John Josh Marshall [gift link]:
A key reason that many people are Democrats today is that they’re attached to a cluster of ideas like the rule of law, respect for and the employment of science and expertise, a free press and the protection of the range of institutions that guard civic life, quality of life and more. On the other side, say we have adherents of a revanchist, authoritarian politics which seeks break all those things and rule from the wreckage that destruction leaves in its path. So Democrats constantly find themselves defending institutions, or “the establishment,” or simply the status quo. Yet we live in an age of pervasive public distrust — distrust of institutions, leaders, expertise. And not all of this distrust is misplaced. Many institutions, professions, and power centers have failed to live up to their sides of the social contract.
In short, Democrats are by and large institutionalists in an age of mistrust. And that is challenging place to be.
What puts a finer point on the matter is that Democrats often find themselves carrying the water of institutions which do them no favors or are even affirmatively hostile. I think of this a lot when it comes to the establishment press. Civic democrats should and generally are in favor of a free and vital press. But that doesn’t or shouldn’t mean the press exactly as it’s structured right now. That’s not only wrong on the merits; it’s a losers’ game.
I think Democrats (and traditional Republicans) problem is that the Constitution is a set of rules they can’t look past. And yet, we democrats fucking hate the electoral college, lifetime appointments, how apportionment is handled, at least the interpretation if not the wording of the second amendment, at times with parts of the first, fifth, 14th, and a bunch of others. We want to change these but cannot find the tools to change them within the rules as the constitution sets. We do the same thing with the senate – we cannot do the things we feel are needed to avoid existential crisis and still adhere to the senate rules, and the senate rules win over stopping the existential crisis.
At some point you have to accept this as irrational. The problem isn’t that we suck at navigating this space, the problem is that the space makes no goddamn sense for the set of problem we face. The problem is that the constitution is bad. It’s intent is great, a lot of it is objectively great, but it’s like the sports car you got with your partner when you got married that doesn’t work for you now that you have kids, and you love it, but you gotta get rid of it because it doesn’t work for you any longer. At some point you have to come to that conclusion. You aren’t rejecting cars – just that implementation of them.
And we assume that voters have the same respect and loyalty to each written word in the constitution that we do, and I think they simply don’t. They respect, again, the intent and many parts of it, but they see these problems that are increasingly intractable, not because Republicans are assholes, but because the document simply blew it when it came to figuring out how to keep the internet from destroying society because the fucking thing was written in 1789 and even though there’s an amendment process built into it, we’ve lost the capacity to use it. Sometimes you need to rewrite the fundamental rules of the game. And I think that’s what voters are asking for, and they’re tired of the excuse that the wisdom of some guy dead for 200 years won’t allow us to solve the homeless problem. At some point you have to say ‘fuck that guy, he’s not here, we can come up with new good ideas’. And that shit is scary.
Gotta run but I wanted to put both of those thoughts into the hopper and see what everyone thinks.
RaflW
Frist!
I certainly agree that the Amendment process is functionally dead, at least that’s how it looks these days. I do wonder if the looming chaos might be a trigger for a Constitutional Convention in 4 years or so?
There I go being a naif and an instiutionalist.
raven
@RaflW: trigger, I like that
Kristine
One of the points Teri Kanefield often made was that if you break the rules in order the save the rules, how do you go back to following them once the dust has settled? That was a defense of Dems following the rules even if the GOP didn’t.
I agreed with her for a time, but now I read what Josh and Martin have written and it makes sense. The Constitution isn’t a suicide pact. Neither is institutionalism.
hells littlest angel
Josh Marshall’s son? Brother?
Omnes Omnibus
@RaflW: One problem with a Constitutional Convention and burn down the institutions that we have is that what we get as a replacement might not be the social democratic paradise that we are looking for but rather the opposite. It is interesting that I don’t see calls for this coming from members of marginalized communities. It always seems to be the very comfortable.
bbleh
1. Ditch Constitution
2. ? ? ?
3. Better Government!
It’s the Underpants Gnomes theory of politics.
And of course unspecified are exactly WHICH bits we throw away and which we keep, and how we’re gonna get a majority of people to keep those bits.
Sorry, yet not willing to give up on a system that survived such pervasive corruption as most of the middle and late 19th century, such economic inequality as in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such scary authoritarianism as in the mid-20th century, and an actual civil war
(ETA: I DO think Marshall is right when it comes to the legacy press. And I think others have observed similarly that Dems need to “rethink their relationship” with them. And part of that in turn is due to what’s happening to the legacy media themselves thanks to the explosion of social media. But that will sort itself out, just as happened when newspapers first appeared on the scene.)
Layer8Problem
A constitutional convention in a world of social media, right-wing old school media, billionaires whose Scrooge McDuck money bins mean lots of extra free speech for them, and interested foreign parties willing to game all this. Kinda like a musket-level answer to a Vietnam-style free fire zone. Maybe it’s the right answer but I’m apprehensive.
MagdaInBlack
I eagerly await this new constitution that will eliminate racism, sexism, misogyny and hate.
matt
Well, and the people whose job it is to change the Constitution are our enemies. A Constitutional Convention works on essentially a one-state one-vote basis so the mid 19th century deck stacking by the Republicans would keep them dominant through that process.
Michael Cain
While it may not be possible to change the Senate rules as written, it is possible to create an exception to the rules by simple majority vote. That’s how appointments-can’t-be-filibustered got done. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of exceptions to the Senate rules. Knowing what those are is a big part of the job of the Senate Parliamentarian.
Omnes Omnibus
I will also point out that Timothy Snyder suggests that defending institutions is one of the ways to resist tyranny.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: Maybe on the specific question of a constitutional convention, that’s the case, but I don’t think it’s true that the only people who want radical change from business as usual are the very comfortable. The fact that tens of millions of people decline to participate at all is a flashing red light on the health of this democracy. Lots of the non participants are poor and marginalized in other ways.
Lapassionara
@Omnes Omnibus: yes. The Koch brothers would welcome a new constitutional convention, as would the Mercers and other right-wing funders. I fear the result would be worse for team blue than what we have now.
Melancholy Jaques
@Kristine:
See also, Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons:
William Roper: “Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!”
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?”
mrmoshpotato
@MagdaInBlack:
Amending the Constitution is the easiest of lifts!
(Anyone need me to reveal my sarcasm?)
tobie
Somewhat off-topic–does anyone know how to read FT articles without having a subscription? I wanted to access this article on Russia recruiting Yemeni soldiers. Russia has a relationship with the Houthis, and I’ve been wondering how much the conflicts of the past four years were, if not caused, fueled by Putin’s and Xi’s interests in hurting the Democratic Party which, unlike the Republicans, generally wanted to limit Russia’s and China’s global influence.
Another Scott
Speaking of Pilgrims and the Wampanoag and figuring out ways to understand each other and so forth, Wiley today.
Best wishes,
Scott.
raven
@Betty Cracker: Snappers was hitin.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: They are the ones I hear it from. The fact that a lot of people are disengaged does point to problems with the system. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we need to completely trash the system we have. But that’s probably just me being constrained by my parameters (whatever that means).
ETA: I am not saying that it should never happen, but that we need to think about risks as well as rewards. I doubt it is worth it at this time.
Sister Golden Bear
@Omnes Omnibus: There’s a reason that for years the push for a Constitutional Convention has been coming from Republican reactionaries. They’ve been quite explicit about how they want to rewrite it to create a Christo-fascist state.
Nukular Biskits
Good late mornin’, y’all!
TBone
@bbleh: ‘amend’ doesn’t mean throw the baby out with the bath water.
H.E.Wolf
Thank you; and in particular for the section highlighted in bold.
If radical conservatives re-write the US Constitution, how do we imagine our trans neighbors, our neighbors of color, our neighbors who can get pregnant, will fare?
sentient ai from the future
snyder does indeed say to defend institutions, as someone pointed out above. when i speak with folks in person about the coming unpleasantness, i say that we must defend institutions, but we must not expect them to save us.
organize organize organize. whether it is to resist the worst offenses of this administration and do harm mitigation, or to organize networks to move our vulnerable to safety, the way to make the best, or at least the least-worst, of what the fash is showing they have on deck, is to organize.
A Ghost to Most
Keep dancing around the christian supremacy. Welcome to Gilead. See you at the book book burning.
BubbaDave
@tobie: I’m a big fan of archive.is — check out this link for an example.
The Audacity of Krope
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, the system is about to get trashed whether we wanted or not. I can understand not wanting to dismantle old institutions when there’s nothing to replace them. But when we build them back from scratch, which we’ll likely need to for many, we can make them more reliable and responsive to citizen needs than they’ve ever been.
