Bifurcated democracy

By Carl 

This was an interesting op-ed in yesterday's New York Times:

OUR nation isn't facing just a debt crisis; it's facing a democracy crisis. For weeks, the federal government has been hurtling toward two unsavory options: a crippling default brought on by Congressional gridlock, or — as key Democrats have advocated — a unilateral increase in the debt ceiling by an unchecked president. Even if the last-minute deal announced on Sunday night holds together, it’s become clear that the balance at the heart of the Constitution is under threat.

The debate has threatened to play out as a destructive but all too familiar two-step, revealing how dysfunctional the relationship between Congress and the president has become. 

The article talks about how presidents have decided to exercise power unilaterally, like Obama's Libyan adventures (although the practice goes back decades to Reagan and even Nixon,) while the Congress has been unable to rally itself to challenge the President's usurpation of power. Either the Congress is divided (like now) or reinforces the person holding the Oval Office (as under Bush the Younger).

This is what the punditry tells us we want, over and over again: divided government. Given what we've experienced for over three decades now (absent the six years of Bush the Younger) is this really what we want? An ineffectual Congress hamstrung by the tyranny of the minority and a Presidency who usurps power like a king?

Mind you, none of this is partisan: Republicans and Democrats have been to blame in BOTH branches. Clinton was forced to legislate by executive order, much as Obama is. Both Bushes declared wars without making a firm case to the American people as to the need for them (this wasn't dominoes toppling or any such credible threat.) Reagan tossed American troops around like candy and American armaments to enemies.

In Congress, John Boehner can't even get a centerpiece of legislation passed trying to keep the party's dog-and-pony show from tearing each other up. When Pelosi was in charge, she had to placate Blue Dog Democrats, rather than muscle them into line.

Hell, about the only thing any Congress since 1990 has been able to agree upon is that Bill Clinton needed to be impeached and a bunch of Asian deserts bombed!

This has effectively emasculated an entire branch of government. Power seeks a vacuum. It's almost understandable that the president would unilaterally legislate.

Plus, members of Congress don't have to take a stand on anything controversial. Take the EPA actions earlier this year to regulate greenhouse gases. Now, long time readers of this blog know there are few people more concerned with global climate change than me. Maybe Al Gore. So while I don't have a problem with Obama taking the bull by the fumes... so to speak... I worry about the fact that Congress didn't vote on this.

Note: it wasn't voted down. The bill stalled before a vote could be taken. It's probably still in the hamper, waiting to be aired out. Look at what this saves Republicans from, say, Montana, where people believe climate change is real and a problem. The party would insist they vote against the EPA actions. Their constituencies would say "We need a better Congresscritter." No responsibility, yet they can parade around touting how angry they are that they didn't get their say.

The more a controversial issue remains undecided, and the more critical that issue becomes, the less likely it is Congress will ever actually take action. And the more likely it is they will cede that issue to the Executive branch. Fine for a liberal like me when a semi-liberal like Obama is in charge, but what happens when another Dumbya hits the Oval Office? One a little more clever?

Congress will still feel this is expedient.

But it is unhealthy. It is unhealthy for an economy, it is unhealthy for a Constitution and it is deep unhealthy for a society and its people.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

A Republican Party too conservative for Ronald Reagan

By Richard K. Barry

You may have seen this, but I need to post it to help myself stay sane, if it's not already too late.

The House Democratic Caucus has released a new video in order to encourage Congress to do the right thing on the debt ceiling. It is hardly what one would expect, given the source, or maybe it tells us all we need to know about how insane the current crop of Republicans really are.

It's a 1987 radio address by Ronald Reagan in which he raised the concern that "Congress consistently brings the Government to the edge of default before facing its responsibility."

As Steve Benen writes:

The point of the video, of course, is to drive home the point that [the Republican Party] is no longer the party of Reagan. Indeed, Republicans in 2011 recognize the Reagan legacy and deliberately reject it. These are folks who claim to have a religious-like reverence for "Ronaldus Magnus," but have no use for his style of governance.

