| As Dave observed today, many Democrats still think they are living in the past, when gentlemen and ladies could reach across the aisle, find agreement, and do what is right for the country. The Republicans don't live in that world, and from an electoral politics point of view it's not clear they aren't right not to. Incumbent parties defeat themselves by failing to rule adequately. If you don't believe that you weren't paying attention to the last 8 years. The Democrats didn't defeat the Republicans, they defeated themselves by their complete inability to put through effective policy or to govern effectively day to day (an inability revealed starkly in both Katrina and Iraq). Democrats walked into the void. You can walk in faster if you opposed the failed policies (again, see Kerry, 2004) but eventually screwing up governance will tank a party. Now in parliamentary systems a majority government just does what it likes, and the opposition reflexively opposes but can't stop anything. In a minority government, the opposition can't just stop everything because if it defeats the government on the wrong vote it'll cause an election and you don't want one of those till you're sure you'll win and the governing party won't get a majority. So the government can still get through a fair bit of its agenda, even if it doesn't have a parliamentary majority. In the US there's no threat of a snap election, and the opposition can often hold up significant legislation, especially in a case like the current one where the governing party has unreliable members (something that's very rare in most parliamentary systems). So the Republicans have taken parliamentary opposition one step further. Instead of just opposing everything but letting it pass, then running against it, they figure why not oppose everything in the hopes of weakening policy to the point where it doesn't work? The stimulus bill was compromised to the point where it didn't do the necessary job. The global warming bill likewise, and the health care bill appears headed for the same fate. Lousy policy leads to lousy outcomes. Lousy outcomes make the population unhappy, and less likely to vote the incumbents back in. What the Republicans are doing makes perfect sense from an electoral point of view. Voters are not going to primarily blame Republicans for Democrats failing to govern effectively. This is something that many Democrats, especially older ones who came from a more genteel era, or those who some sort of strange genetic disposition to compromise (Obama) don't seem to get. But Republicans get it in their limbic system. They believe that your enemy is your enemy and that you never give your enemy an inch. When you're on top, you give them the boot, when you're down, you knaw at their ankles till they bleed out and fall. Comity and compromise only work with people who believe in them. Contrary to the moronic statement "it takes two to fight", it actually takes two to make peace. When one person wants to fight, and one won't fight, what happens may not be fighting, but it certainly isn't peace. |
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