It’s just the getting through the bad times will suck. Things we rely on my cease to exist or become non-functional, existing in name only. Who knows how long this will last?
bbleh
@TBone: true, but as I understand it, “the Constitution is bad” means giving up on the amendment process — which I agree is pretty much stuck at this point — along with all the rest of it.
And as to a constitutional convention, first it’s an idea so risky as to be presumptively bad, and second NOW — at a time when ignorance, grievance, and corruption are the paramount features of our politics — would have to be the worst possible time even if it weren’t a presumptively bad idea.
Seriously. It’s one close election, and the winner is pretty thoroughly reprehensible, but it’s just one. Have some turkey, chill out for a bit.
H.E.Wolf
One of my favorite passages in 20th-century playwriting. And very à propos. Thank you!
Lobo
Here is the quote that kicks to the bottom of the problem. This references Garland, but it is true of many public servants.
This goes to the fact of seeing things as they are not as we would like them to be. It is like the misogyny & racism penalty Harris faced. In this space marginalized people are a lot more clear headed than the majority. A lot of us wondered whether America was yet ready for a woman president much less a black one. I would suggest a simple rule, “listen to us” We see and feel the imperfections of the system.
Another Scott
@Layer8Problem: +1
I’m remembering the new redistricting process in Virginia. Virginia Mercury story from May 2023.
tl;dr – the commission was stacked 50:50 D:R so naturally they couldn’t agree on maps, so naturally – as expected – it got kicked to the GOP-dominated state supreme court. The maps they came up with weren’t as bad as they could have been, but they turned a Blue-leaning state into a state that lost some important Blue seats (with national implications).
Power doesn’t give up power willingly. A constitutional convention in the near future would be very dangerous to progress because the country is too closely divided and the monsters have too much power.
Best wishes,
Scott.
TBone
Repeating this, it seems somehow apropos in the vein of “rewriting.” I’m
weirdwired that way.Today at church the priest spoke out against Xtian Nationalism. He spoke of Jesus telling Pilate “you called me a king.” Jesus stuck it to Pilate thusly
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
“What is truth?” retorted Pilate…
I just adore the very young, very cool priest who also acknowledged how hard it is to say the word “king” these days and reminded us that we cannot ignore politics, since there is no place else for us to be, but in the world.
Telling the truth.
We were treated to another history lesson, this time about the 1920s and the popularity of the Feast of Christ the King being due to sentiment after WWI.
My new priest is a rockstar.
🎶🏴☠️
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz9DX_VMXdI
It’s the fight in the dog.
BubbaDave
You can’t amend or replace the Constitution using the tools of the Constitution, because those tools are all designed around the states and there are too many tiny one-party states.
The only way I think it could work is secession; the major states in the Northeast and on the Pacific Coast say “no mas; either we negotiate a better Constitution or we’re leaving and taking the tax dollars that subsidize your shithole states with us.” And I don’t think the will is there, and even if it were then you have to deal with the fact that “Oregon” is seceding but in practice that means Portland is seceding while all the rural counties join with Idaho or something.
Doug R
Doesn’t really matter if the “interpreters” of the Constitution just ignore parts that don’t agree with their interpretation:
“well-regulated militia”“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. “
I’m sure there’s way more, like
women’s right to medical privacyBetty Cracker
@raven: Congrats! That’s some good eating!
Melancholy Jaques
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t know if it is a flashing red light. How many of the tens of millions were ever engaged in our democracy?
If they were people who once participated who have fallen off, I’d say we should find out why and try to do something about it. Every four years we activists struggle to get them to do the bare minimum like learn a few facts and vote based on those facts. They never do it. They don’t want to and they get angry if you push them to do it.
RaflW
@Omnes Omnibus: I have no idea what’s coming or what’s workable. I certainly agree that a Constitutional Convention would be full of risks.
But we’re careening (or careering, but no one says that any more) towards all sorts of deeply broken, well, everything. Anything that attempts a sort of ‘reversion to mean’ is still going to be saddled with a shit-ass SCOTUS, Wyoming voters having absurdly more Senatorial power than CA or even TX senate voters, etc.
I’m the opposite of an accelerationist or proponent of going into the muck to emerge the other side. But the election delivered a wrecking ball, and at some point we’ll need to be thinking about structural ways to rebuild — and to prevent that from happening again.
Melancholy Jaques
@Doug R:
See also, 15th Amendment
Section 1
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2
The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.Nukular Biskits
My $.02?
I do think it’s time to amend the Constitution, to bring it up to date. The problem is, as others have better put it, the constitutional process for altering the Constitution was intended to be difficult and the divides in this nation have rendered it all but impossible.
Like BubbaDave, I kinda wonder if secession is in our future, given the inequities and divisions, but if that were to come to pass, it would make matters even worse.
So … damfino. Not trying to doompost here but we’re screwed regardless. If we stick to institutionalism (“obey the rules”) when the other side throws institutionalism out the window, we lose. If we drop to their level, we lose.
gene108
No institution, business, organization, or government can successfully function when a large powerful group within it are determined to operate in bad faith for their personal benefit, yet here we are.
Ever since Obama was sworn into office, Republicans – from the SCOTUS, to Congress, to state governments – have taken a hammer to unwritten norms and the ability of institutions to function to a level not seen before.
The damage isn’t going to be repaired by thinking that acting like no damage has been done will get the people operating in bad faith to change.
This is my frustration with Democrats trying to preserve institutional norms. The institutions are irreparably broken. They can no longer function like they have been for the last 50 to 60 years. They need to be fixed.
Also, the big lesson I take from the 2024 election is reality is propaganda and disinformation have the ability to shape society in ways not before possible and almost all the propaganda and disinformation is pro-Republican.
Raven
@Betty Cracker: I just finished vacuum sealing them!
tobie
@BubbaDave: Thank you so much for the link!
BellyCat
Just wanted to chime in here and say that I have a Trump loving friend and we actually agreed that amendments need to be more possible than they are.
Nukular Biskits
Apropos to the discussion:
Politics CBS News poll finds Trump starts on positive note as most approve of transition handling
Stating the obvious here but there are a LOT of Americans who apparently believe in fairies. They demand lower prices but they support tariffs.
How the fuck do you even communicate, much less with with, people like that?
Like John said back in 2009:
H.E.Wolf
A pitfall that is a very human one to fall into, particularly for those of us with relative privilege, is to imagine that “these are UNIQUELY bad times”… and thus justify various forms of running with scissors.
This is a good moment to spend an hour reading US history… from the perspective of non-white inhabitants, and/or people in various less-privileged categories. These may seem like uniquely bad times to lots of us. It’s very familiar to many others of us who live in this country. Let’s pay attention to what these groups do – and have done – to create positive change.
Advisory note (my historian hat is on): It requires sustained effort. If you’ve thought of a quick, easy fix… jettison it for something that takes a lot of work by a lot of people. :)
Kristine
Thinking there has to be a sweet spot between “leave it be” and “knock it down to the footing and start over,” but I don’t know where that is. Incrementalism is slow and painful “one step forward—two steps back.”
One hope (yes, I know hope isn’t a plan) is that we are many times the size of Hungary, it’s going to take a long time to turn this ship in the direction the far right wants it to go, and they are going to encounter stumbling blocks along the way.
Don’t mind me, I’m just thinking.
And I have work to do so I had better go do it.
RaflW
@A Ghost to Most: I know it’s grim right now.
But here’s where we are NOT like Orban’s Hungary.
– His country is significantly demographically homogenous in ways the US is not.
– Hungary only left one-party rule communism in 1989, we’ve had almost 250 years of (very imperfect) democracy.
– Their legislative branch is a unicameral parliament, which has different mechanisms and incentives, and isn’t steeped in two-party back and forth (I know we have broken institutions, but the House majority next term is slim and likely to be chaotic)
– Hungary has had economic stabilizers by being in the EU and Schengen. If Trumpism fucks up (if? when!) the US economy, the blowback to the majority party will IMO be swift.
And so on.
There’s a massive fight under way. But all is far, far from lost.
New Deal democrat
I’ve been haranguing Josh Marshall for several years about how the Supreme Court as an institution is fundamentally corrupt and needs to be re-thought. In another part of his post, he now agrees with this.
