‘We put in air conditionin’, stayed year-round, and ruined America’
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But on that note: It would be ideal to add a simple amendment to the constitution which stipulates that in the event of a federal government shutdown, every member of Congress is ineligible for re-election, along with the president, and they all forfeit all federal pensions and other lifetime benefits.
It wouldn't guarantee that there wouldn't ever be a shutdown again, but it would make it a truly nuclear option that no one would take lightly. These shutdowns affect millions of people and cost billions of dollars, and they're pretty much entirely political theater wrought by people who put partisanship over basic duties.
Yeah, innovators dilemma, etc.
I'd honestly go the other way, in a sense. If you can't get at least 50% voter turnout in your district, the election is forfeit, and we hold another one in two weeks.
These people aren't invested because they mostly don't need to be in any meaningful way. I agree though, making them hot for a few weeks is unlikely to change much. Also, comparing how people spent their time before urban expansion and the massive increase in farm labor efficiency is absurd. 1908 America hardly looked like it does now.
It would take at least half of those congresspeople acting in concert with the president to terminate their political futures and pensions in order to make that happen. What social engineering do you believe you could do to accomplish this?
(The president would likely be the weak spot in this plan, as there's a chance they wouldn't be up for re-election anyway, which was why I added the "other lifetime benefits" clause. I think all ex-presidents would be highly motivated to keep their lifetime secret service protection.)
It merely takes the lack of one.
This, I believe, is the flaw.
Now, if there was a mechanism in place so McCarthy had to choose between merely losing his speakership versus losing his entire political career, and the radical faction were facing the same risk, this wouldn't be a tough call for him or anyone else in the building. The prospect of everyone in congress, together, being erased from the political map would do wonders for encouraging bipartisanship. They would collectively crawl a mile naked through briar patches to hold that vote.
What if you don't get 50% in two weeks? Or ever?
It also changes the cost dynamics of running races to the point where I hope it would reduce cynical political maneuvers drastically. They would cease paying off, and chasing people away from the polls would be detrimental to everyone.
There's the other side, as well. Is it the right of people to _not_ have any representation currently? I think if your district only gets 18% turnout, then the voters are essentially telling you just that.. we'd rather have _no one_ over what's presented here.
Government issues bonds at 4-7% that mature in 1-7 days and sells them to a select group of banks who make out like robbers every time it happens.
So on one hand, understanding that makes it all far simpler, but on the other, it's horrendously corrupt.
> Sen. James Eastland of Mississippi, a segregationist Democrat who served more than three decades on Capitol Hill, once told then-Sen. Joe Biden that A/C was the most significant change to occur during his career in Congress — and not for the better.
So Joe Biden was a Democrat when the Democrats had segregationists? I thought the parties switched? Its wild to realize 1) Joe Biden has been in politics that long and 2) he was in the same party as segregationists while he is currently trying to represent pretty much the opposite.
EDIT: checking Wikipedia it seems Biden was elected to the senate in 1972, long after the time of the segregationist democrats?
They were democrats for historical purposes until Johnson started advancing civil rights. Then they flipped to the new “conservative” branch of the GOP.
There were no de jure segregationists, but even into the 90s there was a significant bloc of conservative Southern Democrats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Dog_Coalition
Remember, the "red state/blue state" thing dates from the year 2000! There are many living politicians who date from before the phase change: Hillary Clinton (in Arkansas, now a solidly Republican state) was giving speeches on how crack turns Black children into "superpredators", Joe Biden himself coauthored the 1996 crime bill, which kicked off the mass incarceration era. Bill Clinton was running campaign ads on cutting off food stamps to welfare queens and overseeing executions of criminals. It was a different era.
In case anyone was curious, here are her comments: > But we also have to have an organized effort against gangs. Just as in a previous generation we had an organized effort against the mob. We need to take these people on. They are often connected to big drug cartels, they are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called superpredators — no conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first, we have to bring them to heel.
The truth is that there were plenty of Democrats who were abolitionists. And while the Republican party was originally formed as an abolitionist party, by the 1960's, there was a non-zero number of Republicans who probably would have supported slavery.
Because the true divide is North and South. Northern Democrats were often abolitionists. They were just outnumbered by Southern Democrats. If you divide the votes by region rather than party, you'll often see the vast majority of Southern votes have been against civil rights.
To get the Southern vote, you may not have to be a racist, but you have to be at least comfortable with it existing in your constituency. Because while racists may not be the majority, they comprise a large enough faction that their support can sway elections.