all, they had 50 years to codify Roe v Wade rather than leaving it to legal precedent).

These extremists are the only people that show up and care enough to make sure the representatives they vote for actually represent them on this issue. If you don't care enough to do that, I don't know why you expect politicians to care either. It doesn't really matter what "most people" say in these no-stake questionnaires. If "most people" care about getting this middle ground passed, then there'll be enough of them to vote out anyone who sticks to an extremist position. So where are these "most people"? Because I can't find them anywhere in the electoral surveys that matter.

A more simple way to put it is that the politicians are hyper focused on the minor things we disagree on and complete ignore the things we mostly agree on. This division helps keep people hating each other and not focusing on important issues while also keeping their donors happy since they love the status quo.

Here's another simple way to put it: if politicians only focused on what you call "minor things we disagree on", voters can simply and easily vote them out. But voters don't think those are minor issues, it's just that you don't personally value them. Abortion, for example, is hardly a "minor" issue, for many it's a matter of life and death. You may think marijuana is a "minor" issue, but for others it's a critical crossroads that will determine the future of their community and country.

Politicians don't have mind control powers, there is no mechanism to make voters "hyper focus" on issues that voters themselves consider minor. If voters focus on something, it's not minor to them. All you're saying when you dismiss these politicians' focus as "minor things" is that you either don't know or don't respect the decisions of the voters they represent.

> Marijuana is a partisan issue

Every topic will have people on both (or many) sides, but the majority of both democrats and republicans want legalization with only 1 in 10 of all Americans opposing legalizing it for both medical and recreational use. Polarization isn't the problem. There is common ground and wide agreement on various aspects of these issues which are actionable even if it doesn't solve the entirety of the problem.

While of course there will be people who want to argue over specifics that's congresses entire job. To represent our disagreeing perspectives on how a problem should be addressed, work out solutions collectively, and put those solutions in place. No party is going to get everything done in the exact manner they want it, but as long as the issues do get addressed (one way, the other, or by some compromise) the system works. If nothing substantive can be done about the issues that the vast majority of the country agree we need to act on because of partisan bickering then the system is broken and broken systems should be replaced with something that is capable of actually working for Americans.

"people disagree so nothing can be done!" is not acceptable.

It's pretty obvious these people simply aren't voting or aren't voting for appropriate representatives. The US is an optional democracy. It doesn't really matter what you answer in these no-stakes surveys if you can't be bothered to show up for them when electing your representatives. If you sent out a survey asking if people wanted free money, you'll probably get a similarly high approval rate.

Your revealed preference when you don't vote accordingly is not "deep down I think Congress should legalize marijuana", it's "I don't care".

And let's not get carried away, not legalizing marijuana or establishing your preferred healthcare system does not mean the system is "broken". There are ways for people to express that they think the system is broken, but it usually takes more effort than voting accordingly if you're actually right that there is such a strong consensus.

The problem I see now is that neither party in our two party system have any interest in candidates who are willing to represent the American people. It's nice that in theory we can vote for anyone we want, but the impracticality of that makes it irrelevant. In practice we vote for who they tell us we can vote for. We are essentially not allowed to vote for appropriate representatives. We usually see the frustration with that reality expressed as some form of "Nobody votes for who they want in office, we all just vote against the person we oppose". The problem is widely acknowledged and there have been a number of suggestions like ranked voting systems which would make it more likely for people to be allowed to vote for the candidates they actually want in office, but as you'd expect those elected by our current system have no interest in implementing them.

The system may not be entirely broken (it has allowed for things to get accomplished in the past), but because today it consistently fails to represent our interests or meet our needs even over several election cycles there are clearly bugs to be worked out and I think the problems go beyond which particular asses are filling seats in the capitol building.

If we had the ability to simply vote our way out of this mess we'd have done it decades ago. That said, I'll agree that far too many people aren't participating in the process, and the longer this goes on the more I think that will change and in fact it has been improving (in presidential elections voter turn out hasn't been this high since the early 90s and for the 18-24 group it hasn't been this high since the early 70s), but that's also why we're seeing an increase in voter suppression.

