Argues E.J. Dionne in "The destructive myth about divided government."
I am a moderate voter — a voter who abstained this year — and I believe that divided government is a safeguard against extremism. I eagerly clicked on the column because of the title. I'm perfectly ready to have my belief challenged.The Dionne column is very short. His main point is that the GOP leadership is "committed to preventing a Democratic president from governing successfully — even when that president is willing and eager to compromise."
But what is the "myth" that Dionne is supposedly debunking? I had to go back and search for the word "myth."
Here: "The belief that divided government guarantees moderate outcomes might once have been true when there was a solid moderate bloc in the Republican Party. But it should now be clear that it’s a destructive myth." The word "guarantees" makes Dionne's "myth" a strawman. Who believes in a guarantee like that?! Divided government can be a safeguard whether it's a perfect safeguard or not. The question is whether it's better than the alternative. Which risk would you rather take?
The assertion I put in the post title uses a similar absolutism: "a ticket to obstruction and the very sort of partisan brawling that moderate voters can’t stand." If you want to know something this moderate voter can't stand, it's writing like that.
Posts
112 comments:
Meh- we were just here a few short years ago. Democrats crave 'bipartisan support' for their shit polices and badgering moderates is their way to get it.
The Dems obstructed Trump in every way possible and it culminated with stealing the election. Fuck’em. Payback is a bitch.
Dionne is yet another liberal whose mind turned to mush during the Clinton years.
I suppose it comes from the madness of being "pro-woman" and "pro civil rights" while supporting, enthusiastically, a president who used women like kleenex and Americans' civil rights as a treasure box to plunder.
The “solid moderate block” he’s lamenting were RINOs. Democrats without the guts to call themselves what they are.
He wants a one party system but doesn’t have the guts to even admit that to himself, never mind in public.
I cannot believe some of these guys and gals writing columns for formerly Big Journalism! are still around. I used to think EJ Dionne was over the hill and out of touch with current trends years ago. That he's still there actually surprises me. But then, I used to read WaPo regularly and haven't even glanced at it for a few years.
It's a shame. It was once a good read.
Did he miss the last 4 years when the Democrats did everything they could to preventing a Republican president from governing successfully — even when that president is willing and eager to compromise."????????? Did he talk about how they faked a Russian Hoax, tried to impeach him, called his Presidency illegitimate for 4 years?? The COUP??? These people make me sick. Go back to sleep. You missed everything you are complaining about now, for 4 years.
It’s always on Republicans to compromise with Democrats or be “destructive” baddies. What about congressional Democrats when there’s a Republican POTUS and Senate? Were they asked to compromise, or were they simply asked to “resist”? To say no, to investigate, to impeach?
Obamacare wiped out a generation of moderate Democrats. That’s what one party rule gets you.
Does Dionne have no awareness at all that Republicans perceive his article to be stupidly partisan?
Please identify a “moderate” Biden/Harris policy position.
Just one.
---"a ticket to obstruction and the very sort of partisan brawling that moderate voters can’t stand." [EJDionne]
Interesting. But what does the NYT say?
Althouse: “I am a moderate voter — a voter who abstained this year”
Sitting out an election where massive corruption and voter fraud was perpetuated right in your own back yard does not qualify as “moderate”. Don’t you have to actually vote to be a moderate “voter”?
"...that [Democrat] president is willing and eager to compromise." There's your myth, right there.
It's just more of the same: When Democrats oppose Republican plans it's called "resistance" When Republicans oppose Democratic plans it's called "obstruction".
Also, while Dionne uses "bloc" correctly, it is an interesting bit of English. Block can be used for this and also for a myriad of other usages, but not the other way around, the Bloc version has much more limited usage but comes from the same root.
committed to preventing a Democratic president from governing successfully
Good idea.
@Temujin, education "achievement" of 17-year-olds barely changed between 1970 and 2010 (despite huge increases in spending - slightly worse in 'science'). Chart is from here.
Here's the solution, from CNN - https://noqreport.com/2020/12/02/why-is-mainstream-media-and-big-tech-blocking-an-old-cnn-report-on-smartmatic/ All fixed up see?
