This is the most important thing in American politics and I'm incredibly exhausted by how rare it is for somebody to say it out loud. Do you understand that voters winning elections and losing all their rights is ITSELF corrosive to democracy? Even aside from WHAT we lose?
I am once again begging people with power within the Democratic Party to devise a better strategy for dealing with the right-wing death grip on the courts than "win every election for 30 years and hopefully appoint their replacements."
In 30 years of this there won't be anything left to salvage.
Not to mention how demobilizing it is to tell people "You'll be dead by the time anything can start to get better again." Seems unlikely to make people believe in electoralism as the answer!
Yeah like, there are both electoral and non electoral solutions to our problems, but every democratic partisan centrist brain who makes fun of people "larping revolution" is like 6 times as much of a larper when they say that we can't abolish the filibuster or pack the courts, and the real solution
This actually a big part of what is damaging support for Dems too! Like, they should want to fix this immediately. Instead they just shake their heads and are like "well we can't do anything because of the courts" well then fucking do something about the courts?!
Precisely, not only should they want to fix things on the merits of that. But also for their own self interest. No one is going to support a party that doesn't produce tangible change long term.
Like what? I feel the complaints in my bones, but I haven’t seen much discussion of practical options beyond rhetoric.
They’re clearly out of control and reform is urgent and vital. I’d love to know what to advocate for.
So timing wise, nothing real will happen in the next like 9 months with the election at which point who knows what will happen. Assuming Dems come out of that with majorities in House, Senate, and Biden as president.
(Continued)
1. Don't even attempt to be bipartisan. The GOP doesn't act in good faith so it's pointless.
2. Eliminate the filibuster.
Why let bad actors limit what we can do.
3. Pack the fuck out of the courts.
4. implement formal ethics rules for SCOTUS
5. Age/term limits for federal judges
(Continued)
6. Minimum experience requirements for federal judges
7. Rotate judges through the circuits so they are not predictable.
8. Expand the federal judiciary (Really this is kinda #3 too) there are too few courts/judges.
9. If SCOTUS or existing judges try to stop court reform. Fuckem, do it anyway.
It’s difficult to accomplish anything when you do not have the votes. Until Democrats generally and the left specifically start making winning elections a priority again, any discussion of “practical options” is pointless.
Partly it is because the right has been able to act with impunity. FFS in multiple states elections were held using district maps which were already deemed illegal! The biggest lesson the Dems need to learn is that the law only matters as much as it can be enforced.
We have long put too much faith in the court system’s capacity to overcome the consequences that flow from losing elections. The third branch is the weakest branch. Courts cannot and will not save us.
The Democrats lost the House in ‘22?& lost ground in the Senate. The Statehouses and gov’s mansions are mostly red still. What did Democrats win in ‘22?
BTW, Democrats also somehow lost 13 seats in the US House with Biden winning the presidency with a record number of votes. Go figure.
The midterms in 22 were a massive overperformance considered by many to be a win for the Democrats.
Plenty to criticize to be sure, but “prioritize winning” doesn’t seem different than what they’ve been doing. With the exception of the NY Dems who are an embarrassment for too many reasons.
Perhaps you’re implying it, but it’s also an absolutely terrible electoral strategy. Dems aren’t even doing the whole hair-on-fire urgency mixed with deep-pocketed organizing that the right did in order to get us here, so I don’t see Dem voters staying motivated to turn out consistently for decades
Absolutely. State elections are going gangbusters right now BECAUSE PEOPLE KNOW STATE OFFICIALS CAN MAKE THEIR LIFE BETTER. The federal government needs to prove it, viz. the big problems
Shouldn’t this mostly being the consequence of Trump winning an election be proof enough? But statements of that (likely including this one) seem to largely be dismissed or viewed with scorn.
The time for reform was 16 years ago. The electorate basically sleepwalked through the Obama presidency. The Dems have to win every single election going forward, the GOP only needs to win one.
Also, the US likes to style itself after the Roman Republic, but they should have learnt from its fate what running a political system on "mos maiorum" hopium results in.
You can “learn” just about as much from the “fate of the Roman Empire” as you can from the Bible; in other words people can make it say whatever they want it to say.
Win the House and add 2 Senators who are on the record to amend or abolish the filibuster. No need to win for 30 years. Expand to 13 Circuits (break up or dilute 5th), expand SCOTUS to 13 seats, create 18 year terms for SCOTUS…
It's just Civics. The Biden Administration isn't going to do anything about SCOTUS without 67 Senators who agree with it. You don't build a house by building the roof first. At some point, you have to start with the foundation.
So the answer is "never". Dems aren't even running enough candidates to come close to that this cycle and the next several cycles are even less favorable.
According to Dems democracy will die in November. However, their only real plan to contest this outcome depends on a healthy democracy remaining in place for at least the next 30-40 years. Somehow pointing out this disparity makes seemingly no impression.
It's just Civics *selectively applied*. There are workarounds to most of these issues, only Biden and Democratic leadership declared those workarounds off-limits for "reasons". The results are both predictable and harrowing.
Honestly, more than anything, I'm furious at Dems for not granting DC Statehood.
All this talk of needing to win the Senate and the party punts on two free Senators. Possibly four, if they extended full statehood to Puerto Rico.
I don’t think Puerto Rico is really that interested, not to mention the complexities of adding a state whose primary language is not English.
DC is maybe possible but actually pretty complicated in part because currently DC as not a state has to exist
Like I said, DC isn’t as much of a no brainer as it might seem. There is probably a way to do it by the letter of the law though (a tiny dc inside of the state of DC)
DC may be complicated, but its citizens pretty much universally support it, and it should be done. PR is more diverse in opinion, and the question is less clearcut.
Can't do anything else without a supermajority. Would take 60 votes in the senate without question and not a single republican would ever vote for such measures, even if they claimed to be "centrist"
What's maddening is this "Oh, we need 60" bullshit didn't exist until 2009 when Obama was elected with a powerful majority in both houses. All of a sudden Mitch and the media were all "You actually need 60 votes to pass a thing, don'tcha know, because we theoretically COULD filibuster."
I am more than old enough to remember that. It was then that I resolved to never vote for a certain party ever again, on any level, for any reason. (prior I had voted for a certain unnamed party in certain local matters when I personally knew the person, or for other compelling reasons)
It can be, but the reality of that happening is not only slim, what happens if then the same people we are trying to diminish the power of in the judiciary take control of the senate?
There is no evidence that abolition of the filibuster would not end up haunting the American people later
If the 60-vote requirement was ever the impediment for something the GOP leadership wanted, it would be gone.
Self-restraint by the Democrats is not going to provoke the same on the part of the Republicans.