Both parties in the two party system have primaries to choose party candidates. If people don't participate in primaries, they shouldn't be surprised when neither party pays attention to who they want. Anyone can run in primaries and they don't even have to win. The whole primary process is designed to signal to the party and the winning candidate what voters are willing to show up for.

"Nobody votes for who they want in office" is a natural result of high political polarization and the inherent polarization in any democracy, when that many voters hold competing and conflicting priorities then of course practically no one gets what they want. Spinning this as some kind of evidence that American democracy is broken makes no sense when this is said about practically every democracy, including democracies that use ranked choice. Ranked choice or any other voting system is not going to change this dynamic where the will of millions of disagreeable voters are condensed into a relatively small committee. Alternative voting systems are a trade-off like any other and at best will just move the needle a bit on a handful of issues. Voter suppression is yet another exaggerated bogeyman, it's largely a fight between two equally well-funded factions and the votes it accounts for pales in comparison to voluntary abstinence.

Of course the problems go beyond which particular asses sit in Capitol Hill, it goes right up to the asses that sit in the United States, including the people who promote the distracting fable that the system citizens repeatedly voted for (directly or not) is the fault of other people.

> Anyone can run in primaries and they don't even have to win.

Nope. You need to meet requirements which vary by state. Most require some mix of signatures (often thousands) and fees (can range from hundreds to tens of thousands). The high barrier to entry is another long acknowledged problem (example: https://www.cnn.com/2012/01/22/politics/newcomers-campaign-c...) which has only gotten worse. If you want to stand a chance to win (and you'd be a fool to spend the time and money to enter if you didn't) expect to spend many millions. (see https://mcfn.org/node/7427/2020-us-house-races-cost-868-mill...). Go ahead and count the number of people in congress who were living paycheck to paycheck before running for office. Most of them are not millionaires by chance.

It's also worth mentioning that primaries are not required to be fair, as we saw when the DNC colluded with Hillary's campaign to undermine her opponent and install their preferred candidate ahead of the 2016 primary election.

> Ranked choice or any other voting system is not going to change this dynamic

experts disagree with you, and for good reason. There's zero incentive to not vote for the candidate you want in office when your vote will go to your next choice if your preferred choice cannot win. The problem we have now is that we're forced to vote for who is most likely to win no matter how we feel about them. There is research showing it would increase voter turnout and it would also open the door for more than just two parties expanding our options. There are issues that come with ranked choice voting, but the biggest problem is that it confuses voters and that problem can be solved by education and acclimation.

> Voter suppression is yet another exaggerated bogeyman

Once again, experts disagree with you. I can provide sources if you like.

Gerrymandering and other forms of voter suppression have a significant impact on the outcomes of elections in opposition of the will of American voters. In short, people who would not have been elected into office are being elected because voters are silenced. Any scheme intended to prevent eligible American voters from having their votes cast or counted should be abhorrent to anyone who cares about democracy and research shows that the practice hurts voter turnout as well (people whose votes are being rendered meaningless unsurprisingly don't vote as often). For someone who seems so concerned about voter turnout you're awfully dismissive of things which would change that for the better.

I don't claim that the American people don't have a role in the decline of our democracy. We certainty have been complacent and we have allowed ourselves to become discouraged and conditioned to accept things as they are, but I can't pretend that the system hasn't been systematically refined over hundreds of years to limit the power of the average citizen to effect change or influence policy and anyone can see that what we have has not been working for us. You vastly overestimate the ability for the average citizen to enact change (see for example: https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...) but the fact that we, that you, haven't been able to do it so far says it all. We all share a responsibility for how things got to where they are, and a responsibility to reform the system which is failing us, but if it's still possible to enact change with the system we have today it's going to be a very difficult fight.

