The Grand Illusion
Right now, it appears as though the main objective of the right-wing Republicans in the U.S. House isn’t to improve government, or to adopt a sensible federal budget, or even to keep the government going, but to attack and try to impeach President Joe Biden because he beat Donald Trump in the last election.
To me, it also seems as though the Republicans in the House have forgotten that they live in a representative democracy where they need to consider the views of all the people, not just those in their districts who elected them. Right now, the far-right wing in the House has little or no interest in working policy matters out, despite some of their rhetoric. Even the rhetoric is totally unrealistic – just how are they going to pass eleven appropriations bills in a few days, when in nine months the Republican leadership has only been able to get one relatively non-controversial appropriations bill passed by the House?
The Republican right is far more interested in imposing their views on everyone else, just like Trump (not to mention Tommy Tuberville) wants to do, regardless of the Constitution and long-standing political processes and practices.
It apparently doesn’t matter to those of the far right that the overwhelming majority of Americans want some form of legal abortion close to what Roe v. Wade provided. It doesn’t matter that the majority of Americans doesn’t want government shutdowns, or massive cuts in Medicare or Medicaid, or the freezing of military promotions. And, of course, the far-right wants also wants to stop all investigations and prosecutions of those involved in the January 6th insurrection and attempts to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. They also want to close the U.S. southern border, but have no workable plan (and will never be able to implement one without turning the U.S. into a total autocracy, as I’ve discussed earlier).
And, ironically, despite all their efforts to run over everyone else’s rights, they persist in calling themselves the “Freedom Caucus.”
I confess I am both astounded and baffled that ten people can bring the entire country to its knees, especially since I don’t recall ever having the opportunity to vote for or against any of them.
How is it that we live in a ‘democracy’ when minority-rule is allowed to prevail?
This is, in my opinion, more the liberal view of democracy: where we are so aware of the usual treatment of minorities that we over react by turning them into our democratic equivalent of tyranny.
Oh for a chance at real Grey Balance of Order rather than just reading about it from LEM’s fantastic pen.
You may have misunderstood me. I was not talking about rule by ethnic, religious, or any other kind of minority. I was referring to situations where the numerical minority outweighs the rule of the numerical majority. Our country rests on two basic pillars: Majority Rule, and Minority Rights. This means that whenever a majority of the people (or legislators) vote a particular way, that is what should be followed up until that rule violates the rights of minorities, at which point it can go no farther. Requiring a super-majority to pass anything is equivalent to allowing a minority veto. Super-majorities make sense as a requirement when you’re trying to actually change the rules. But to allow it for the essential functions of government – and establishing taxation and expenditures is surely a basic function of government if anything is – is simply a recipe for disfunction. Which is why we are where we are.