Her focus was on the last two congressional sessions, which certainly show a dramatic increase in the use of the fillibuster. And, indeed, there can be no doubt that the senate is broken. But America as a whole has been broken for a lot longer than that, and in fact this chart clearly shows it. Look at the first sharp uptick on the graph. That's the 92nd Congress, starting in 1971. It's just one election cycle after Nixon's election in 1968, which I've repeatedly referred to--following Walter Dean Burnham--as a "de-aligning" election. That's when the pattern of a dominant party controlling all three power centers--House, Senate and Presidency--most of the time over a 40-odd year period broke down. From then on, divided government became the rule in America. And the breakdown of traditional order in the Senate began just two years after that election, reinforcing the broader policy paralysis that divided government brings and serves to normalize.
It's worth reprising the chart of party systems that I've posted a few times before, so that the striking anomaly of the passing sixth party system can be seen, and recognized as the background for the Senate's paralysis:
Partisan Balance In US History
Through Six Party Systems
Control of Presidency, House & Senate
Dem-Reps: 12 / Feds: 2 / Split: 1
Dem-Reps: 9 / Whigs: 1 / Split: 7
Dems: 1 / Reps: 9 / Split: 8
Dems 3 / Reps: 12 / Split: 3
Dems: 13 / Reps: 1 / Split: 4
Dems: 3 / Reps 2.25 / Split: 13.75
But there are two more turning points in the chart of fillibusters. The one in 2007, which Maddow focused on, and the earlier one in the 103rd Congress--1993, Clinton's first term. This in turn corresponds with a tremendous collapse in Democratic Party strength--which I noted Monday in "The Clinton catastrophe vs. Versailles hallowed memory (Rewriting presidential history 1992-2000)", as shown by these two charts:
I Still Think "Realigning Elections" Depend On Demography
1968 was a realignment not a "de-alignment." Of course, Southern Democrat politicians continued to serve in the U.S. Senate for more than a decade due to incumbency, thus leading to "divided government" of the 70's where Congress was under the Control of Democrats while Republicans controlled the White House.
Of course, in one sense realigning elections--like just about everything else in politices--depend on demography. As Chris has shown in the past, issue positions are closely linked demographic groups, similar people see things in similar ways. It would actually be quite surprising if this were not the case. Big whup! Dealigning elections also depend on demographics, and 1968 was the beginning of a so-far-unique period of American history, a 40-year Sixth Party System, which unlike all the others was predominantly a period of divided government:
Partisan Balance In US History
Through Six Party Systems
Control of Presidency, House & Senate
Dem-Reps: 12 / Feds: 2 / Split: 1
Dem-Reps: 9 / Whigs: 1 / Split: 7
Dems: 1 / Reps: 9 / Split: 8
Dems 3 / Reps: 12 / Split: 3
Dems: 13 / Reps: 1 / Split: 4
Dems: 3 / Reps 2.25 / Split: 13.75
Typically--when we don't have a dealigned party system--what happens during a party system is that one party dominates almost completely at first, with the other party staging a breakthrough somewhere in the middle, but not changing the basic political logic in doing so (Eisenhower during the New Deal Party system, with the big-government Interstate freeway system was a classic example of this). The only exception was the Federalist's political repression (highlighted by the Alien and Sedition Act), which caused a backlash that permanently drove them from power. Of the other four party systems, three of them began with seven straight congresses in which all three branches were conrolled by the same party.
This was even the case after 1896, which was a particularly weak realigning election, followed by a period in which reformers like trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt battled with Mark Hannah style trust-defenders for control of the Republican Party. And that's the kind of situation we seemingly found ourselves in after 2008.
But if the GOP wins control of one or both houses of Congress this year, it's entirely possible that we could be in for yet another 40-year de-aligned party system, in which divided government dominates, which will only serve to further entrench the power of insider special interests, who always see their power increase as divided government give dealmaking far more power than it has when one party has a clear working majority, and can give its base a fairly decent amount of what it voted for.
This is the "stable, mature" version of why this election is so important. The "no extreme scaremongering talk of fascism" version. It doesn't even hint at what lies in that direction--the direction that looks more like the First Party System, only in reverse, with the repressive party taking over and perhaps using its political dominance to put an end to pesky elections once and for all.
I've always expressed a certain bewilderment about Barack Obama. The things he does just don't make sense if you look at them at all carefully. Or rather, they do make sense--but only if you make rather bizarre assumptions. For example, assume on the one hand that (A) he actually does understand the basics of American political history, he knows that no major, transformational policy ever came from bipartisanship, he understands that he just won a realigning election, (B) he's spent years working within the Democratic Party, and (C) that he wants to utterly destroy the Democratic Party's chance for political dominance over the next 40 years. If you accept those three premises, then the following makes perfect sense.
It was laid out exquisitely by Dday at Hullabaloo on Friday, "The Costs Of Reductive Thinking". In it, he quoted Barack Obama from the Organizing for America strategy session on health care saying:
"So for about the same cost per year as we've been spending over the last five to six years, we could have funded this health care reform proposal, just to give you a sense of perspective."
And himself responding:
I don't know if I was the only one, but my immediate reaction was, "Um, well, why don't you do something about that?" I mean, sure, the costs of an unnecessary war in Iraq and a war headed toward quagmire in Afghanistan could have paid for the front end of health care reform. But they're both still raging, at a time when we have few national security interests in those regions, and certainly nothing that could not be handled with a diplomatic, law enforcement and intelligence approach rather than a military one.
So if the cost of the wars from 2003-2009 could pay for health care, the future costs from 2009-2019 could go a pretty long way in their own right.
It's particularly pernicious to find the President making this argument, when as commander-in-chief he has the ability to draw down forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. If he wants to make that kind of comparison, he ought to back it up.
The Democratic party seems resigned to losing in November in order to save the party.
As an observer, Hillary Clinton is the stronger general election candidate. Yet, the risk for Democrats in nominating Clinton, who would be perceived as "stealing" the nomination from Obama, is the dealignment of black voters from the Democratic party. (Anecdotally, my brother, who lives near Philly, said he would walk away from the party if Obama was not the nominee. I believe him.)
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