Again, it's not just about winning. Any primary candidate that gets a share of votes shifts the platform, it's the campaign that matters, like Bernie Sanders who wasn't even part of the DNC yet shifted the party/presidential platform after the primary.

Sure, there are some minimum requirements for running, it doesn't fundamentally change any dynamics here, it just raises the bar. It's always convenient for primary losers to blame their loss on party favor like Hillary's case, even though it simply amounts to increased marketing and exposure which, as was evident in the 2016 elections, does not win elections. As with all marketing, it only works by increasing the reach of an already good product, it does not mind control voters. I'm going to assume you personally did not vote for Hillary in any primary, you had no trouble resisting this diabolical collusion yet I suppose the implication here is that everyone else is just too weak minded to self-determine their own votes in the face of increased campaign financing. The simple reason you need to be a millionaire is that any serious party always has one or more massively popular candidates that already represent the majority of issues that voters care about, there are rarely any major gaps in representation, the easiest way most candidates can distinguish themselves when the main issues are already represented is by increasing exposure. But if voters care about a major gap in representation, they will find you. If you completely solve this problem by lowering minimum requirements to zero, it will simply change the minimum size of these relatively small gaps which also lets increasingly small & fringe extremists into the party.

> The problem we have now is that we're forced to vote for who is most likely to win no matter how we feel about them. There is research showing it would increase voter turnout and it would also open the door for more than just two parties expanding our options.

You are not forced to vote for who is most likely to win, every candidate knows that if they don't represent certain issues it will depress turnout and lose them votes. That's because people are not forced to vote for who is most likely to win, in fact they don't have to vote at all. In the next sentence you even point out that it will just increase voter turnout. Again, I don't doubt that, but the votes it accounts for are insignificant compared to voluntary abstinence, it's a minor distraction. Like I said before, it will at best equilibrium on the most borderline issues but parties will quickly realign. The same is true for gerrymandering, it has a suppressive effect but it does not defend against a serious consensus among actual voters, it simply raises the bar for one by a certain amount. You simply don't have a serious consensus on issues like marijuana and healthcare. A serious consensus is formed by voters prioritizing it in the voting booth, not answering "yes I care" on any of these academic studies.

For someone who seems so concerned that the system is largely broken you're awfully focused on only fixing the tiniest of cracks in the face of voluntary abstinence. This is the equivalent of fussing over expensive & fancy gym equipment to fix your workout when your biggest problem is that you don't workout often. Americans have never needed the most theoretically optimal voting systems or the best anti-gerrymandering policies at the cutting edge of democracy. They have democracy at home, if they have any problems they just have to use it.

> It's always convenient for primary losers to blame their loss on party favor like Hillary's case, even though it simply amounts to increased marketing and exposure which, as was evident in the 2016 elections

For the record, it went far beyond "marketing". In this case it was the DNC prepping Hillary's campaign by leaking questions in advance of debates, denying the Sanders campaign access to critical voter data (which they only restored after he filed a lawsuit against them), strategizing with her campaign on ways to turn democratic voters against him (including the suggestion that they attack on the basis of his religion), changed party rules to increase the number of Hillary's delegates, and established a joint fundraising committee to secretly launder money into her campaign.

That's not to say "marketing" wasn't a part of it too. The DNC pressured the media (including MSNBC) to be favorable to Hillary's campaign and leaked information to reporters they hoped with hurt Sander's campaign. The DNC also leaked info they had on Sanders to Clinton's campaign staff and they paid people to attack his supporters online.

They didn't even deny they rigged the whole thing. In a lawsuit filed against the DNC over their actions the lawyers for the DNC stated that they had no legal obligation to follow their own charter and had every right to "go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way.”

Sure, and once again it is up to voters to hold their party accountable. The DNC chair has already resigned. The political fallout depressed turnout and Hillary Clinton ultimately lost. Primary favoritism, whatever form that takes, is not a legal matter, it is a democratic one. At a certain level legal protection doesn't make sense, you said yourself that the closest thing to legality in the DNC, which are party rules, were changed by the party anyway.