Not a "moderate voter", but rather a coward.
Say it to yourself until you believe it: gridlock is a feature not a bug.
This country has more than enough laws.
If Congress just stuck to passing a budget every year — which it seems increasingly incapable of doing — we’d be fine.
Our system is designed for adversarial government. We're better off when all branches fight and jealously guard their powers and prerogatives. We're in the mess we're in right now because for decades we've abandoned that model in favor of an ever-expanding bureaucratic state run by unelected, incompetent technocrats and a federal government which is far removed from accountability.
Are you sure you abstained, Professor? Have you checked recently?
There are no moderate Democrats. But there are plenty of turncoat RINOs. This election and all the voter fraud, and the censorship of the State Legislature hearings by all major media shows our government isn’t divided. It is quite unified against President Trump and his 74 Million voters. It is also aligned against the woke programmed members of our society, like the population of Madison, WI who just don’t realize all that they've given away. It is certainly aligned against minorities in order to keep them in poverty to make their new Communism attractive. The Federal Government is no longer a servant of the people. They are quite unified against us. Jesus. Wake up. Quit pretending. EJ is a BJ.
Is Biden Obama's third term or Hillary's first term?
I am Laslo.
If you sat out the election then you have no right to complain about what follows.
I hope this isn’t too off topic, but I feel there’s something deeply conservative about not voting, because in some way it means that you’re content with the status quo. Even if like me you usually hate all the candidates, there’s still a kind of let what happens happen attitude to it. It’s an anti-change vote, if you will
Is Biden Obama's third term or Hillary's first term?
He's Harris' pre-first term.
Not that I think the Professor's vote would be particularly attractive for fraud. She votes too regularly and might find out it happened by next election. Plenty of never-voters and dead voters on the rolls to stuff the ballot box with.
But I'd check anyway.
His main point is that the GOP leadership is "committed to preventing a Democratic president from governing successfully — even when that president is willing and eager to compromise."
So basically exactly how Trump went into office and so now "they" are worried that the Republicans will treat Biden as the Democrats treated Trump.
They are right to be worried. Biden has zero chance of surviving the type of scrutiny that Trump received. Hell, the average politician regardless of party as little to no chance of surviving the scrutiny that Trump received.
We might as well all abstain from voting, our election official moral superiors know better anyway and will quite enthusiastically make up the difference.
Then we can all quit pretending we have a franchise, or a voice in our government.
We’ve never had much of a voice in our government. Everyone only gets one vote and that’s it.
The Dionne column is very short. His main point is that the GOP leadership is "committed to preventing a Democratic president from governing successfully — even when that president is willing and eager to compromise."
LOLOLOLOL! Are these people really this lacking in self awareness or are they being disingenuous? That they can say these things with a straight face is beyond belief.
President-Elect Donald J. Trump
"Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood."--John Adams, 1765
None of the Agit-Prop Networks covered the President-Elect's speech on the Election Fraud Coup.
Just think of the contempt that shows for 80 million voters. I never thought that in 2020, we would have Soviet levels of censorship and propaganda in America--did you? But there it is. They are fully-invested in imposing a Biden Occupation Government or BOG, a Division of the Swamp(tm) on a Free People.
But we're not going to let that happen. We gave the President a landslide. We have the landslide numbers and we have the landslide truth. Not because Might makes Right, but because Right makes Might and because we serve a Mighty God.
Fraud, censorship, propaganda, spying and these unending coup attempts are all signs of weakness, not strength. If the People stood with them, they wouldn't need them, would they?
We stand on the shoulders of generations of patriots. They didn't fight and die for us so criminals could install puppets to rule over us. Get your mind right.
THIS ELECTION FRAUD COUP ATTEMPT WILL NOT STAND. BUT WE WILL--AND BY THE MILLIONS.
"And everybody knows it."
" I used to think EJ Dionne was over the hill and out of touch with current trends years ago."
Americas high school newspaper of record is very inclusive and does not discriminate because of age.