I also agree with Martin’s point, although abolishing the Senate filibuster and then banning gerrymandering of Congressional seats by statute can be accomplished without touching the current Constitution and would go a long way towards the reforms we need. But I also agree that the 1789 Constitution has been so tattered by Trump’s abuse of the pardon power, the abuse of lame duck sessions at both the federal and State levels, and horrifically corrupt decisions by the Supreme Court, that it is not going to survive much longer one way or the other.
So I don’t think we have to worry about the underpants gnomes scenario, because the rupture is going to happen anyway. I have no idea what awaits on the other side, but that other side is decades away and most of us will be long gone.
BellyCat
Can we start with getting rid of Citizens United?
Omnes Omnibus
@Kristine: I don’t know that anyone is arguing that nothing needs to be changed.
New Deal democrat
@H.E.Wolf: Also, see: Marcellus and Sulla in the Roman Republic.
p.a.
No answers here (with me) but it seems to me we’re worried about cutting down some trees while they’re napalming the forest.
The Audacity of Krope
@p.a.: Some of us are waiting for the flames to catch up. With marshmallows.
lowtechcyclist
With all the discussion of a Constitutional convention in this thread, I think this thread is missing an important something, and that something is Article V of the Constitution:
Bolding and italics mine, of course.
TL:DR version: A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION CAN’T DO JACK SHIT WITHOUT THE CONCURRENCE OF 3/4 OF THE STATES. IOW, any 13 states can block anything the Convention does.
All the convention really does is bypass the roles of the House and Senate in writing Constitutional amendments. That’s it. Nothing more.
ETA: This is why I have never understood why people get their panties in a twist over the prospect of a Constitutional convention. It would be a very public exercise in political masturbation.
jame
That “gift link” didn’t work for me.
Lobo
@Lobo:
One message buried in the quote of my original post is to use the power you have. There is tremendous room for discretion and interpretation. Not arresting and charging Trump out of the gates for the attempted coup was a choice not a law. You can defend the choice as good or bad, but it was a choice. Garland had the power. Same with the filibuster and reforming the courts. It is a choice. Jon Stewart had this message to use the power you have and use loopholes with a strategy of tit-for-tat. This can be done within the system, but you have to use the power you have. (BTW, I am still p.o.’d at Jon for defending the comments directed at Puerto Rico as acceptable humor)
trollhattan
Will “institutionalist” become Word of the Year? Have seen it more times in the last three weeks than the entire balance of my lifetime. As a catchall description it lacks something.
Betty
@Michael Cain: It is possible to change Senate with a majority vote.
The Audacity of Krope
I was pissed at him far enough in advance that I was mercifully spared that dubious position.
Baud
@trollhattan:
It’s the new Establishment.
frosty
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree. I agree. A Constitutional Convention with the representation and voting by states (with the current boundaries) would be a disaster. Even our multiply-flawed Constitution as-is would be better.
ETA I see that many other commenters also agree.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: Or “establishment” as viewed by people who support it.
Jeffro
FYI, MAGA has already re-written the Constitution in a hundred different ways by putting their judges in place to destroy the parts they don’t like and invent legal doctrines like ‘originalism’ out of whole cloth, ignoring the norms and common understandings that make it actually function (albeit poorly), and otherwise doing everything they can to turn over the common good to concentrated private wealth.
We had a republic; whether we like it or not, we don’t anymore. So it’s time for folks to choose.
The Audacity of Krope
What if the Constitutional Convention produced two distinct Constitutions and states lined up with one or the other?
Jeffro
This or something very much like it, 110%
Jeffro
How about an amendment that lowers the threshold for passing amendments? Would that help? =)
“WE ONLY HAVE TO DO THIS ONCE, PEOPLE!!” lol
John S.
@Kristine:
The metaphor that jumps out at me is that we live in a house that has serious wood rot.
We can try to apply some cosmetics to the problem, but that certainly won’t fix it. We can decide to wreck the house and rebuild it, but there are so many other issues to deal with there (like you can’t live in a destroyed house).
If we’re going to fix the damage, then it’s going to be very costly and time consuming. We have to make sure not to destroy good wood or remove too much wood rot at a time, or the entire house comes tumbling down. But without successfully tearing out all the rot and replacing it, the house is doomed to collapse.
Sure, we can pretend that it’s not an immediate problem and probably squeeze a few more years out of the house by doing nothing. But left in a state of disrepair, the whole house is coming down one day. It’s just a matter of whose head it falls on and when.
trollhattan
@Baud:
Ah, or as Jill Stein likes to say, The Patriarchy!
Chris
As much as I enjoyed Martin’s post, I think framing this as “the Constitution” isn’t exactly right either. There are a million things Democrats could do once in power that are 100% constitutional, but that they don’t do because of vague “norms” that everyone’s somehow decided to treat as the rule of law. Nowhere in the Constitution is the filibuster required, for example, and it’s been one of the biggest problems grinding away at our ability to govern, and yet removing it is unthinkable. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the Supreme Court can only have nine judges, and the court has currently been packed with people who are taking a blowtorch to both the government and citizens’ rights, yet somehow expanding it is unthinkable. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say we can’t admit DC as a state, which would at least slightly relieve the increasingly intolerable stranglehold red states have on the Senate, and yet admitting it is unthinkable. Etc.
How much of that should be blamed on timidity by the Democrats overall versus the fact that there’s always a convenient critical mass of centrists who will sabotage any attempt to make it work versus a justified fear of backlash from centrists and “liberals” carefully stirred up by the media is hard to say, and also at least a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. But the point is, you don’t even need to go as far as “the Constitution is making it impossible to govern” to see the issue Martin’s talking about. There are any number of “sets of rules that Democrats can’t look past” that are completely self-inflicted and appear nowhere in the Constitution, and yet are treated as completely inviolable, even as the other side has merrily progressed all the way from “if you squint hard enough the Constitution can say whatever you want it to” to “actually, overthrowing the government when you lose an election is true freedom” and “actually when the president does it it’s not illegal.”
Layer8Problem
@The Audacity of Krope: As far as Stewart’s comic stylings are concerned the next administration is going to be wall to wall yocks. And Rally to Restore Sanity 2.0 is sure to be a corker.
The Audacity of Krope
@Jeffro: If working with the existing Constitution, Democrats and other pluralistically minded people could push a good faith version of “states rights.” Simply, here in Massachusetts, I really don’t like the degree to which Alabama can insist we don’t get nice things.
So we push our values, but we don’t try to push them through Federal government programs. Focus in on options that will push more states to do what they can do independently.
And the states that can’t do much on their own can still cooperate with other states and the Federal government can facilitate that. States not inclined to responsibility or cooperation, we know who they are and we know how they’ll fare. At some point it stops being out job to try to save them.
lowtechcyclist
@BubbaDave:
I think you’re right on both points: (a) the only way it could really happen is through secession, and (b) there isn’t any appetite for that.
I’ll add (c) things would have to get pretty damn bad before there was serious talk of secession – like the Army or other state’s National Guards invading blue states to enforce Trump’s will.
I for one hope and pray it doesn’t get anywhere near that bad. I’d rather take my chances with our rickety old Constitution than have this country descend into that sort of nightmare.
Chris
@gene108:
Yep. It’s really hard to see how you get around that.
narya
Count me as AGAINST a constitutional convention. The massive RW money machine has been trying to make this particular fetch happen for awhile, and I don’t trust them at all. The one Weird Trick would be increasing the number of seats in the House; Congress can do that, I think. Obviously we need to be in power to make that happen, but I would honestly make that the first order of business. (Expanding the SCOTUS would be second.) Both of those strategies are well within the current rules, and, in fact, are better interpretations of the rules, IMHO.
Other MJS
@jame:
Same.
BeautifulPlumage
I haven’t read all the comments yet but I so appreciate the many perspectives you are all discussing. I’m still processing the election ramifications and this is sooo good. Thank you all, and MasterMix for bringing this up here.
Frank Wilhoit
Institutions good. THESE institutions bad.
The rest is why.
The Audacity of Krope
I don’t know if even this would be big enough to prompt serious talks of secession, but I’ll be shocked if Trump doesn’t at least try to bring the military to bear against California for resisting his immigration goals.
narya
Also, on a (to me) funnier note, I am loving the MAGAt whining about people leaving Xitter, coming to Bluesky, and promptly getting blocked. No, I do not, in fact, have to “engage” with you; fuck off. As many people smarter than I am have noted, so much of the RW approach relies on fighting with liberals, savoring the fights, but never, of course, engaging in good faith, and just not getting any purchase is driving them a little nuts. Good. And let the mocking commence, too–mock AND block!
lowtechcyclist
@Layer8Problem:
I’m gonna heed the advice of Columbia in Rocky Horror and stay sane inside insanity. :D
AM in NC
@Omnes Omnibus: A ConCon scares the Bejeezus out of me.