I'm not even sure what I want to say about this other than the fact that one of the most conservative politicians of my lifetime is far too moderate for what has become of the Republican Party, and that should scare the hell out of all of us.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

If Republicans are looking for another Ronald Reagan, perhaps they should look no further than Barack Obama

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Steve Benen, as many others have, makes the connection. Basically, Obama is very much in the mold of Reagan, policy-wise, particularly with respect to taxes and the economy (though also, I would add, with respect to foreign policy):

Mike Huckabee recently said, "Ronald Reagan would have a very difficult, if not impossible, time being nominated in this atmosphere of the Republican Party." Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had a nearly identical take last year, arguing Reagan "would have a hard time getting elected as a Republican today."

I agree, but what does that tell contemporary GOP officials? What should Republicans take away from the fact that, by 2011 standards, their party would dismiss their demigod as a tax-raising, amnesty-loving, pro-bailout, cut-and-run, big-government Democrat?

Or more to the point, doesn't it bother Republicans, just a little, that Barack Obama is more in line with the Reagan legacy than they are?

Given their utter lack of self-awareness, I doubt it does. Besides, their hagiography of Reagan is based largely on myth, on what they think Reagan was all about. Which is to say, they generally project themselves and their agenda onto Reagan and then revere him. It's not clear if they would revere the real Reagan, but probably not. After all, with their increasingly extremist ideology, they make him look like something of a moderate. 

So, yes, Obama is a lot like Reagan. But let's not overstate it. In terms of policy, Obama is very much a centrist who would have sought compromise with Reagan, just as he continues to seek compromise with Republicans (even if they clearly have no interest in compromise). And there would undoubtedly have been room for agreement between the two. (Who knows, Reagan may have supported Obama's health-care reform, not to mention the stimulus and bailouts, and may also have supported Obama's diplomatic-hawkish foreign/military policy. Surely Reagan would have agreed with Obama's conduct of the "war on terror," not to mention the Afghan War.)

But of course Obama is progressive in ways that Reagan never was. They may be somewhat similar in policy terms, but they are vastly different in style, image, and temperament, not to mention in broader historical terms. Both men can inspire, but Obama is more of a technocrat than Reagan ever was. And even if we grant that Obama is generally progressive, his policies are centrist and generally dismissive of progressivism, while Reagan was a movement conservative who played to the right and united the Republican Party as a party of ideological conservatism (even as his own policies often reflected a more conciliatory approach to politics, much like Obama's do).

Anyway, the point, I suppose, is that the Republican Party is really no longer the party of Reagan. As with so much else, Republicans can't grasp that basic reality.

So is Sarah Palin running, or what?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Times looks at recent developments that suggest maybe. The purchase of a new home in Arizona. A new hagiographic movie about Palin that is set to be rolled out in Iowa. Ongoing enthusiasm "beyond the Beltway" among her supporters.

The GOP establishment, and particularly those Republicans still with a trace of sanity (and a hope of winning), are clearly against her, but sanity is in short supply out there:

"All indications are that she will be in -- her supporters have an intuition about it," said Jeff Jorgensen, chairman of the Republican Party of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, where Ms. Palin came in second in a straw poll last week. "People are looking for somebody, a Ronald Reagan reincarnate, who does not seem to be out there yet."

Palin as Reagan 2.0? Please.

But Republicans are taking a look at their embarrassing field of unelectables and getting more and more desperate. Some may reconcile themselves to Romney or Pawlenty, while others may push for someone like Huntsman to get in, or maybe Giuliani or Pataki, but the right won't be happy with any of them and is already looking to someone like Bachmann to advance its agenda. And, of course, there are those, a hardcore group of admirers, who think that Palin really is the savior.

It's been my view all along that Palin won't run and I'm sticking with that now. She just has too much to lose, specifically whatever shred of credibility she has left. And yet she lives in a bubble surrounded by sycophants, and what if those sycophants convince her that America needs her and that it would be to her own greater glory were she to run? Or what if she thinks that the best way to extend her brand, a brand that has been in decline as she has become more and more irrelevant (even on Fox News), and to make even more money with an extended brand, is to run? When you look at it that way, even a crushing loss could benefit her in the long run, as she would be hailed as a martyr, with blame for her electoral demise heaped on the usual targets, the un-American coastal elites and the "lamestream media."

All of which is to say, I don't know. I thought I did, but I don't. Given how utterly self-absorbed and irrational she is, if also calculatingly focused on profiting off her brand and to that end keeping herself in the spotlight, it's hard to tell which way she'll go.

Just know that whatever she decides, it'll all be about Sarah Palin. In her world, that's all that matters.