Reminds me of the radical Muslims who, after committing acts of terrorism, warned us about islamophobia.
"THIS ELECTION FRAUD COUP ATTEMPT WILL NOT STAND. BUT WE WILL--AND BY THE MILLIONS.
"And everybody knows it.""
Gun control is going to be huge in this administration.
On a side note. Everyone here knows I enjoy shooting skeet and the occasional goose. This year we're reloading a different goose load. It consists of just nine pellets of rather large shot. Give the geese a better chance.
Well said Gipper!!
The Dionne column is very short. His main point is that the GOP leadership is "committed to preventing a Democratic president from governing successfully — even when that president is willing and eager to compromise."
Projection. The left always accuses the right of what it has done or is doing or plans to do.
I've noted before, Trump was never a doctrinaire Republican/Conservative. He is a doer who likes to negotiate and get things done. The Dems could have worked with him and achieved many of their stated goals. They didn't.
Blogger Mr Wibble said...
If you sat out the election then you have no right to complain about what follows.
Some sat out the election in order to maintain pension benefits and to be able to still live in their woke, corrupt community which happens to be the number one place in America to retire.
Strawwoman.
The Dionne column is very short. His main point is that the GOP leadership is "committed to preventing a Democratic president from governing successfully — even when that president is willing and eager to compromise."
If Biden were really willing to compromise, he'd offer to keep on Trump appointees in key departments, or fill them with conservatives. Put a fire-breathing Trump supporter as AG would go a long way to convincing the right that he's serious about not using the bureaucracy to go after them. Ditto the Department of Education.
If Dionne were to define success in all its particulars, I would guess his preferred programs are supported by less than 30% of the country.
Programs so popular we need complete control to implement them!!
Of course, whenever the two sides can't come to an agreement, it's because of Republican obstructionism. Of course.
When one party has the whole show--either party, it doesn't matter--they overplay their hand, hurt the country, and hurt themselves, often leading to such a rejection at the ballot box that, within a couple election cycles, the other party has the whole show, repeating the process from the other side.
Divided government controls the extremists on both sides, forcing moderate governance. Gridlock is a feature, not a bug.
""Divided government is "a ticket to obstruction and the very sort of partisan brawling that moderate voters can’t stand."
Argues . . . ""
Argues?
Shorter Dionne: Dems good, GOP bad.
---Of course, whenever the two sides can't come to an agreement, it's because of Republican obstructionism. Of course. [tim Maguire]
You are so right, tim. I know this to be true. I read it in the NYT.
Kay said: “We’ve never had much of a voice in our government. Everyone only gets one vote and that’s it.”
One vote is all you can expect to have ... that’s how it works. One person, one vote.
The difference now is we have zero. That’s worse.
“Divided government controls the extremists on both sides, forcing moderate governance. Gridlock is a feature, not a bug.”
Just picking this as a representative comment of this viewpiont ...
The problem here, folks, is that this does absolutely nothing to stop the growth of the bureaucratic state, or its cousin the Deep State, which as you may have noticed in recent years, is quite the powerful force.
I mean, YAY for divided government in the Executive and Legislative branches, to slow their roll and all that, but the harsh reality we face is the unelected, unaccountable, and (as we should expect) out of control fourth branch, the Administrative Branch.
What is there to do about it? I have no idea. But it’s whistling past the graveyard to reassure yourselves that government control of our lives takes a break with divided government.
Get ready: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/11/30/exposed-return-of-sue-and-settle-state-ags-dc-swamp-preparing-biggest-end-run-in-history-green-new-deal-with-no-legislation-no-rulemaking-process-just-a-sweetheart-con/
Sue and settle, consent decrees, blah blah blah. We are being ruled by men, not laws.
All that abstaining led to.... the Biden steal. Who needs actual voters when you can stuff the ballot box?
I didn't know E. J. Dionne was still around.
“I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration.”
― Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose entire party can go jump in a puddle. What is sauce for the silly goose Hillary is sauce for the rest of us taking a gander at this past election and the new administration.
Might be a good time to start massive grassroots funding for groups like Judicial Watch and Project Veritas (and others like them) because ... who else serves as a brake on this runaway train?