Republicans would strip voting rights from 18 year olds, make women permanently second-class citizens, and every Reconstruction Amendment would be undone. It would be Wealthy, White, Christianist, Male rule, forever and ever Amen.
With no separation of powers, because they just LOVE them a strongman.
We have to figure out how to fix things without breaking everything.
Other MJS
A similar take from Chris Murphy:
Lobo
As Chris and I mentioned, it is the customs, norms and decorum that constrain us not the actual rules. It is the fear of chattering class criticism. To paraphrase John Kennedy, we don’t do these things because they are hard, we don’t do them because of appearances.
CaseyL
@BubbaDave:
I think, out of a long list of lousy outcomes, that’s the least lousy. (But I would, since I live in one of those states.)
I also think success depends on how forcefully and doggedly the states in question can and will fight.
I researched the transition team for our incoming Governor, looked for which person was leading the environmental policy section, and wrote to her. I all but begged her to make protecting our state’s environment to be a top priority – up to and including the use of interdiction if Trump’s malign Dept of Interior or Dept of Energy goons show up.
I am open to writing to more of the transition team, asking them to determine NOW how far they’re willing to go, and take steps NOW to enable whatever they decide.
TBone
@H.E.Wolf: 💜
Archon
I have a book title for a constitutional convention in a polarized, 50/50 country.
How to start a civil war in America.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Nukular Biskits:
Two enduring political situations (I can’t think of a better word) that have come from this blog over the years are:
Cleek’s Law
Tire Rims and Anthrax
Nukular Biskits
Example # Eleventybillion of how Republicans could care less about “norms” and institutionalism:
Crooks & Liars: You Don’t Care?’ ABC Host Stunned As GOP Senator Shrugs Off FBI Checks For Trump Picks
beckya57
@Layer8Problem: this is exactly my concern. It’s obvious that the current constitution isn’t working anymore (totally agree with Martin on just about all the points he raises), but these can’t be amended (small red states would stop any attempts), and a ConCon would be highly likely to be weaponized by GOP/oligarchy to lock in permanent minority rule. I don’t have a good answer.
And yes, the Dems absolutely need to break up with the legacy press. After their catastrophic election coverage, they are now busy sanewashing the incoming administration, particularly RFK Jr. Hop over to LGM for gruesome examples.
Nukular Biskits
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I would add one more: Adam Serwer’s “The Cruelty Is the Point”
The Audacity of Krope
@Nukular Biskits: Why was the ABC host stunned? They follow politics professionally. What would be stunning would be a critical mass of Republicans standing up to Trump.
Kathleen
@trollhattan: It’s the new “working class” and “bad Dem messaging”. It’s hard for me to keep up with the latest “How Dems Have Disappointed Me Today” hot takes.
The Audacity of Krope
Fuck LGM. I hope their servers burn.
Nukular Biskits
@The Audacity of Krope:
Good question. Maybe Jonathan Karl couldn’t find a way to bothsides it.
Formica
@tobie: archive.today (which I believe is the same organization as archive.is) has a browser plugin where you can right-click the page and select “search archive.today for page”. It works almost every time, and if they haven’t yet archived the page it gives you the opportunity to do so.
This one even sanitizes links of their tracker data, all the stuff after the ? In a URL.
This is the old reliable one I use. You can trigger it from the toolbar or a right click context menu.
Steve LaBonne
@Kathleen: Murc’s Law is a harsh law, but it must be obeyed.
Nukular Biskits
@Nukular Biskits:
I should have added that I was originally put on to Serwer’s piece by a mention here.
But … yeah.
BeautifulPlumage
@narya:
it is glorious! I know the Russian MAGA types are trying to use block lists to affect things, so please use any list very judiciously now that the whining snowflakes are falling.
Cheez Whiz
So, what exactly is the problem with the Constitution? Why is change (let alone “good” change) impossible? Why are institutions failing us? Because the institution of the Republican party has committed to holding power at all costs, including protecting Trump. The Constitution is completely silent on the concept of political parties, but our 2 parties run our government, and one of them is no longer interested in preserving institutions or the rule of law, only gaming the systems to hold on to power at any cost. They are preparing to gut the civil service,transform DOJ into an instrument of Trump’s revenge, and hand over control of everything under the control of the Executive branch to a gang of unqualified lunatics and grifters, most hellbent on destroying the institutions they will run. This is not a problem fixed by a few Amendments. The Constitution assumes the elites running the government have a vested interest in a stable, functional society, whether a nanny state or libertarian wet dream. This Republican party is not interested in a stable society, but an obedient one. Denial of science and economics, graft on a scale not seen since the late 1800s, a rule of ideology rather than law dedicated to pursuing imaginary threats from powerless minorities, all enabled by a plurality of voters unconcerned with consequences. This is not a recipe for a stable society. I won’t even touch the world order and international relations, its too depressing.
Kathleen
@Steve LaBonne: Biting my keyboard LOL! But I’m a useless “old” who hates “The Youth”.
TBone
Not advocating for against convention. Just sharing.
Courtesy of Mike’s Blog Roundup at crooksandliars. Science is fascinating.
https://news.yale.edu/2024/11/20/thanksgiving-special-dinosaur-drumsticks-and-story-turkey-trot
The Audacity of Krope
Democrats: Democracy is at stake.
Also Democrats: The oldest, whitest, most donor-connected people in our party decided that the person who voters chose as our nominee doesn’t look as good as we’d like on TV, so we’re going to harangue him out of the race.
trollhattan
Anybody wishing to goose their blood pressure can see Digby’s roundup of CBS Trump approval polling. It’s going to be great!
AWOL
@tobie: Webpage archive
The Audacity of Krope
@trollhattan: We can assume a honeymoon period. It was bound to happen. The hangover period is gonna be hell, though, and really show people’s characters.
knittingbull
@tobie:
https://archive.ph
copy and paste the paywalled url into the “My url is alive and I want to archive its content”. most of the time it’s already archives and you can read it (this paywall skip doesn’t include comments) , sometimes you have to wait until it’s loaded if it hasn’t been archived yet (it gives you what # it is in the queue).
This is how i get my FTFNYT recipes and WA Post stuff.
KSinMA
@BellyCat: This!
Starfish
@The Audacity of Krope: No one decided anything. It was institutionalist to be like “oh, no one is going to run in a real primary against our 80 candidate because tradition. Donors get behind our dude.”
And because there was no energy behind that, there was a lot of money and enthusiasm on the side lines.
The Audacity of Krope
@Starfish: No one decided anything.
Wrong. A lot of people made a lot of decisions. Too many people with enough clout to matter decided the wrong thing. What, were we supposed to convince someone to run against their better judgment?
Well, we did that after the primary.
I don’t blame Harris, but Democrats collectively and enthusiastically earned this loss.
ETA: I especially look forward to the spectacle of the most established, canniest members of our party in 2028 insisting that white guy X is the only sensible choice for nominee, on a basis not technically ascribed to race or gender.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Donald Trump’s one attribute that one might call “genius” is his ability to exploit his opponents’ weaknesses. Whether it’s humiliating his rivals and getting them to submit, using the judicial system’s slow pace to evade responsibility, or just outright lying to feed the prejudices of his supporters, he is a master manipulator.
We have to consider our own strengths and weaknesses too, but as for going on the offensive let’s think about our opponents’ weaknesses.
They hate to be laughed at
They are greedy
We are smarter than they are
At the end of Smiley’s People Toby Esterhase says to George Smiley, “be like Karla.” This doesn’t mean become a fanatic or give up all ideals. Rather, accept using your enemy’s weaknesses against him.
What we might take from Trump is his advice, “you have to fight.” Not his way, not to become our own enemy, but playing to our strengths and against his weaknesses: vanity, greed, ignorance.
P.S., losing an election doesn’t prove we’re a minority.
Omnes Omnibus
@Starfish: @The Audacity of Krope: God help us, Krope is right. You can’t force people to run in a primary. If someone had thought they could beat Biden in the primary and win the election, they would have taken their shot.
trollhattan
@The Audacity of Krope: If I squint could kind of see that but only if we had not already endured four fucking years of this moronic incompetent sex pest. “He’ll be different, this time” is not a thing.
The Audacity of Krope
I mean, thanks, but geez…
If you’re following what’s happening and are fairly discerning, sure. But we need a majority…and then some.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Audacity of Krope:
I have to speak my truth.