Senator Murkowski of Alaska lost her party's primary but ended up winning from write-in votes.

San Francisco's "mainstream media" could fill their front pages with as much praise and justification for the District Attorney as they want, it didn't stop him from being recalled with historic turnout. Getting the media to favor you doesn't mean squat if voters disagree.

The voters are always the biggest factor. Party leaders can pick bad candidates as much as their bosses - the voters - allow them to.

> It seems kind of disingenuous to dismiss useful bills like infrastructure ones as "minor" and "few".

This is a dishonest summary. The person you replied to dismissed "relatively minor infrastructure bills," they did not dismiss all infrastructure bills as minor.

They said "Then we have a few relatively minor infrastructure funding bills" after summarising categories of bills in the past year as if there weren't other non-minor infrastructure bills like the whopper of HR3684. There's no mention of any non-minor infrastructure bills. The clear implication is that after reading the 100+ bills in the past year, the only infrastructure bills worth mentioning/summarising are relatively minor ones.

> Basically - few of these bills have ANY impact on 99% of us.

That does not mean they are a waste of time, however. There are a lot of impactful bills. Just because they don't personally affect or benefit you does not mean that they're not doing anything.

It's not even really much of congress' fault. The power in both houses (especially the House of Representatives) has become very top heavy. That is not an indication that representatives aren't trying to do things, just that they are getting stonewalled by leaders like Nancy Pelosi.

You could have stopped at the first half and had a mostly coherent point that I would agree with.

Some of these bills do indeed matter, in the sense that someone has to deal with them at some point, and I expect many bills in most sessions to appear somewhat similiar.

But they are hardly real attempts to tackle the problems we're facing, and I'd argue we're not even treading water on serious, serious issues we're facing as a country.

It's like watering your house plants while the house burns down. Technically - someone should be watering the plants. Is it really the right priority at the moment?

> You could have stopped at the first half and had a mostly coherent point that I would agree with.

You could have also just stated that the legislature has been ineffective at passing legislation that is important to you, and you'd have had a mostly coherent point. Instead you went out of your way to diminish what did pass as unimportant.

Juneteenth maybe isn't important to you but it certainly is important to a lot of people and naming it a national public holiday is seen as a significant gesture by many. Naming a memorial site for the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting is important. Increasing access to mental health services for veterans in rural areas is important. Banning crib bumpers is important to... anyone that may have a child or already has a baby?

There's plenty of examples like this that you deemed unimportant.

> But [there] are hardly real attempts to tackle the problems we're facing, and I'd argue we're not even treading water on serious, serious issues we're facing as a country.

There are actually a lot of real attempts, but, as I already mentioned, legislators get stonewalled by the leaders in their respective houses. It's very hard to introduce legislation and have it go anywhere because the power resides mostly within the leadership. Individual congresspeople have very little power. If you don't understand how the legislative process actually works of course it'll seem like they're simply not doing anything.

> It's like watering your house plants while the house burns down. Technically - someone should be watering the plants. Is it really the right priority at the moment?

It's more like eating or taking a shit; they're necessary and important even if they're mundane and there are "more important" matters to attend to. They take up time but they don't prevent you from accomplishing other things in your day.

While I can appreciate that you characterize your agenda as super important stuff that absolutely needs to be addressed yesterday, you're not the only one that feels that way and what's super important to you is probably not the same as someone else.

Yeah, who would want to protect government officials? /s

They already have it in copious forms from other laws. So basically - it's another showboat law, which is the point of the whole comment.

Seems you missed the point.

I remember the hearings around MLB steroid use and discussions on whether new federal laws should be written to “prevent” drugs that were already illegal (or in breach of contract) from being used by an entertainment industry. If the executive branch wasn’t investigating existing laws That already applied, what effect would new laws that were more narrowly defined provide?

It seemed so stupid until considered from the perspective that MLB superstars were getting a lot of media time and politicians weren’t. Now they had a chance to butt in and spend the majority of the time in front of the camera on a subject they were likely briefed on moments before any “hearings”.