Gridlock is good
The question is whether it's better than the alternative.
EJ is RIGHT split government is a log jam!
Democrats should accept EJ's opinion, and
Jo Biden
Commie Law Harris
and the dems in the US house should ALL resign; in the interest of avoiding this logjam!
I bet he wrote the same column in 1994. And 2002. And 2010.
Gipper:
Amen, brother.
People don't seem to get it. This election is being stolen. If Biden wins, America will never be the same. And don't be duped by Joe's supposed blandness.
Today or Friday, SCOTUS will take the PA case. But first it will grant a TRO.
As usual, Dionne demonstrates his mental midgetry.
Divided government is a feature, not a bug.
My British husband never did see the benefit of a divided government and thought the Party in power should have complete power, as it does in the UK.
Trump would've opened the whole candy store to the Dems if they'd reached out. I'm with the person who wonders if Dionne suffers from partisan blindness or a penchant for gaslighting.
I’m not a moderate, I’m of the right.
I LOVE divided government.
I don’t trust the right with full power any more than I trust the left.
In fact, I don’t trust government at all.
Let them be divided so they engage in petty squabbles and get nothing done.
His main point is that the GOP leadership is "committed to preventing a Democratic president from governing successfully — even when that president is willing and eager to compromise."
No one is surprised that Dionne lives in a fantasy world where Democratic Presidents are willing or eager to compromise.
What is standing between where we are right now, and full Dem control of both houses of Congress and the WH?
Two runoff races in GA, right?
Is there any reason at all to trust the outcome of those runoff races?
I’m not sure I understand why people are confident we will have divided government on Inauguration Day.
What evidence is there that the president is going to be eager to compromise? So far, he hasn't compromised in the slightest with the major power bloc of Bernie voters in his own coalition.
John Borell reports: In fact, I don’t trust government at all.
Precisely! This is what our founding fathers had in mind when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Unfortunately, we've lost touch with that reality and allowed it to institutionalize vast bureaucracies before which we must bow and tremble.
divided government gave us the best spending bill of the past decade (not saying much) and that was the "sequester" where spending "only" increased 10% from 2012-2016.
it also gave us the best spending bill(s) of the past 40 years at least with the '94 Congress and Clinton.
moderate voters very much like divided government.
"The belief that divided government guarantees moderate outcomes might once have been true when there was a solid moderate bloc in the Republican Party."
I think this means divided government is OK as long as Democrats get their way anyway. I can't get to the article - did he by chance also lament that there's no longer any significant mass of conservative Democrats willing to vote with Republicans?
Laslo Spatula said...
Is Biden Obama's third term or Hillary's first term?
Yes-
After further thought, I'd say definitely more of a Clinton administration. Bill or Hillary.
Selling the soul of America to the Chinese for short term personal wealth and power.
Obama was more into burning the Middle-East and standing up petty dictators as in Venezuela and Cuba.
"I am a moderate voter — a voter who abstained this year — and I believe that divided government is a safeguard against extremism. I eagerly clicked on the column because of the title. I'm perfectly ready to have my belief challenged." Ahhhh, but the Dems are "extreme", very much so!
I’m not sure I understand why people are confident we will have divided government on Inauguration Day.
Me either. That crazy black preacher will fit fine with Obama. I wouldn't count on 2022 either.
I love a divided government.
But now that we are going to have a Democrat in office, we are going to be back to "Work together!!" like we used to hear during the Obama years (translated: Republicans should do what Obama wants)
Personally, I like divided government and I don't like politicians.
If those creeps can't get along with each other, it ain't no never mind to me.
And if someone on the NYT op-ed staff thinks the Republican Party is the more divided one, well, he needs to get out more.
It seems more likely that one side ramming through a pretty radical agenda that half the country is strongly opposed to is going to cause more anger and division than a gridlock situation where nothing happens. I'm think of things like the Green New Deal (or whatever slightly watered down version Biden & Pelosi's minions can cook up), amnesty (and healthcare) for millions of illegals, single payer healthcare, wiping out student loan debt, caving to whatever China wants ect.
