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Comment by mrfusion | Hacker News Reader

It's weird how some issues become partisan and others don't. I wonder what made both parties support this? Why can't that happen more often?

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A major change was that the Congressional GOP opposed everything Obama tried to do until the last year, a scorched earth tactic to damage Obama regardless of the costs to the country and world. Then, in an effort to appear a little less obstructionist in an election year, they passed some bills.

But even then they set new norms for obstructionism; for example, they refused to vote on a Supreme Court nomination, something unprecedented in U.S. history, and refused to do anything about the sequester, again an unprecedented act. I'm pretty sure they refused to provide aid to Flint for their water crisis and or to provide funding for the Zika virus.

If it costs them nothing politically - and what were the consequences of their obstructionism mentioned above? - they will do it. The Democrats, who do little to confront and extract costs from the GOP, are effectively complicit IMHO.

EDIT: Some edits

There is only one rule in politics: win. Harry Reid recognizes that when he boasts about telling an outright lie about Mitt Romney's taxes on the Senate floor. About the episode he says: "Romney didn't win, did he?" [0] He's right. Whether Reid told a lie or not is irrelevant. He helped secure the Presidency for his party, an outcome that will echo in history for a long time.

Exercising Congress's prerogative to vote and not vote on whatever it damn well pleases is fair game.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/15/ha...

> There is only one rule in politics: win

I strongly disagree. Politicians have always balanced their interests with others, such as those of the nation. They have the power to destroy the country, physically (by engaging in nuclear war, as a simple example) and politically (e.g., they could impeach every president, pass destructive laws, and never confirm Supreme Court nominations). It's not at all "fair game"; their responsibility is to govern the nation to the best of their abilities and to be responsible to the rest of the world. There's a reason that the current Congress' actions are unprecedented.

Your argument assumes that everyone agrees on what the interests of the nation are, and how to achieve them. In fact, there is vicious disagreements on just that point. That is the central divide in our politics. The Republicans and Democrats both think they're doing what's best for the nation.

Didn't we pass some legislation a while back which cut back significantly on the amount of 'pork' allowed in a bill? I feel like that has bitten us pretty hard as a practical matter -- because if we go strictly on ideology, nothing happens because there is no incentive. Maybe little compromises and adding in some back scratching would make congress move again?

> The Republicans and Democrats both think they're doing what's best for the nation.

Again, I disagree. IMHO, speaking generally, the Republicans seek only power to an unprecedented degree. Again, see my examples above. They've undermined the White House, Congress, and Supreme Court, as well as the military, and many other essential institutions. They openly deceive the public on climate change; that does nothing for the country, it puts the nation and world at great risk.

Okay, so you disagree with their world view on a number of points, but many in the other camp would say that they are taking a principled stand in those actions and attempt to claim the same moral high ground. As an example, take what you view as "openly deceiving" the public on climate change. Right or wrong, it can be (and is) argued not entirely disingeniously that there is a totalitarian undercurrent in the course proscribed to resolve the looming crisis. The debate often devolves into name-calling and pushes back from actual meaningful communication. I feel like the phraseology and the casting of every single issue in the current political discourse into an absolute moral / ethical question is the poison that is killing our system. We now have mass media echo chambers of all sides and flavours that can reinforce and magnify the differences between any two not entirely dissimilar world views instead of focusing us on the commonalities between them and guiding us to communicate. Take climate change again, there is an entire spectrum of belief regarding what it is and how to solve it. There are people who advocate ignoring global warming as a hoax and some who want to reduce global populations and roll back industrial production, and thousands of different areas in between and elsewhere. In each of their worldviews, most of them genuinely hold their beliefs and when presented with an existential threat to those beliefs, rather than seeing it as two sides of a coin the habit is to resort to good vs evil etc. The solution IMHO is to work on improving the arguments of all sides and the art of debate in general. If a person advocates that there has been no warming at all, which contravenes quite a bit of research, holders of different views should focus on improving their presentation of fact through argument, rather than what I feel in most cases is the more typical practice of customarily calling each other kooks and crossing the street.

  something unprecedented in U.S. history

Hardly. For 10 such examples, see:

http://thefederalist.com/2016/02/16/10-times-democrats-vowed...

Those aren't examples. One politician vowing to do it and the entire Senate actually doing it are entirely different; Congress had never done it before this year.

And that assumes you believe the Federalist, a highly partisan source.

Refusing to vote on a Supreme Court nomination is not only not unprecedented in U.S. history, its not even rare. A couple of W's nominations didn't go anywhere.

http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/nominations/Nomin...

This is spin, pure and simple.

A cursory glance at the page you link to tells a dramatically different story than the one you're telling. John Roberts was originally nominated to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. Then Rehnquist died and Roberts was renominated to become Chief Justice.

In the case of Harriet Miers, everyone was opposed to her, including the right who called her unqualified. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10...

No one is saying that Merrick Garland is unqualified. It's a naked political ploy with no modern (or historical?) precedent.

Its not spin. Here's a quote when the shoe was on the other foot:

"Former Democratic Senate leader Robert Byrd explained it well in a 2005 speech endorsed by then-Senator Joe Biden, among others:

There is no stipulation in the Constitution as to how the Senate is to express its advice or give its consent… The Senate can refuse to confirm a nominee simply by saying nothing and doing nothing"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

Quite simply, stonewalling Merrick is more destructive partisanship, but its not without "modern (or historical?) precedent".

Whatever Byrd said, the Senate never did it before. It is a matter of fact.

Let's go back to the 1880's. From your list nine supreme court justice nominations did not have votes. That may come across as a lot. But seven made it on to the supreme court with another nomination (John Roberts, Jr., Abe Fortas, John Harlan, Pierce Butler, William Hornblower, and Stanley Matthews). That leaves three: Merrick Garland, Harriet Miers, Homer Thornberry. Homer Thornberry withdrew his nomination. He was nominated to replace Abe Fortas when Fortas was nominated for Chief Justice. Abe Fortas was embroiled by a few scandals so withdrew his nomination which killed Thornberry's nomination. Harriet Miers was nominated by Bush but there was bipartisan opposition to her nomination and her nomination was withdrawn less than a month later. But even then senators had planned on holding nomination hearings. That leaves Merrick Garland. I'd say that one person since 1880 not having a chance for a vote or hearing is unprecedented.

There's no major money in play politically, so they are able to do the right thing.

My impression is that it is because the electorate of both parties is likely to support it and it doesn't clash with donor's preferences.

The congressional GOP's approval rating is (or was) at record lows. It wasn't about pleasing their electorate.

> The congressional GOP's approval rating is (or was) at record lows. It wasn't about pleasing their electorate.

The only approval rating that matters is the approval rating from their own constituents. And that's always been a lot better than their overall approval rating.

Or to put it another way, "everyone thinks Congress is doing a bad job, but they think their Congressman is doing a good job".

> The only approval rating that matters is the approval rating from their own constituents

A good point, but remember that most are in single-party districts; they need to please people in their party primaries but the voters in the general election have no choice.

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