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So grateful to have It's Time to Fight Dirty quoted here in this @thebafflermag article by @DaveADenison about the post-McConnell era. I thought I'd use this as an opportunity to expand on the roots of the Dem push for procedural radicalism.
Pull up a chair. 1/
Pull up a chair. 1/
A lot of people are doing the audible gasp thing as people like Pete Buttigieg and Eric Holder ruminate about not just ditching the filibuster, but adding seats to SCOTUS and states to the union. 2/
What is happening is a long overdue awakening to both the structural biases against Democrats embedded in the U.S. political order, as well as the ruthless way that Republicans have added a layer of majority-will-distorting laws and decision like Voter ID and Citizens United. 3/
When you step back and look at the whole scope of our century's politics, the GOP's death grip on this country is just maddening. Dems have not only won the popular vote in 4 of 5 presidential elections. They have won a total of 15 million more votes. 4/
Yet they will only have controlled the presidency for 8 of this century's first 20 years, instead of the 16 they would have earned under any sane set of political rules. 5/
Same story in the U.S. Senate, except so much f***ing worse. Since the turn of the century, Democrats have won 47 million more votes in the U.S. Senate, yet will have controlled the chamber for only 9 of 20 years. 6/
Ok fine, take out the losing vote from the two Dem-on-Dem CA Senate races in 2016 and 2018, and it's still +29 million. In fact, over a full Senate cycle ('14, '16, '18) Dems have won 7 million more votes (again, without the CA losers) and controlled the Senate for 0 years. 7/
Republicans have used this ill-gotten power to appoint a reactionary 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court, which has gutted voting rights, labor law, consumer rights and campaign finance law to further entrench the power of wealthy, Republican elites. 8/
Using our system's demented ability to, in @davedaley3's words "pick their own voters," state Rs gerrymandered in permanent GOP minority govs in places like WI, MI, NC and distorted US House elections, particularly in 2012 when Dems won a vote majority but lost the race. 9/
(Barack Obama should have had two more years of unified control of the federal government between 2013 and 2015). 10/
No one in the GOP, not a single elected official or public thinker, is willing to admit that this is all bullshit. Instead they fish for quotes in The Federalist Papers and invent comical rationales to justify permanent minority rule over the rest of the country. 11/
And of course they do! If Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas live as long as RBG, Republicans just cemented an originalist court majority until the year 2034. Dems could win the next three presidential elections and not get to flip control of SCOTUS. 12/
And instead of governing with even a shred of humility or public interest, Rs decided to utterly abandon what Levitsky and @dziblatt call "forbearance," deciding to press their advantage to the outer boundaries of legality and decency to get another few years in power. 13/
Imagine for a second if Trump had nominated a center-right version of Garland, someone broadly acceptable to people outside of the Federalist Society, instead of jamming two ideologues down America's throat on party-line votes. 14/
But no. Despite not enjoying the support of a majority of the American people for a single hour of his presidency, Trump governs only for his narrow coalition of rich grifters, white nationalists and military fetishists, acting like he won some great majority in a landslide. 15/
Republicans empowered by this nonsense system have inflicted incredible damage on the country and world. The cost of the Iraq War alone may reach $6 trillion, and Trump's reckless tax cuts may handcuff the next Democratic administration. To name but two examples among dozens. 16/
Losing another damn presidential election that we actually won in 2016, on top of the theft of a SCOTUS seat and the election of a pathological, race-baiting narcissist has awakened a large part of the activist base to our plight. We don't want happy bipartisanship talk. 17/
We want policy revenge, and we want to fix the unconscionable structural obstacles to left power in this country, in no particular order. That's why Twitter blows up every time a Cory Booker says he's going to magically get Republican buy-in for M4A or climate legislation. 18/
Abolishing the filibuster is the gateway drug to any serious long-term plan to save the United States and save the planet. If you can't even countenance the horror of majority rule - something enjoyed by every other legislature on Earth - you simply aren't up to the task. 19/
It's why court packing is catching on. It's why statehood for DC and Puerto Rico are becoming litmus tests in the primary. It's why HR 1 is such a blockbuster set of reforms, even if it doesn't go far enough. 20/
Genuflecting to a dead bipartisanship is not only politically stupid and suicidal, it is also a dead end in the Democratic primary. The broader Dem electorate might not be there yet, but that's why it's important for candidates to lead the conversation on structural reform. 21/
Anyway, whenever I think just of Merrick Garland I still crumple over with an insatiable, all-consuming rage, and any candidate that does not speak to that anger and have a plan for how to fix this democracy can pack up the exploratory committee and go on home. The end. 22/