The problem is that the Demcrats seem to have lost all sense of moderation and the Republicans seem too eager to cave to them if Trump's not around.
It is pitiful to say that our government would be divided if Perdue and Loeffler win.
It would just force the democrats to give Romney and Murkowski a little bit more money to stab us in the back.
I judge most, if not all, government actions in our modern era to be inefficient, dysfunctional, and destructive to the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. The less the government does, the better. Thus, like MayBee and contra Dionne's assertions, I love divided government.
Here's the problem though: the Executive has seized power over the past 20 something years by asserting government action via executive orders, a phone and a pen if you will. The Legislature, through inaction, has abdicated much of its power to the Executive.
Divided government may not be enough to overcome this.
Did Romney and Murkowski vote for Amy?
I think they did. As much as I detest Romney and Merkowski - holding the senate is key to making sure Biden cannot do everything he wants.
he still has a phone and a pen.... and the corrupt leftwing machine whispering in his ear.
Jeff Brokaw said...
“Divided government controls the extremists on both sides, forcing moderate governance. Gridlock is a feature, not a bug.”
Just picking this as a representative comment of this viewpiont ...
The problem here, folks, is that this does absolutely nothing to stop the growth of the bureaucratic state, or its cousin the Deep State, which as you may have noticed in recent years, is quite the powerful force.
That's a different issue. Nobody's talking about it, not because nobody here thinks about it, but because it's not the topic under discussion.
Moderate Dems are extinct.
She’s got a ticket to obstructionism, and she don’t care.
The democrat party is corrupt.
It all flows downhill from there.
The Rachel word is "RESET"
"Are you ready for the Great Reset? It’s the Great Leap Forward of 21st-century technocracy. It’s time, we are told by the likes of Davos guru Klaus Schwab, to reboot our passé, 18th-century ideas about rights, democracy and constitutions — and surrender to the smooth rule of the experts and the climate cultists, not forgetting, of course, their financial advisers.
The reality, however, is less Great Reset than Great Preset. What elites who talk this way really want is to turn the clock back to circa 2014, before Donald Trump’s ascent, before Brexit, before populists swept to power across the West on a wave of discontent with the liberal-technocratic order.
Look at who Joe Biden, the great hope of resetters, wants to drive the economic recovery. Janet Yellen, who was President Barack Obama’s choice at the Federal Reserve, for Treasury. Neera Tanden, the corporatist Clinton sidekick, for the Office of Management and Budget. Adewale Adeyemo, president of the Obama Foundation, as Yellen’s deputy.
It’s Obama Time all over again in defense and diplomacy too."
you were going to get "Divided Government" no matter what, because The D's were never going to lose the House, and the Senate even under the R's, allowed the D's to filibuster whatever they wished.
ALthouse's excuse for not voting for Trump was bullshit. She just wanted Biden, like she wanted Hillary but is too lame to say so.
Trump just gave a masterly speech on the election fraud, and how he won the legal votes and will keep on fighting for a correct, and accurate election result. He asked Biden to join him.
The MSM just ignored it, like Althouse. Yeah, who cares if the election was a Fraud. Who cares what Trump says, he's just POTUS!
Calling E. J. Dionne a simple moron is an insult to morons in general. E. J. is a lying moron. Still I suppose some folks do read him--our host apparently. But every second spent reading or listening to an editorial ideologue like Dionne is a toxic moment taken from your life--that you will never get back.
What elites who talk this way really want is to turn the clock back to circa 2014, before Donald Trump’s ascent, before Brexit, before populists swept to power across the West on a wave of discontent with the liberal-technocratic order.
I've thought for a long time now, that a better word to describe Progressives is REGRESSIVES
They want to move the world back to 1848 what with the revolutions and the marxism and the steam trains and the poverty and the hunger and The Horses! Don't forget The Horses! What is the ultimate green autonomous vehicle? WHY, THE HORSE AND BUGGY OF COURSE!!
Obama was more into burning the Middle-East and standing up petty dictators as in Venezuela and Cuba.