Layer8Problem
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Well played, sir.
trollhattan
Okay, crazy lady, you be you.
The Audacity of Krope
@Omnes Omnibus: I can dig that.
oldgold
The Senate as currently constituted is a bad joke. The screwing the big blue states are getting is beyond ridiculous in the Senate. Not to mention that for more than 150 years their blue federal tax dollars have been financing the worst of the red states.
The GOP in the late 19th century cynically turned a largely unpopulated territory into 5 half-assed states to offset the solid Democratic Dixie states in the Senate and Electoral College. That balancing scheme has turned beyond rancid with the Dixie states now aligning with the Territory states..
The 5 territory states combined population is slightly over 5 million. They have 10 senators. One of these Territory states, Wyoming, has a population of just 550,000 and a GDP of $40 billion. California has a population of 39,000,000 million and a GDP of $4 trillion. Each of these states has two Senators.
This needs to be fixed.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Translated:
“We’re gonna cut at least $2 trillion in spending on programs we don’t like.”
For example, the IRS was finally being funded at a level to operate like it should after being strangled for decades. Totally expect IRS funding to be gutted.
And at the risk of being a doomer, with control of the House, they can set things up to do this quicker than we’d like to think. I watched Dubya do the exact same thing in 2001. It was called “The President’s Management Agenda” which was orwellian doublespeak for “We want to outsource everything we possibly can”.
And if you think that longtime federal people can slow that down, it doesn’t work that way either because of the Senior Executive Service. Sure, most of them are career people but one thing that happens with every administration change that also involves a change in parties, the SES people who worked for a different party are gone within 2 years (they retire) and are replaced with people far more sympathetic to enacting that administration’s agenda.
I fought back on that process as it pertained to me for years but a lot of my coworkers nationally in the same boat didn’t. They either retired or quit or lateralled into positions they hated. Once we retook the House, Nancy Smash stopped that shit in it’s tracks.
So, we gotta hope it’ll take the Orange Fart Cloud some time to implement this. But they learned a lot the last time around on what it takes and combine that with all the Project 2025 people in high positions, expect this to move along at a speed that would make the Dubya Administration look like a turtle moving. Cuz they realize they only have a 2-year window at worst should we regain the House (or Senate).
Steve LaBonne
@oldgold: Best that can be done is to admit DC and (IF they want it) Puerto Rico as states. The Constitution provides that even an amendment can’t change the equal representation of the states in the Senate.
Starfish
@Omnes Omnibus: No one ran because the party money was behind Biden. And no one wanted to potentially kill their careers by pissing off the party.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
At which point Stewart would simply lead the cries of outrage about how both-side need to turn it down like he’s done in the past.
TBone
@Mr. Bemused Senior: come sit by me
Chris
@Lobo:
It always feels like there’s a whole excluded middle where these conversations keep coming back to “either we keep plodding along ineffectively or we throw the baby out with the bathwater, there are the only choices.”
You look back at all the stuff Republicans pulled in the second half of the nineteenth century back when they were the more liberal party, and it’s like. None of this is even in the same galaxy as the shit the Democrats are pulling in the South at the same time, where they’re literally building fascist regimes before we even had a name for it. At the same time, they learned to play hardball pretty fast: massively reforming the judiciary from top to bottom during the Civil War, adding Republican-leaning states as fast as they could after it, using whatever federal levers they had at any given moment to direct a ton of patronage towards state and local machines to help them stay in office, etc. They didn’t overthrow the system, or abolish it to make a new one, but they did do absolutely everything they could within the system to make sure no money was left on the table.
Today, a shit ton of Democrats seem to genuinely think that there’s something corrupt, or shady, or at least unseemly, about a political faction doing anything that helps itself stay in office. I honestly don’t know if the problem is worse among public officials or voters, but either way the problem remains.
The Audacity of Krope
@Starfish: Well, once the voting was done, they should have stood by the voters no matter what the circumstances of the primary were.
Also, we need to get out of the habit of playing ball with narratives we know to be false. Biden was an effective President. 90 percent of the Democrats who found their way in front of microphones this year managed to forget that profoundly salient fact.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Chris:
IOKIYR
oldgold
@Steve LaBonne: Yes, Article 5 of the Constitution is a steep hill to climb, but not insurmountable; particularly, if a few states like California start playing extreme hardball.
Ohio Mom
@RaflW: Oh no! I’m petrified of a Constitutional Convention. All the times I’ve heard a yearning for one (prior to your comment), it’s from some Right-winger who thinks we need a balanced budget amendment and term limits.
I don’t think I have to elaborate here about what a balanced budget requirement would do to us. When it comes to term limits for executives I agnostic but absolutely against them for Senators and Representatives.
I’ve watched the governance of the City of Cincinnati devolve into silliness and chaos ever since term limits were instituted for City Council. For one thing, Council as a whole lost institutional memory since it’s members can’t stay long enough to acquire much depth of knowledge.
For another, the pool of great council members turns out to be rather small. When term limits were put in place, we lost a core group of well-seasoned, judicious council members who knew how to work together. Nowadays, if there is a new standout, they can’t be rewarded with continued reelection past the few terms they are allowed.
And how did Cincinnati end up with term limits — it was an effort put forth by a conservative group. Because they hate successful cities.
Right-wingers probably have other awful things they want to do to the Constution that I haven’t heard about. As much as I’d like to see things like the end of the Electoral College and gerrymandering, voting rights and the like, it’s too big a risk to allow the Constitution to be updated.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: Somewhere along the line, a lot of people on the left decided that old maxim that power corrupts meant that anyone seeking or wielding power had sold out. Old hippie and/or punk rock ethos? Black and white thinking? IDK.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
On own our side this last election; Biden was too old, Harris had a harsh giggle, Newsom hair was too well groomed, Buttigieg as too happily married and so on.
I think we need at lest two years of 24/7 of that orange face jackass to remind our own voters that the president isn’t their personal friend.
Geminid
@oldgold: Might want to combine Vermont and Maine also. Vermont has only 100,000 people more than residents than Wyoming. Maybe fold Rhode Island into Connecticutt while we’re at it, and combine the District of Columbia with Maryland.
The Audacity of Krope
@Geminid: This new state you suggest is going to have a New Hampshire weirdly situated in the middle of it.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Audacity of Krope: And combining VT and NH would be ignoring history.
ETA: Sometimes we need to live with things that don’t seem logical.
The Truffle
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: The upside is that these people are turning on each other already. And make no mistake—they love big government. What do you call mass deportations?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Geminid:
https://statehood.dc.gov/page/faq
Scroll down to various answers on the issue of retrocession.
Basically, neither VA nor MD want DC and the DC voters voted in 2016 86% for statehood, not going back to either state.
The Audacity of Krope
Boy howdy, ain’t that the truth?
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Newsom’s personal presentation is only my preferred reason to criticize him, but there’s still plenty in the political sphere.
oldgold
Getting rid of the Senate and Electoral College might be a good start.
Geminid
@The Audacity of Krope: Darn! Maybe we can combine all three states. Call it Yankeevania. That would provide some redress to Californians. It mght not change the partisan balance of power in the Senate to our favor, but we’re talking principle here.
Lobo
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Sometimes it’s just picking your villain. It has often been the choice faced by many marginalized groups.
The Audacity of Krope
I love principle. Principle is a great reason to make a decision. I’m less a fan of unequally applying principles so that the unscrupulous can take advantage. So, sure, let’s do it; just as soon as we reunite the Louisiana Purchase into one state.
See also, efforts to stop gerrymandering in general vs. efforts to stop gerrymandering in only Massachusetts. I ain’t looking to unilaterally disarm.
ETA: Also, I have a personal reason to reject your plan. I’ve never been to Vermont. This allows me to continue believing fairies and unicorns live there. This gets harder if I’ve been to Yankeevania, even the non-Vermont part.
brantl
A big part of what’s been killing all progress is the fillibuster, not the constitution. The fillibuster is agreed to in Senate Rules, not the constitution. You need to get a 51% vote that the fillibuster is to be changed, and that’s what it takes. Can we get that? I don’t know if we can or not, but let’s at least understand what we’re talking about, and not argue over unnecessary things. The “blue slip”? Another Senate rule, not part of the constitution.
The things that Tommy TubbyHead was doing? Not leveraged by the constitution, only Senate Rules. Change the rules. Period.
The Audacity of Krope
Maybe now is the time to push for this. Democrats opposed to the filibuster should consider this an opportunity. Sure, it will enable them to do more harm in the short term, but then it won’t be holding us back should we ever regain power.
