Democracy Dies in the Senate
To be clear, I do not think HR 1 even comes close to meeting the threats to responsive, representative government that afflict our republic today. But opposing reforms because you want a deal with the minority, anti-democratic faction is not a good way to combat these problems.
Manchin’s opposition to HR 1 could end up being extremely short-sighted, too, depending on how the next 4 years play out. If Rs nuke filibuster in 2022/24, it looks silly in hindsight. Same if R state legislatures and House Reps manufacture a GOP electoral college win in 2024.
Exchanging correctives that put us on a path towards electoral legitimacy for a tiny chance of future bipartisan engagement from the other side also looks pretty silly when Rs can basically pass their entire agenda through reconciliation, whereas Democrats usually need 60 votes.
That’s fine (maybe?) but it’s just a bad bet to trade something positive for the comparatively high probability of getting something negative in return
This is a good point, but I don’t think there are ten R votes for HR4 anyway. Maybe when McConnell inevitably filibusters it Manchin will realize that Senate “bipartisanship” stands in the way of progress on voting rights, rather than facilitating it. Not holding my breath tho.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with G. Elliott Morris

G. Elliott Morris Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @gelliottmorris

3 Jun
This is good but to quibble with @Bencjacobs @dziblatt if GOP leaders were paying attention to the *majority* in polls, they would know the public is against them. The problem comes with abusing polls to reflect the factionalization they have caused. Are the people at fault here?
Yes, that’s the point — if you use polls like you “should” you arrive at a different answer than the GOP is, which means the fault is in how *they’re* analyzing the data
Yeah yeah we all understand each other I’m just on my hobby horse here
Read 4 tweets
2 Jun
Looks like Dems win the NM-01 special by 2-ish pts more than their 2020 margin. The avg swing in specials v 2020/16 is 1-2 pts to Ds.

1 thing ppl might have glossed over is that increasing educational polarization w/ whites could insulate Ds somewhat from the 2010/14 drop-off.
It’s a baseline change, so it’ll change Dem performance on average relative to other factors. How those other factors shake out is really important!
You don’t want to read too much into these specials. But they are, on average, pretty useful for forecasting midterms — just not in isolation. Avg D swing suggests a constant national environment since 2020… So does Congressional ballot polling and Biden’s approval rating polls.
Read 4 tweets
1 Jun
There are (at least) three huge problems with the US & state constitutions re: election subversion. Short thread

1) State legislatures are given power over how elections are conducted and which elections are legitimate—which POTUS electors to send, which contests to certify, &c.
2) Most offices are elected on a plurality-winner district-based electoral system, which incentives zero-sum politics and rewards acting in bad faith and against partisan mutual toleration and forbearance. This is one reason why you have partisan gerrymandering, but also how you
get GA removing full certification power from the Secretary of State, why AZ Senate Rs are voting for a second partisan audit of the 2020 electoral results, which were verified by both bipartisan and non-partisan processes already, and why 75% of R voters Parrott Trump’s big lie.
Read 8 tweets
27 May
The single biggest reason Republicans can pursue anti-democracy positions is because they can win control of federal + state governments with minorities of the vote. Increasing electoral accountability by making outcomes more proportional is not a panacea, but would do a lot.
Of course, we're in this problem largely because Trump put us here, and there aren't a lot of ways to legislate your way out of demagoguery
I have talked privately with people for a while about my doom and gloom here, but the only real solution to *gestures wildly* "all of this" is to write a new constitution
Read 6 tweets
26 May
The partisan vaccination divide, per new The Economist/YouGov polling:

Among Biden voters:
Fully vaccinated 76%
Partially 10%
Plan to get 7%
Won’t get vaxxed 2%
Not sure 4%

Trump voters:
Fully vaccinated 54%
Partially 6%
Plan to get 3%
Won’t get vaxxed 26%
Not sure 12%
It seems likely that Democratic-leaning areas (cities) will start to reach "herd immunity" over the next month, while rural areas and other Republican-dominated places will take longer — if they ever get there at all
People who won't get the covid vaccine are really ruining things for the rest of us

Read 7 tweets
24 May
I don't want to be the "ecological fallacy!" and "look at my regression!" guy but there is a lot of misinformation about vaccine uptake and masking today.

We have 30k interviews from YouGov with actual people and partisanship really is the strongest predictor of behavior
Given what we know about how people react to cues from their political elites and information networks, this is very very obvious
Covid is political because everything is political
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(