House Republicans haven’t been terribly successful at many things this year. They struggled to keep the government open and to keep the United States from defaulting on its debt. They’ve even struggled at times on basic votes to keep the chamber functioning. But they have been very good at one thing: regicide.
On Friday, Republicans dethroned Jim Jordan as their designated Speaker, making him the third party leader to be ousted this month. First, there was Kevin McCarthy, who required 15 different ballots to even be elected Speaker and was removed from office by a right-wing rebellion at the beginning of October. Then, after a majority of Republicans voted to make McCarthy’s No. 2, Steve Scalise, his successor, a number of Republicans announced that they, too, would torpedo his candidacy and back Jordan instead. Finally, once Republicans finally turned to Jordan as their candidate, the largest rebellion yet blocked him from becoming Speaker. After losing three successive votes on the floor, the firebrand lost an internal vote to keep his position as Speaker designate on Friday.
That’s called “leadership”. Politics is the art of the possible. It’s not a feel good love fest where everyone hugs and agrees with you.
AOC and others have been very good at moving Biden to the left. This presidency has been one of the most productive for the left wing of the Democratic Party. They passed a single bill that cut prescription drug prices, funded climate change legislation, and funded the IRS to crack down on rich tax cheats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_Reduction_Act
What more could they add? Everyone gets a puppy and can kick Clarence Thomas in the groin one time?
Packing the court and ejecting the coup participants would be nice. Not to mention patching the holes the GOP poked in the ACA. Closing more tax loopholes for the 1%.
Beyond that? Medicare for all, UBI, an actual privacy law that does anything at all, some sort of legislation on police brutality and racial profiling, something to fix gerrymandering, a proposal to eliminate the Electoral College and First-Past-The-Post, a bill to end Citizens United…the FCC is actually moving forward on Net Neutrality now, so that’s cool. But there’s plenty more they could do.
Well hang on a second. I think we should hear the cons of this proposal.
I said “What more could they add?”
None of that would pass.
Ah, I took your ad absurdum suggestions at the end the wrong way. I assumed you meant that they were so ridiculous because all of the reasonable things had been exhausted, not that they were the most bipartisan options that would be rejected.
I’d also like parental leave and 20 ish days min vacation, Alex.
Your country is so fucked
They would have my vote.
You start off the negotiations with far left position of two kicks to his groin. One kick is the compromise position.
I’m aware that you can’t caucus and get anything done as a frothing at the mouth socialist in today’s climate, but the compromise approach is a slippery slope
Unfortunately for her she is the left’s poster child, so gets it from both sides. I’m still largely a fan and agree with her a lot more than I don’t, but some of her recent decisions rubbed me the wrong way
Compromise is literally the way liberal democracy is designed to work. This is supported by a massive volume of literature going back as far as Locke and Hume and Rousseau. I have no idea how you could even type such a statement in good faith.
It just reeks of nihilism. How can you seriously read the previous 200 years of European history and come to the conclusion that nothing has changed? That people’s lives aren’t better? That they aren’t happier, or living longer or more free?
I mean Christ, I want to abolish capitalism just as much as the next guy, but I’m not going to sit here and pretend that the current system is irredeemably evil when it’s made a comparative fuck ton of progress towards post-scarcity socialism compared to any other period of human history.
The current system is irredeemably evil though, isn’t it? It is destroying us in an ever tightening death march of greed instead of saving the planet. It is starving and imprisoning, as a means to provide slave labor, instead of using surplus labor to actually feed, clothe, and shelter us all.
Right, humans are historically shitty. The point is that we have mitigated a significant amount of historic evil in the past 200 years, and have a framework for continued progress.
Utopia is a journey, not a destination. But we have objectively never witnessed a greater rate of progress in recorded human history.
But progress is not due to capitalism. (that would be a post hoc fallacy) And global warming is an issue that is coming to a head this decade and the next few to come. This isn’t some distant future utopian problem. This is pragmatic, and essential to continued human survival on this planet.