Vetocracy: The State of Paralysis
In Thomas Friedman’s column he talks with Francis Fukuyama, most famous for The End of History and the Last Man. Their talk revolves around vetocracy:
a system designed to prevent anyone in government from amassing too much power to a system in which no one can aggregate enough power to make any important decisions at all
Through Friedman and Fukuyama forget to mention Americas penchant for going to war and killing things, is there a point in this vetocracy?
For starters, we’ve added more checks and balances to make decision-making even more difficult — such as senatorial holds now being used to block any appointments by the executive branch or the Senate filibuster rule, effectively requiring a 60-vote majority to pass any major piece of legislation, rather than 51 votes. Also, our political divisions have become more venomous than ever. As Russ Feingold, the former Democratic senator, once remarked to me: At the rate that polarization is proceeding, partisans will soon be demanding that consumer products reflect their politics: “We’re going to have Republican and Democrat toothpaste.”
Tags: Politics
“Also, our political divisions have become more venomous than ever.”
More empty-headed repetition of the “partisan bickering” meme. Republicans and Democrats now agree on more issues than ever before. What appears to be disagreement is really just superficial electoral positioning, with less policy disagreement than ever before.
Both parties now agree that health care should be controlled by private insurance companies. Democrats used to fight tooth and nail for making the rich pay their fair share, now in this Administration 80 Senators voted for tax cuts for the rich, which was then signed by a Democratic president. Democrats used to defend the safety net; now we have senior Democrats running around talking about cuts to Medicare and Social Security. The continuous expansion of the surveillance society of course always has bipartisan support.
The last 12 years shows that no matter who you vote for, you get Republican policy.
Not a fan of Friedman and his centrism fetish, but this column is very interesting — probably because this isn’t Friedman, but people who are more interesting thinkers than he is. Anyway, this is the money quote (I think):
ThisThisThis. Most of our legislators are no longer prepared to govern, they are prepared to react to interest groups. It is how hugely popular initiatives among voters can die a quick and unseen (mostly) death. And when we run elections, we have conversations that are largely centered around what those interest groups want to talk about — not what matters to voters, and since the media is largely its own special interest group now, you won’t get the kind of accountability that might help blunt the effective range of the other special interest groups.
Our experience with Bush does not support the premise. He was ale to get stuff done. Eg. Go to war on false pretense,massive tax cuts etc.
Freidman is just as lame as ever.
Good point. During the Bush administration the Senate functioned as a well-oiled bill-passing machine. All the most objectionable Bush policies were passed with Democrats providing the margin of victory, without breathing the word “filibuster.” Well, unless you count Kerry phoning in his ineffectual filibuster of Alito from Switzerland. The ability of the Senate to govern with 40 votes had not yet been discovered.
Which doesn’t counter the point that the current Congress is set up to work for its special interest groups, not for the people who vote them in. Much of what BushCo did was for the benefit if its special interest groups.
BushCo got the legislation that it could get Congress to vote for. Democrats are just as compromised on who they represent as Republicans are.