After participating (very briefly) in a local precinct political process within a single party a few years later, I’ve effectively lost hope in the political process. There are self-serving, narcissistic sociopaths who will do anything for perceived power and well funded entities who will prevent anything truly populist from gaining traction. I feel like the disillusionment it breeds is intentional.

>I feel like the disillusionment it breeds is intentional.

Absolutely. Demoralization of the proletariat is priority number one for the bourgeoisie. You don't have to spend huge amounts of resources fighting them if there is no one to fight in the first place.

The point seemed clear to me that Supreme Court deserved what it had coming to it if they did stuff that "blew up in their faces."

> Congress has passed nearly a hundred bills in the last year alone.

A patent troll can create hundreds of patents per year and never release a single product. The quantitative aspect is meaningless without the qualitative.

> I quickly glanced at those hundred bills and didn’t see much in the way of expanding police power or military conquest of Europe and Asia.

Bills regularly get stuffed with unrelated compromises. I can't totally refute the idea that there are police power expansions on this bills or not, HOWEVER nor can you with your rudimentary analysis.

you went from accusing the parent of "you are engaging in significant hyperbole" to making the statement "There is no half gun seizure". There's lots and lots of gun control legislation people would like to enact, can you show the ones that indicate the "seizure" of any existing weapons at all? The nature of gun control legislation, whether one is in favor or not, is extremely incremental, and all of the legislation that aims to restrict certain kinds of weapons always applies to the manufacture and sale, never existing legal ownership. Not sure where you got the term "gun seizure" from but that is beyond "hyperbole" because it's not even true in any sense.

Responding to this comment in good faith is easy: just examine legislation that was split along party lines and show that there are substantial differences between the parties on non-social issues. That would be a very convincing argument grounded in fact rather than impressions.

>Congress has passed nearly a hundred bills in the last year alone

They could pass a thousand bills and it wouldn't mean much. The question is if the bills actually do anything. Take a look at the top post from the discussion here yesterday[1] on the European markets act. When is any of this coming to the US? We don't hear anything about the legislation that is being passed because it's not worth the paper its being printed on.

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32163704

Then why has Pelosi stalled passing a bill to restrict members of Congress from trading stock using insider information? Democrats are barely any better than republicans and comparably corrupt--they just offer better lip service.

Right. This is boring, and therefore not fun to talk about. But it's extremely clear that there are substantial differences between the parties to the point that I don't know how to have a conversation with someone who wants to deny this, and talking about the No Surprises Act (for instance) won't lead to a flamewar, so you won't hear about it.

I don’t think OP is denying that there are differences between the parties. But the first two years of Biden’s administration was a win for the McConnell wing of the Republican Party. The only significant economic measure that was passed was covid relief, which republicans were for (because Trump did it) before they were against it. There were no tax hikes and no expanded social programs (apart from temporary expansion of the child tax credit).

It’s hard to deny that the result of the current democratic strategy is not meaningfully different from what Mitch McConnell wants, whether it’s deliberate or not.

And I do think it’s deliberate to a significant extent. The current Democratic coalition has a lot of people, especially in the donor base, that are basically socially liberal Republicans. If forced to choose between issues, they care more about legalized abortion than labor unions. Of course these folks avoid any acknowledgement that these goals are in conflict, but that’s obviously wrong. Politics is about assembling a coalition that can command a voting majority. Political capital is a finite resource. Obviously spending significant political capital on an issue like abortion—where about 1 out of 5 democrats disagrees with the rest of the party—will mean less political capital available for making the child tax credit permanent. It’s math.

>I don’t think OP is denying that there are differences between the parties.

I'm not sure we read the same comment then.

Your own comment even circles back around to agreeing with the basic premise, so I'm confused as to why you're even disputing something that you're in fundamental agreement with.