The filibuster insulating us from change is insulating the public from seeing the consequences of their votes. Once it’s gone, it seems unlikely to come back. Again, now may be the time.
Geminid
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I know. I’m being sarcastic here. These various structural reforms seem to me so unlikely that they are just distractions; coffee table talk.
In the short and medium term, we have to “run the machine as [we] find it,” as 19th century politician Abraham Lincoln put it. We have to win tough elections fought on the battlefield that exists. Only then will we have the ability to effect structural reforms.
Lyrebird
@Lobo: I really appreciate your comment, though I might disagree on how much we are ever going to know about what Garland thinks, because I don’t know whether Marshall talked about “but MVP is too establishment” as an echo of disrespecting other Black women in leadership positions in the Dem. party.
Civil rights and EEO laws are more often followed in government jobs and government funded institutions like higher ed. Sojourner Truth herself used some of those institutional conventions to get her freedom. Obvs at the same time people were being kept in bondage.
I don’t have any big answers.
I don’t think a new Constitution is going to prevent disinformation campaigns from distorting people’s views, but maybe that is lack of imagination on my part.
Geminid
@The Audacity of Krope: Personally, I think we should recombine the Northwest Territories with Virginia. Maybe make Richmond the summer capital and Chicago the summer capital. We only let those states go because Thomas Jefferson wanted to. And don’t get me started on Mr. Jefferson!
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus:
CSN – Long Time Gone
That version has different lyrics than I remember which went (something like):
No don’t try to get yourself elected
’cause if you do you won’t hear what the people say
I guess they got some grief later for that…
Best wishes,
Scott.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Geminid:
Heh heh, agreed.
I do like the Yankeevania idea tho. :)
tam1MI
Democrat Politician: “I’ll stand up for you! I’ll fight for you!”
(As they refuse to stand up or fight for their own goddamn President).
The Audacity of Krope
@tam1MI: This too.
CaseyL
@tam1MI:
Exactly. Over and over again.
frosty
@Cheez Whiz: Good perspective. The problem isn’t the Constitution, it’s the current iteration of the Republican Party.
Although I agree that there are too many uninhabited Red / Rural states, making the Senate very undemocratic and unfixable.
Steve LaBonne
@oldgold: Please game out for me how it could be circumvented without a convention and a whole new constitution.
different-church-lady
@MagdaInBlack: And let’s not forget greed.
Geminid
@The Audacity of Krope: I am ambivalent about gerrymandering. I voted for the constitutional amendment that created a Redisticting Commission in place of leaving Virginia’s General Assembly in charge of redistricting. It had to pass twice, in 2019 and 2021.
The first time, a broad bipartisan General Assembly majority put it on the ballot. The second time, Democrats held both houses and we had a fight because some Democrats wanted to gerrymander the state in our favor. Senator Lucas and others said no, we should do what we said we would two years ago, and a smaller majority put it on the ballot.
The measure passed 2 to 1. The Redistricting Committee deadlocked which was predictable because of how it was structured. Then Virginia’s Supreme Court appointed two special masters and they drew Congressional and General Assembly maps.
The 2022 midterms produce 6 Democratic Reps and 5 Republicans. We could have ensured a 7-4 Democratic majority but I’m not crying about that spilt milk. We can flip the 2nd CD this decade.
But I was happy to see Illinois Dems gerrymander the crap out of their state. They wanted to give WaterGirl a Democratic Representative and she got the formidable Nikki Budzinski. That district runs one or two counties wide from East St. Louis through Springfield all the way to Champaign County. A rural Republican district surrounds it on three sides. I thought it was perfect but like I say, I am ambivalent about gerrymandering.
New Mexico Democrats had a simpler task. They had two Democratic Representatives and one Republican representing the the state’s southern half. All they had to do was push Roswell into the district to the north and push southern Albuquerque precincts south. Easy peasy! Rep. Gabe Vasquez has won NM02 twice and I expect he’ll hang on to it.
different-church-lady
Look, when a majority votes for a known racist/convict/sex molester as leader of the free world the problem isn’t The Constitution.
Edit: plurality, but my point stands.
Geminid
@different-church-lady: You are not overthinking this enough.
The Audacity of Krope
@different-church-lady: The problem may not be the Constitution; but changing it or reconsidering the nature of our union may be worthwhile if it will protect us from the whims of these racist, misogynist, irresponsible, etc. degenerates and stop us having to subsidize their wicked lifestyles.
different-church-lady
@Geminid: I’m pretty sure I’ve never been accused of that before.
different-church-lady
@trollhattan: He’s told everyone he’s going to be worse.
The Audacity of Krope
@The Audacity of Krope: I forgot “abusive.”
UncleEbeneezer
@Steve LaBonne: You sound like an Institutionalist!
MagdaInBlack
@different-church-lady: Oh god! Thank you!
Steve LaBonne
@UncleEbeneezer: No doubt there are people who think I should be institutionalized. ;)
Wapiti
Under the Articles of Confederation, amending the Articles required unanimous agreement by all 13 states. But the process for ratifying the Constitution required ratification by only 9 states (any 9 would represent a majority of the population at the time).
So a new charter document does not need to follow the procedures set out in the old broken document.
Miss Bianca
@tam1MI: yeah, this.
MagdaInBlack
@different-church-lady: Silly of me, thanks for catching that 😉
hrprogressive
The problem IMO is 2-fold;
1) The Fascist GOP can very succinctly say “Gubmint is broken!” and a lot of low information voters believe it, because they don’t see the feds helping *them* out, just billionaires and corporations. But the the problem is it is almost always The Republican Party who has broken the government and of course, they never admit to this self-fulfilling prophecy, and voters never ask.
2) The Democratic Party essentially believes the federal government can and should do good things, but in a “no, not like that” sort of mentality. This puts them in a position where they have to simultaneously “defend the institution” while also saying “the institution as it currently exists and functions isn’t great, so we need to fix it, but, at a high level, the administrative state is good, vote for us so we can show you.
Unfortunately for #2, not only does it sound “used car salesman-y” to the Low Information Voter™️, again, a lot of people see even the Democrats cozied up to big moneyed interests and breaking bread with Wall Street and donors and even the Republicans they just ran against…and as demonstrated in this cycle, a lot of people who are struggling decided to say “eh, nah, nothing in it for me”.
Is there a coherent message that can be made here? Sure.
But
Democrats need to not only message it, but frankly, believe in it and I gotta be honest, watching Democratic “leadership” seek the bipartisan unicorn with the Fascist GOP doesn’t give me much hope that they even care, much less believe in it.
There’s a meme image floating around that goes like this:
Working People: Can we get a break?
GOP: No
DEM: No #BLM 🏳️🌈 ❤️
And the thing is, there’s a giant, uncomfortable kernel of truth there.
But yet people get yelled at to “Vote Blue, No Matter Who!!!!!” because “The GOP is worse!!!”
But for so, so, so many people – there is functionally, at a “making ends meet”, visceral level, no substantial difference between the two parties on a macro level.
That’s not what a lot of people here or in other spaces want to hear, but I promise you it’s true. It’s not just a xhitter Russian psyop.
Aziz, light!
As in Question Authority bumper stickers (aka both parties are the same).
YY_Sima Qian
Glad to see Martin’s comment front paged.
I will repost my agreement from the previous thread (after it was mostly dead):
@Martin: Agree w/ everything you wrote at #269. Not sure how to get a new Constitution w/o some kind of civil war w/ lots of violence, though.
I would add that similar pathologies afflict establishment Dems’ approach to foreign policy, only the “institutions” they are protecting is the even more abstract (& much more recent) “[US led] liberal/rules based international order” (compared to the US Constitution), which is really mostly a euphemism for US global primacy. They really can no longer relate the US to the rest of the world in any other framework, & indeed cannot conceive of any framework for international relations other than US primacy or primacy by the US’ adversaries/competitors.
Establishment Dems need to completely rethink their foreign policy concept, too. I caught a snippet (at 43 min) of Ben Rhodes saying the very same on Pod Save the World(not that I have been overly impressed by the ObamaBros since 2016).
Alex Wong has just been named Principal Deputy NSA for Asia for the incoming Trump Administration. The guy worked in GWB’s State Dept., worked as a staffer on the Romney 2012 campaign, then as a FP staffer for Tom Cotton, & finally as DAS for NE Asia in Trump’s State Dept. during the latter’s 1st term. He was instrumental in the fiasco w/ Kim the 3rd (both the farcical dealmaking & the mutually reinforcing saber rattling that brought the Korean Peninsula uncomfortably close to a shooting war).