I thought he was more into sitting down with them and celebrating communism.
Ran across this on Influence Watch: "In the months leading up to the 2020 election, Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan donated a total of $350 million to CTCL [Center for Tech and Civic Life]. CTCL then donated the funds in the form of grants to various jurisdictions throughout the United States to help them hire more staff, buy mail-in ballot processing machinery, and other measures they deemed necessary to properly handle the election amid the COVID-19 pandemic."
PS: CTCL is a left-wing organization. The entire article is here: Center for Tech and Civic Life
tim maguire said...
Jeff Brokaw said...
“Divided government controls the extremists on both sides, forcing moderate governance. Gridlock is a feature, not a bug.”
Just picking this as a representative comment of this viewpiont ...
The problem here, folks, is that this does absolutely nothing to stop the growth of the bureaucratic state, or its cousin the Deep State, which as you may have noticed in recent years, is quite the powerful force.
That's a different issue. Nobody's talking about it, not because nobody here thinks about it, but because it's not the topic under discussion.
I've seen Tucker Carlson talk about it. He uses the lockdowns and being unpersoned for social media posts as examples of how our government is using the Chinese model.
And no, I don't think many people even think about it.
Blogger Lucien said...
This country has more than enough laws.
If Congress just stuck to passing a budget every year — which it seems increasingly incapable of doing — we’d be fine.
12/3/20, 7:18 AMAbsolutely.
But the Democrats want us to believe that we are all in a sinking lifeboat, and the Republicans - and deplorables - are preventing us fixing the leak. Yet they can provide no evidence of such, but lies and misinformation.
Jeez, EJ, you wait until after the election to tell us this? Why didn't you say something when it mattered?
Per Gilbar, E. J. Dionne is not long for this world. Ta-ta!
Nitpicking while a dumpster fire continues at the White House.
I have not read the column but I assume he means that nothing will get passed with McConnell obstruction, whereas with, say, Reagan and O'Neil or Johnson and Eisenhower stuff got passed.
We already have divided government:
government of the government, by the government and for the government vs. President-Elect Trump and the American People.
Gibberish typical of too many AA commenters.
"I am a moderate voter — a voter who abstained this year — and I believe that divided government is a safeguard against extremism."
Hate to be an ass, but next election (after you've voted) you can have an opinion, even though I agree with you.
And voters don't know that the result of their votes will be a divided government until after the damn vote.
There is no box to check on the ballot that reads 'Divided Government.'
Shorter Dionne: government is working when Democrats are getting their way.
When you say "partisan brawling stops the government from getting things done and that's bad" you are trying to steal bases. "Partisan brawling" is how we determine what the government should even be doing.
To say otherwise is to say that the government has some legitimate function different from serving the people; that it is there to manage the people for their own good.
Is there any question this is exactly what Dionne believes?
"Is there any question this is exactly what Dionne believes?
I want to hear the Belmonts' side of the story.
Did Sue, indeed, run around?
I know she was seen in the company of Abraham, Martin and John.
is to say that the government has some legitimate function different from serving the people; that it is there to manage the people for their own good
An ostensibly "secular" religious philosophy.
His main point is that the GOP leadership is "committed to preventing a Democratic president from governing successfully — even when that president is willing and eager to compromise."
Senate Republicans have repeatedly pointed out that Biden has done NO consultation with them about who he's going to try to appoint to his Administration. Which means we have explicit proof that Dione is lying about Biden's willingness to compromise
The key word is "outcomes" i.e. results. For Dionne, "moderate outcomes" are what he and Obama and Biden and Pelosi (but not AOC and Bernie Sanders) want. Divided government produces a stalemate, rather than "results" of the sort he wants. For many of the rest of us, a stalemate, in which neither party inflicts its ruinous projects on the country is not a bad thing.
You aren't going to get the kind of harmony experienced during WWII or during the Eisenhower-Kennedy years. You aren't going to get some mellow feeling of national unity whatever happens. Politics is going to be combative. Why pretend that things could be any different (unless one side is routed in the polls or completely caves in to the other's demands)? Why set yourself up for disappointment?