The parties are in disputably different, and electoral outcomes lead to massive differences in policy choices which are clear to anyone who's willing to bother to do the research. It takes a lot of finessing and hedging and caveats and broad meandering musings on political grand strategy to start to attempt to equate the political parties. The reason it requires that much work is because the parties are indeed different.

>> It’s hard to deny that the result of the current democratic strategy is not meaningfully different from what Mitch McConnell wants, whether it’s deliberate or not.

The result you are talking about is not the result of Democratic strategy, but of Manchin’s (and to a lesser extent, Sinema’s) blocking of anything meaningful and impactful.

This is unknowable. There could be 5 other Democrats that agree with Manchin but why voice it when Manchin can take the heat with no political consequences.

The current composition of the senate, 50-50, and the antiquated filibuster process, mean that the senate cannot do anything without bipartisan consensus. Not sure why you are railing about democrats that are secretly republicans when that is clearly not the issue.

There is no constitutional basis for the filibuster. It's just a rule the Senate invented. And they can un-invent it. Whenever the new Congress forms, the Senate Majority Leader sets the rules for that Congress. This includes the number of seats on committees and so forth.

What you have is Democrats who hide behind "institutions" as an excuse to do nothing and Republicans who quite literally will change the rules whenever it suits them. Examples include:

1. Firing the Senate parliamentarian when he blocked the Senate from advancing Bush tax cuts;

2. Deciding completely without basis that with 11 months left of Obama's term, it somehow wasn't proper to hold a hearing or a vote on Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court; and

3. Deciding that any nomination (not just judicial) couldn't be filibustered (Harry Reid had previously changed the rules to make Supreme Court nominations filibuster-proof).

But what is the filibuster? Up until I believe the 1970s it was a process where a Senator who had the floor could refuse to yield and keep talking to block a vlote as long as they could keep standing. This is real "Mr Smith Goes to Washington" type stuff [1].

This Senate refused to change the rules on this so here we are. Two proposals have been made:

1. Eliminate the filibuster entirely. It's pretty much only ever used to block progress (eg by blocking civil rights legislation in the 1960s); or

2. Require a Senator to actually filibuster by going back to the old system of holding the floor and refusing to yield.

Both of course failed. Why? Because the corporate interests that own Manchin and Sinema don't want that because that might allow some form of progress, all under the guise of institutionalism. But this is a post-facto justification. I guarantee you the second the next Republican president holds office and the Republicans hold a majority in the Senate, the filibuster is gone.

The current rotating villains of the Democratic Party couldn't even bring themselves to bypass the filibuster to pass legislation to protect voting rights, which shouldn't even be controversial. But of course it is controversial because voting rights might endanger the red wave of voter suppression.

None of this has to be the case. Schumer won't go nuclear on this either because Schumer represents the interests of Wall Street.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPv0S1-ETdI

"Firing the Senate parliamentarian when he blocked the Senate from advancing Bush tax cuts"

Not a great example. Democrats and Republicans have both switched up the parliamentarian when they've taken control of the Senate.

Democrats fired Alan Frumin in 1987 when they won a majority and appointed Robert Dove.

In 2001 (your example), four years after winning the majority back, Republicans fired Dove and reappointed Alan Frumin. Frumin went on to be a key figure in helping Obama with passage of elements of the ACA, so not exactly a hardcore partisan.

The parliamentarian has hardly been a nexus of cutthroat politics, just the normal ebb and flow of power and control in the Senate.

To be clear, my argument isn't firing him was right or wrong. My argument was that Republicans are willing to bend, change or just completely ignore rules when it suits them. Republicans talk about institutions when it suits them and don't when it doesn't. Democrats largely are LARPing in a world that doesn't exist of civilized debate.

My argument more simply is that Democrats should be more like Republicans. Not in policy issues but in terms of effectiveness: whipping votes, advancing an agenda and punishing dissent.

If you talk to a Republican supporter they will say the same thing about their side, that the useless Republican politicians in Congress won’t stand up to the Democrats and actually accomplish anything, and the Democrats are full of dirty tricks that the Republicans just roll over for, and so on.