In 2023, he argued in a publication for the Hudson Institute (one of the dens for militarists) that even a new Cold War (a la w/ the USSR, which still managed to kill tens of millions around the world) is unrealistic & naive wrt the PRC, that the US really needs to gear up to fight a world war against the PRC & allies (a la WW II):
I imagine even Taiwan under a pro-Independence government will find such rhetoric frightening.
Here is Rush Doshi, recently of Biden’s NSC & one of the architects of Biden’s PRC policy, applauding the appointment:
I guess fraternity in the elite FP club matters more than good policy & good outcomes (like, avoiding high intensity warfare between nuclear armed superpowers).
stinger
@BubbaDave:
Gotta love these threats of secession.
a. We tried that while back, with the shithole states being the secessionists; didn’t work. Don’t care to learn from history? How about geography?
b. How would East Coast USians get over to the West Coast without crossing shithole territory?
c. Look at a map of the states with US military installations.
d. Look at a map of US nuclear weapons locations.
Still think the “major states” would win a civil war?
The Audacity of Krope
@Geminid: I think as long as gerrymandering is standard practice, we need to participate to protect the very real interests of our citizens. But that also means watching that our own pols don’t use their partisanly safe position to coast or grift.
YY_Sima Qian
@YY_Sima Qian: Addendum: The reason I keep harping on FP in the current moment (aside from the fact that I follow it more closely), even though it is indeed largely less relevant in the narrow scope of electoral politics, is that FP & DP are intricately linked. Domestic pathologies find expression in FP (such as the obvious White Supremacy that dominated the U.S.’ colonial expansion to the Pacific & imperial expansion in the Caribbean, or the Neocolonial domination of the Global South post-WW II), & pathologies in FP feed domestic paranoia (such as suppression of dissent & expansion of the natsec state during the Cold War 1.0 & the GWOT, & the militarization of LE during the GWOT) that in turn makes for fertile soil for nativism & authoritarianism to thrive. Singleminded pursuit of primacy abroad is incompatible w/ liberal democracy at home, or advancing the interests of the working class.
Time for the establishment Dems to get that into their heads.
Martin
Ugh. I’ve been cooking all day. Finally have a moment to sit down.
@Omnes Omnibus: This is a very valid observation. There is a risk in doing this – it may not turn out as you want. That said, much of my thesis is that the heart of institutionalism is fear of change – which is a VERY small-c conservative instinct. Democrats cannot be as afraid of changing the institutions as republicans are of changing society, because they are self-reinforcing. Cultural change is resisted by institutions, because they are the slowest to adapt. That’s the whole fucking point of the GOP packing USSC. Even if we get the cultural change we want, it’ll be decades before those revanchist fossils die off and they can fight the cultural change from there (as they have successfully done). I agree that this is all taking marginalized communities along for a ride possibly against their will, but then they aren’t exactly in a position to lead on this because, well, they’re marginalized. I don’t think it’s possible to actually escape that particular trap.
And to be clear, I’m not suggesting we fire up ye old Constitution shredder tomorrow. I’m suggesting that Democrats start to talk in that direction, campaign in the direction of institutional reform opening the door to constitutional reform, and see if their base are on board. So far, they’ve been in full institutional protection mode, even when the institutions are pretty shit. And I think there’s space to say ‘yo, this isn’t working great. We support its intent, but we need a better mechanism’. Democrats do that in some places, but nobody is doing that in the big spaces – particularly the stuff around the economy, the role of the government in keeping capitalism in check such that we now have the richest man on earth serving as a kind of shadow president.
Martin
I would throw Hank Green’s video in the mix of this discussion by the way.
Populism, Media Revolutions, and Our Terrible Moment
It’s more in line with Josh’s essay than mine, but speaks to at least some of the same issues, mainly that we’re in the wake of a communications revolution (internet and social media) that is allowing misinformation to spread, in part because government is too maladapted to counter RFK bullshit on Joe Rogan because government doesn’t operate in that space (Mayor Pete does more than most, and he’s just one guy). In previous media revolutions, the government could regulate the problems away – rules on speech over airwaves, the fairness doctrine, shit like that. But the internet doesn’t have a chokepoint for the government to regulate, it has no choice but to engage with bad faith speech where that speech happens, and government is not adapted to that task, and this is a problem no existing government has ever faced, because the previous media revolutions succeeded in overthrowing the governments of the time. The US is an example of that if you consider the pamphlet era of colonial politics to being instrumental in the organization of a rebellion against the British monarch. That was one the English government was not equipped to fight. And I think there’s insufficient imagination out there that the consequence of not having government adapt to the moment could be a revolution that does it by force. Certainly that’s not the moment we are in, but we are definitely inching toward it. Look at what Jan 6 was, and how it was organized. Trump allies casting the transition as a ‘hostile takeover of the federal government’. We can try and wave these away as excited rhetoric, but I think that’s risky. If we get a violent reworking of the constitution, we’re going to wish we had first tried a controlled reworking of it.
Martin
Ok, but I’m proposing a process that the Democrats lead, because the Democrats are the ones making the case for the reforms. Radical conservatives are already laying out their plans to do what you fear by ignoring the rule of law and forcing these things through without Democrats involved. I would argue that is the more likely trajectory now for any kind of constitutional reform, and I would argue the GOP is much closer to it than the Democrats are. I would argue that the way you protect these marginalized communities is to step in and take that pressure off now, rather than wait until it gets out of control. Remember, abortion is politically popular in this country. Trump didn’t win that issue. Most Americans want to protect trans rights. It’s a good issue for the right to motivate a certain kind of voter, just as opposition to gay marriage was 20 years ago, but we can see what happened on the gay marriage issue in the end.
If you have a controlled reform process, everyone will get a voice. If you have an uncontrolled reform process, only the extremists leading the revolt get a voice.
Chris
@oldgold:
I missed this earlier this afternoon. But speaking of that “Republicans learned to play hardball pretty fast back when they were the more liberal party,” this is a case in point:
I don’t think it was especially cynical. I think it was an extremely practical decision, based on the following equation:
1) “Democrats are currently turning their home turf in the South into a set of one-party states ruled through terror in which Republicans will never be allowed to win no matter how many people vote for them.”
2) “We are not willing to mirror-image this by turning our home turf in the North into an equivalent set of regimes ruled through terror, nor do we think our people would put up with it if we tried.”
3) “Our people are also not willing to sustain the kind of effort that it would take to break the rule-through-terror model in the South, partly because they’re tired of war and partly because they’re too racist to care about the blacks who are the main ones directly affected.”
4) “The problem is, this leaves us in a world where the Democrats are free to compete on our home turf while we’re incapable of competing on theirs, which is pretty quickly going to turn into a one-way ratchet that allows them to entrench themselves in Washington and ultimately is going to take us right back to where we were in the 1850s. I don’t think that’s what any of us got into politics for.”
Adding some new low-population states to the Union is the solution they arrived at. I’d very much like to see more liberals today playing that sort of hardball, especially when confronted with the same kind of enemy.
Martin
@The Audacity of Krope: That’s always a possibility. It was not a given that the colonies would sign on in the first place. Slavery was preserved in the current constitution as an effort to get some on board.
RevRick
@MagdaInBlack: You’re on my turf now since that’s the promise of the Gospel. And the Church has done such a fabulous job in the past 2,000 years….
Wait, I’ll come in again…
The apostle Paul in his letter to the Galatians (3:28) asserted that “there is no Jew or Greek, no slave or free, no male and female”.
Yet, here we are because the ideological presuppositions of the world are passed down from generation to generation.
RevRick
@Omnes Omnibus: The constraints of our Constitution are terrible and have put us in an awful predicament. The solution of playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun (Constitutional Convention) just doesn’t work.
Chip Daniels
The Roberts court has shown us why we don’t need a Constitutional Convention.
The Constitution is pretty much whatever anyone says it is.
Is there a personal right to a firearm?
*spins the wheel*
5 Justices say….NO! It is a collective right!
Is there a right to personal bodily autonomy?
*Spins the wheel*
5 Justices say…YES! Abortion and gender transition is protected!
Etc.
Martin
@hrprogressive: You’re leaving out the largest pool of voters – those that generally argue that the parties are the same. (Tell me if you’ve heard that before). This also usually includes the entire left-of-center population.
I’ll note here that in the entire discussion upthread that I’ve seen, the focus is on civil rights. My entire thesis is centered on capitalism as I thought we had previously identified peoples view of the economy (whether they were correct or not) as more instrumental to the outcome of this election than their views on civil rights. And this is the criticism from those on the left – that Democrats will always refuse to engage with the problem of capitalism because Democrats that call the shots benefit from the system of capitalism.