I wouldn't romanticize the Reagan-O'Neill relationship. O'Neill really hated Reagan, but there were enough Democrats who would vote with the Republicans. That, by the way, is another place where Dionne gets it wrong. Sure, liberal Republicans are gone. But so are conservative Democrats. And moderates in both parties vote with their party. So why single out only the absence of Republican moderates and mavericks as bad for the country?
I guess we know the answer. But that's what makes politics so depressing. Everybody is pre-programmed to give the answer that puts their side in the best light and the other in the worst.
Dionne is an overt partisan. His positions depend on what is good for his partisanship at any given time. You should pay him no mind.
Jeff Brokaw said...
“Divided government controls the extremists on both sides, forcing moderate governance. Gridlock is a feature, not a bug.”
Just picking this as a representative comment of this viewpiont ...
The problem here, folks, is that this does absolutely nothing to stop the growth of the bureaucratic state, or its cousin the Deep State, which as you may have noticed in recent years, is quite the powerful force.
The Supreme Court looks likely to end Chevron deference, which will put a big leash on the bureaucracy.
The Bureaucratic State wins when it's the belief of the Supreme Court and the lower judiciary that bureaucratic governance is good. I believe that there are 5 members of the US SC who don't believe that. Who don't believe that big government is competent, and ready to solve all our ills.
Keep the Senate out of Democrat hands, keep Biden / Harris from being able to stack the courts, and the bureaucracy is going to see some serious pushback.
That was the main point of the ruling against NY's Covid restrictions: the SC now has 5 members who don't believe the "experts" are more important than the Constitution, the rule of law, or democracy
It's why the Left is so outraged
Shorter Dionne: If those Republicans would just be cooperative we could get 90% of what we want and call it bipartisan. The bastards.
I have yet to see extremism from the Trump years, except that fomented by his political enemies.
Are you saying that we should elect people because their enemies are extremists?
I think that's deeply immoral.
Dion has made it clear that the "Sue" in "Roundaround Sue" is not a reference to his wife of 57 years, Susan Butterfield. He said it was patterned after a girl named Roberta, but he (and co-writer Ernie Maresca, couldn't find many words to rhyme with Roberta. The song's idea came about at a party where he threw together the melody and lyrics (using Sue) and had friends sing the doo wop harmonies. Years later, on Oprah, with his wife present, he said it was about her, but people who know Dion believe he was joshing Oprah because she pushed the idea. I have personally heard him explain the Roberta origin several times after the 1990 Oprah appearance, servIt was DiMucci's only number one hit, The Wanderer making it to number two.
THEOLDMAN
In the early 70s, years before I met Dion (during the period I got sober and found God), my buddies and I would cruise in my 68 Firebird, singing along to RS and the doo wop lyrics: Hayp Hayp
Bumda Hady Hady Hayp Hayp
Bumda Hady Hady Hayp Hayp
Bumda Hady Hady Hay
"but he (and co-writer Ernie Maresca, couldn't find many words to rhyme with Roberta."
King-size Serta?
It would tie nicely into the sleeping around theme : )
How interesting that Dionne didn't write this article 2 years ago. A point that doubtless has been made, but needs to be repeated. Obstruction when Democrats do it: Totally okay. Obstruction when Republicans do it: OMG!
I'm hearing that when offered a choice between total corruption or reason and law and order, choosing neither is a moderate.
The disappointment I feel toward many of my fellow Americans is becoming unbearable. I've been so proud of my nation since I was child, even through the rebellious young adult years. What it represented to the world was just incredible and unmatched by any other, and we mostly all shared that pride. Now in my sixties I have to watch this abomination. I hope I don't die before the pendulum swings back, but even then, it won't be the same nation, the same confidence in what I'm part of. It's debased beyond repair. The nation has been raped, and the rapists are brushing her off an saying : "Isn't she beautiful?"
In the heart of every leftist is a totalitarian.
E.J. Dionne probably believes Elizabeth Warren is moderate. So you now you know how to read his column.
Great blog you have here.
Post a Comment