For both parties it’s partially right and partially wrong, but what it’s not is anything unique or inherent to one side.

Eh I mean some of them are though. Manchin and Sinema get the biggest hate, but there are others who agree with him who are just not as obvious or loud about it.

I mean abortion rights which were settled for 50 years just got completely destroyed, and if the entire Democratic party actually cared about this issue, they'd enshrine it as a right in law with 51 votes, but they won't because a handful secretly agree that abortion should be illegal.

> they'd enshrine it as a right in law with 51 votes

That enshrinement will last ~6 months. A supreme court decision on the subject of body autonomy was a far stronger form of protection than legislature ever could have been.

I'm not sure why people keep repeating the falsehood that claims the contrary (other than to repeat the both-sides meme).

> The current composition of the senate, 50-50, and the antiquated filibuster process, mean that the senate cannot do anything without bipartisan consensus. Not sure why you are railing about democrats that are secretly republicans when that is clearly not the issue.

When Trump wanted to kill the remaining bits of Obama era banking reform, he didn't have 60 votes in the Senate, which didn't matter because the Centrist Democrats voted with him.

>The “Crapo bill,” a bank deregulation measure co-authored by Senate Banking Committee chair Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and several centrist Democrats, passed Congress this spring with the help of 17 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus and 33 House Democrats.

https://theintercept.com/2018/11/10/dodd-frank-deregulation-...

In the same manner, the Centrist Democrats saved the Bush era tax cuts for the rich from automatically expiring during the Obama years despite the fact that the party had control of the House, Senate, and White House at the time.

The Bush era Republicans had passed those tax cuts under Senate reconciliation rules requiring only 50 votes in the Senate which placed a time limit after which they would automatically expire with no action needed.

The Centrist Democrats voted, repeatedly, with the Republicans to make sure they wouldn't expire.

Then, of course, history repeated itself with the Trump tax cuts, which ALL the Democrats claimed to find abhorrent (yes, even Manchin), until it became possible to do something about them.

https://prospect.org/economy/the-impossible-inevitable-survi...

The current composition of the Senate is the product of a deliberate choice by socially liberal pro-business democrats (i.e. Rockefeller republicans) to prioritize social issues such as abortion and immigration over economic ones.

I really just think the issue is the senate. Look at all the bills that passed the house. They passed a bill that try’s to solve gerrymandering. They passed abortion legislation. They passed all the economic stuff Biden wanted, including his signature legislation universal pre k. But the senate needs 60 votes to pass anything other than a budget, which no one will ever have. I’m inclined to agree that the filibuster is mostly an excuse to not vote for things manchin and sinema wouldn’t vote for either way, but at that point it’s hard to say democrats have a majority in the senate.

> But the senate needs 60 votes to pass anything other than a budget

Incorrect.

One of the other things it can do with a simple majority is alter or eliminate the 60 vote requirement.

Right but it’s pretty clear that there isn’t a majority willing to do that.

Being able to pass a budget with a bare majority is a lot of power! They could raise taxes and increase funding for existing programs with that power. You know, the stuff people vote in Democrats to do.

I mean they sort of did increase funding. They passed a 2 trillion dollar stimulus bill.

Have you heard of think tanks? There are groups like ALECS that literally write legislation at the behest of corporations, it's been a problem for a long time.

The reason you think it isn't in good faith is likely due to corporate owned media pushing specific narratives to keep workers placated

With minor exceptions like grandstanding bills that are never meant to make it to a vote let alone pass, no federal legislation is written by legislators or even their staffs.

I can’t find it, but there was a case not so long ago when the senate accidentally voted for one of those grandstanding bills. Maybe somebody else recalls the particulars.

In any event it’s clear to any intelligent observer that the actual dynamics of governance put a lie to the fiction that our system functions as a representative republic.

>I can’t find it, but there was a case not so long ago when the senate accidentally voted for one of those grandstanding bills. Maybe somebody else recalls the particulars.