Remember, slavery was not instituted because the Bible said so. It was instituted because a group of people with power, who happened to all be white, wanted free labor and created an institution of ownership of black people. In the process of doing that they invented the concept of ‘white people’ and then backed the Bible and whatever they could find at hand into the problem to justify it. The entire civil rights struggle regarding race in this country originated with economics. And while I never got my Barbie essay done, one of observations in it was that the Barbie essay never engaged with the role of capitalism in holding women back, due to the fact that the movie couldn’t be made except as a vehicle to help Mattel sell more shit. Mattel could tolerate a critique of patriarchy in the film but wouldn’t abide by any critique of capitalism. So it has one foot in the feminism pool and one foot firmly outside of it.
I don’t know that these fights for civil rights are winnable while capitalism runs rampant. Maybe. But I also don’t see why we wouldn’t just continue to marginalize people with disabilities because they have more limited ability to provide economic work, or why education won’t continue to be shaped as a factory to train future workers, and so on.
I take the concerns around civil rights but I think constantly cleaving them off as the only thing worth focusing on while leaving the rest of the problem – which, notably, is a contributing cause to the civil rights problem you are trying to solve – is a losing approach. And if you want to know why ‘wokeness’ caught on with much of the population, I think it’s that very dynamic – a view that the Democratic Party was more interested in solving the problems of the trans community at the expense of solving economic problems for people not in the trans community. I’m not calling on people to abandon the cause, merely to walk and chew gum at the same time and recognize that the way to solve some of the former problems may lie in solving the latter ones.
To return to the plot – the US is an experiment of two ideas: capitalism to remove the economic power from the previous holders – the monarchy, and democracy to ensure that the public called the shots on the limits of capitalism (among other things). My thesis is that this scale that was supposed to be balanced is no longer balanced. That capitalism is making a mockery of democracy and that even in issues that are purely related to civil rights, the people have lost control because billionaires can buy legislative access, they can wage campaigns to turn the public against marginalized communities (my god, Musk buying X has been most effective in its anti-trans campaign because Musk lost his fucking mind when his trans daughter disowned him – nothing is more central to the anti-trans movement than Musks purchase of a media platform). If the public want their voice to address civil rights, they have to figure out how to rein in capitalism, and I don’t think that’s possible without constitutional reform.
Martin
@stinger: I don’t think secession is a productive direction. I don’t rule out that the product of an effort to reform the constitution might result in a national divorce though.
Martin
@Chip Daniels: You are supposing that is a stable system. I would argue that when you get 100 million voices on social media challenging it, you have a real risk of USSC becoming completely delegitimized. I would also note that both Dems and GOP are advocating for USSC to become delegitimized, albeit in different ways. That alone is as large a breakdown of the constitutional order as I’m advocating for.
Institutions only have power if we choose to defer authority to them, or if that power is backed by violence. If you lose that, the presence of the institution becomes a source for dissent rather than for cohesion. You’re better off with it gone then. My concern is that a continual erosion of these institutions won’t produce a constitutional reform but a system where the constitution is irrelevant. That’s unquestionably worse. Jan 6 was an example of that. It’s a small example, but it’s also one that Trump and the GOP broadly are reinforcing. Their election denial is similar. If one party sees the election as invalid, it doesn’t matter if the other side sees it as valid – it’s no longer valid. The only way to defend the outcome then is through violence.
Gloria DryGarden
Brazil has had lots of constitution rewrites and new constitutions. I’m not impressed:
The results and changes from the different constitutions there, don’t impress me. I didn’t go very in depth, I just read about how it affected the Amazon as a kingpin of climate stability, planetary oxygen sourcing, and indigenous reserves,
vs the Amazon as a place to develop for economic purposes and resource exploitation, to the utter detriment of those aforementioned purposes.
Who would I need to trust to hire good advisors and to write a constitution that has some higher good for all worked into it? How many of said trusted persons would it take…
PIGL
@BubbaDave: I think something like this is inevitable at this point…. And not in the distant future.
The only thing that could prevent it at this point would be a fairytale. Like President Biden, declaring a state of emergency, imposing martial law, taking some extremely draconian measures and declaring the second republic.
I understand the attachments to existing forms and the danger of undertaking to change them; but at some point, you have to realize you can’t get there from here. What cannot be sustained will not continue. Every state that’s ever existed probably thought that it would last forever. Remarkably a few of them have.
PIGL
@gene108: have nothing to add to what you wrote except that I think it’s absolutely correct
Gloria DryGarden
@Gloria DryGarden: part two
Seems like the folks in power, behind the weird elected persons and their incompetent nominees, have all been angling for this power takeover for 40+ years, iirc… as best I understand it.
it’s hard to feel good about rewriting things altogether in the midst of potential dismantling, potential sharia law, potential deporting and interning of all inconvenient people,
in a way that reminds one of the history books: Stalin/ Siberia, hitler/ death camps, the inquisition/ torture confessions. Lots of other places and genocides and mass oppressions I barely know about.
I don’t know what to think,
if the folks writing a new constitution are thinking only about the people at the top of the pyramid, the masters, who own most of the wealth, are mostly white, and maintain their lifestyles off our labor, tax dollars, and human military workers ..
The privileges of living in a superpower country, might change pretty drastically as power shifts around, as economies and human choices change. On the world stage, I ask myself if the USA has been a bully, or done good and been protective, overall, and how to weigh these things.
It’s awkward to want to uphold institutions, while also seeing there are issues and things to distrust, about them. It makes debates and conversations w conservatives tricky.
Apologies for simplistic remedial basic understanding of these matters.
Gloria DryGarden
@gene108: No institution, business, organization, or government can successfully function when a large powerful group within it are determined to operate in bad faith for their personal benefit, yet here we are.
I find this summary useful. Even if upsetting. I do wish for a fairytale. Meanwhile, there’s realism, and so many unknowns,for how things might unfold.
if the metaphor is guardrails, I live near mountains, I’ve seen all the places a vehicle can lose control and crash, tumbling down. I’ve seem crushed guardrails, cars way down the mountainside, cars in the ditch.. the damage varies, as does the weather. There are a lot of variables, a lot of paths forward that go in different ways.
y’all’s Discourse helps me get a clearer view of it.
Martin
Right wing influences like Tim Pool get paid by conservative political outlets. The left has no similar mechanism. One reason for this is the criticism from the left is almost exclusively anti-capitalist either in its goal or as a waypoint to criticizing Israel, etc. and the people with money don’t want to fund campaigns criticizing their money.
On election night major media outlets were noting the success of right wing influences by noting their audience sizes – 5 million for Tim Pool, etc. Hasan Piker best as I can tell had nearly double that, and nobody was noting the size of the population on the left, that absence indicating a lack of support.
We now have Musk joking he’ll buy MSNBC and give Maddow’s job to Joe Rogan, which is completely possible. It would cost Musk less money than he’s earned just since the election. So why not?
This is not a problem of lack of ideas, or even lack of access. There’s no shortage of equivalents to those right wing influencers. But they lack funding, and they lack amplification. And the Democratic Party is not only unwilling to participate in solving that problem, they won’t even permit democratic politicians show up on their shows.
Nothing on this front is changing, and nobody is advocating for it to change. Corporate media is going to yield to Trumps threats. It’s lost. Democrats need to build something to replace it.
Martin
@Gloria DryGarden: sometimes the solution isn’t to build more guardrails. Sometimes it’s to build a train. Sometimes it’s to take a different road.
The original grapevine, US-99, the Golden State Highway, the road that connected LA to the Central Valley still exists, effectively abandoned and unused in favor of the new I-5 which is better engineered and safer. CA designed the K-rail to keep cars from going over the edge, but the problem wasn’t that the K-rails were badly designed (we still use them) it was that the road was inherently dangerous. It couldn’t be patched, it had to be re-thought.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@trollhattan: Of course, they are gunning for NPR. It’s the only thing on the radio in large parts of rural America that isn’t either music or GOP propaganda.
Bryn
I think back to high school, and all the people outside my social circle…. That was a lot of people, and most of them weren’t very good at school. And they all get to vote. And the very important principles I thought we learned in civics about freedom of religion and expression, due process, liberty and equality…. For a lot of people, that was just another class they weren’t very good in. We’re not dealing with people who have a shared understanding of how this country is supposed to work – not because they deliberately ignore it, but because they weren’t paying attention in that class.