The last example I recall was when republicans passed an over-ride of Obama's veto on the bill to allow victims of 9/11 to sue Saudi Arabia then once it passed were worried about the actual consequences.

What media do you get your information from?

While it is American-centric, PBS news hour is one decently solid option

I also get information from corporate media but I always keep in mind the purpose of the angle of their reporting and always ignore all opinion pieces. Opinion pieces are always trash

>We don’t hear about them because Congress agrees and does it job is not interesting or newsworthy.

Well, yes, that's the point - given that both parties represent the capital-owning class, no wonder they mostly agree.

Parties literally never do anything: they must be owned by the capital-owning class

Parties always agree: they must be owned by the capital-owning class

My pizza is late: they must be owned by the capital owning class

If your explanation works to explain everything, you've just found a very long synonym for "magic" and you don't actually have an explanation.

I don’t see how your 3rd point tracks; it doesn’t work for why the pizza is late. Why would the pizza being late be caused by the pizza being owned by the capital class? What motivation does the capital class have in my pizza being late?

You are trying to gish gallop the argument with a completely unfounded quip about “magic”.

> What motivation does the capital class have in my pizza being late?

You're asking what motivation do businesses have for taking your money and not investing enough to provide the service that customers want in return?

That's not a gish gallop, I only made one argument. A gish gallop is when you throw out a bunch of arguments at once, hope your opponent misses one in their reply and then call out their failure to respond.

If you're going to call a fallacy, please do so correctly.

It makes exactly as much sense for all three cases. "Capital Owners" have no desire for price transparency (2019), Covid stimulus (2020) or most other things congress does. Certainly not supporting sanctions that torch the oil and fuel needing industries in Europe.

If being beholden to the capital owners can be used as an excuse for anything congress does that you don't like, I can also use it as an excuse for my pizza being late.

>It makes exactly as much sense for all three cases. "Capital Owners" have no desire for price transparency (2019), Covid stimulus (2020) or most other things congress does

You are still assigning unfounded assertions to the capital class? The capital class has no desire for COVID stimulus? Why? Did you not see the stock market completely shit itself in September - and every economist saying the only way out was a stimulus? Likewise price transparency? I assume you are talking about healthcare; but corporations also have an interest in reducing healthcare costs as for most of the Forbes 500, health insurance is a massive HR cost. “Price transparency” is the same neoliberal concession for a country who’s working class desperately needs public healthcare. It doesn’t meaningfully change the situation for working class individuals

What you are doing is treating the capital class like some evil boogeyman instead of a motivated class of individuals looking to protect their wealth from institutional redistribution. I’m talking about corporate regulation, protections for unions, and most well funded social programs. Reducing a well researched phenomenon to “blaming capital owners that my pizza is late” is profoundly myopic

> a motivated class of individuals looking to protect their wealth from institutional redistribution

You are giving way too much credit. They're not on the defensive of protecting their wealth from "redistribution", but rather on the offensive of extracting ever more wealth away from those in the productive economy. Economically, this is done via printing new money and financializing the lives of the plebs.

"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."

This quote is usually levied at voters personally, as a condemnation of social programs - the same induced "culture war" to distract from the grownups' looting. The quote is actually much more applicable to politicians (of both costumes) promoting the policies paid for by big capital, which has consistently succeeded at getting itself ever more corporate welfare - stock market bubble, housing bubble, healthcare trainwreck, defense spending, covid giveaways, etc.

Yup. I bring this up all the time. Turn on Cspan nearly any time congress is in session and you'll see bills passing just fine.

>Congress has passed nearly a hundred bills in the last year alone.

What does that mean though? Where is the anti trust legislation?

Stuck in the senate where it needs 60 votes

The state-venue anti-trust bill passed the Senate and is stuck in the House. There a multiple anti-trust bills.

Can you cite the actual bill?

Yeah man, everything is going great in the US. Extremely functional government.