Posted under: American history, bad language, jobs, wankers
Why do the Villagers hate politics?
I'll bust a cap in your a$$!
“The way Congress is working right now, I decided I could make a better contribution to my state and country on a smaller stage,” [Indiana Democratic Sen. Evan] Bayh told me Tuesday. “There are some ideologues in the Senate. There are some staunch partisans. The vast majority are good, decent people who are trapped in a system that does not let that goodness and decency translate itself into legislative accomplishments.”
When his father Birch Bayh was running for re-election in 1968, Bayh noted, Republican leader Everett Dirksen approached the Democrat on the Senate floor and asked how he could help. “It’s unthinkable today,” Bayh said. “One after another, the barriers to incivility get broken down.
Senators actively fundraise against their colleagues, they campaign against their colleagues and that is not conducive to consensus building if you know the people you have to work with want to do you in.”
Uhhh. . . call me crazy, but I don’t want Mitch McConnell raising money for Democratic Senators’ re-elections! It seems like the very definition of politics is that “the people you have to work with want to do you in.” The idea that partisan politics is just a show for the rubes, and we all get along here in our richly paneled men’s club, seems much more cynical and corrupt than plain ol’ partisanship to me. Why is it always a mythic past of bipartisan comity that the Village evokes when it wants Democrats to roll over and die? (Not that they need much encouragement these days.) Because the 1960s strike me as a pretty contentious time in Congress! You know, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Medicare, Medicaid, Vietnam. . .
Maybe returning to the days of dueling isn’t such a bad idea. These weaklings have no idea what real partisanship looks like! Aaron Burr in fact “did someone in,” dude. And he was a Democrat!!!
Profane on 17 Feb 2010 at 7:25 am #
Yes, of course, the 60s was a tad contentious – but rarely along party lines where major legislation was concerned:
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed with the support of 153 Democrats and 136 Republicans in the House with only 46 and 27 in opposition respectively. In the Senate, it won the support of 46 Democrats and 27 Republicans with 21 and 6 in opposition.
There was similar bipartisan support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In support: Democrats – 217 in the House and 54 in the Senate; Republicans – 111 in the House and 17 in the Senate. Opposition: Democrats – 49 in the House and 17 in the Senate; Republicans – 30 in the House and 1 in the Senate.
The amendments to the Social Security Act which produced Medicare and Medicaid resulted in a divided Republican caucus – in the the House 70-68, and in the Senate 13-17. There is a lesson in that for Pelosi and Reid!
Emma on 17 Feb 2010 at 8:14 am #
Somebody at Talk Left made the point that Evan Bayh became a Senator at a time when, generally speaking, things were pretty good in the US and the Congress occupied itself with “pressing” issues like flag burning amendments and the like. Now that there’s a real, deep seated, and apparently intractable crisis, he is (and many other are) completely incapable of dealing with it and doing the necesssary work to address it.
But re: the 60s, I certainly don’t see how the Republicans of today can be any more entrenched than the Dixiecrats of the 60s.
I don’t buy this BS about “good people” being “trapped” in a “bad system”, either. Who controls the system? Congress. If Congress doesn’t work, it’s because the majority of the Congresspeople don’t want it to work. Period.
Matt L on 17 Feb 2010 at 8:25 am #
Great post and great comments from Profane and Emma. If thing are not working, its because congress-persons and Senators, like Bayh, don’t want to make them work.
The Republicans maybe behaving like obstructionist pains-in-the-a$$3$, but the Democrats are in the majority and have been since 2006. This Albatross will be firmly hung around their necks.
Dr. Crazy on 17 Feb 2010 at 8:50 am #
The word on Bayh in Indiana (the only thing I’ve heard on the local news, for whatever that is worth – and I have been watching the local news a lot lately because of the Great Snows) is that his seat’s in danger and that choosing not to run for reelection is a way of saving face and of avoiding a tough campaign with a likely losing outcome. I realize that speaks not at all to his comments about partisanship, other than perhaps it may suggest that he’s so worried about partisan politics because it’s entirely likely he’d lose his seat to a republican if he ran again.
Historiann on 17 Feb 2010 at 9:00 am #
Oh, oh, the vapors! The vapors! The vapors are overcoming all of the precious widdle Senators!
Because of Dem weakness and incompetence, this is going to be a tough year for incumbents, period. Dems acted like they’d have another 35-40 year reign to work things out, and so have been in no particular hurry to do much of anything. From what I’ve seen Dr. Crazy, Bayh was way ahead of his would-be R challengers, but I’m sure the race would have narrowed.
Profane: agreed that partisanship wasn’t as strictly drawn along R v. D lines as it is today. But as Emma says, politics was still very much a contact sport in the 60s. Too bad that post-Cold War buzz got harshed by 9/11 and the rise of China. It sure would be great if we could just talk about flag burning again, as if that were the most important issue in the whole world!
Lance on 17 Feb 2010 at 10:12 am #
Ah, I miss the good old days of the Sumner-Brooks affair. Seriously, I do.
Indyanna on 17 Feb 2010 at 10:36 am #
It may fall into the nebulously nostalgic category of Eisenhower Revisionism, and you most certainly do have to fight the war you’re in with the army you’ve got (as somebody said a few years back), but I do think that the political quality of civil life (or vice versa?) was better through *much* of the Sixties than it’s become since Watergate and Reagangate and Impeachmentgate, to cite a few passages. It would be hard to provide much evidence in the conscionable space of a blog-comment, even if I was a modern American political historian, instead of just a withering would-be New Frontiersman. But it was congressionally better when Jim Bunning was pitching perfect games and Ev Dirksen was quibbling over a billion here, a billion there. Not sublimely better, I will allow.
Emma on 17 Feb 2010 at 10:59 am #
So, the question has to be, is it the politics or the politicians at fault? I don’t think politics is so different that the US is “ungovernable” as people like Bayh would have us believe.
Historiann on 17 Feb 2010 at 11:10 am #
Lance–it would have been better if the Anti-Slavery Senator beat the crap out of the Proslavery congressman, though, don’t you think? Other than that turnabout, I agree. It would be nice if there were a party for the people that felt as passionate about defending the public interest as proslavery congressmen felt in the 1850s, instead of the far right wing Corporate Party and the right wing 2% Less Evil Corporate Party.
Indyanna: I take your point. Things are different now because of Watergate and the Clinton impeachment. But, I think narratives like the one Marcus and Bayh are spinning in the linked article construct a homogeneously collegial fictive past, rather than grappling with the vicious and sometimes physically violent reality of partisan politics in American history over the longue duree. I guess it’s so much easier to put one’s wrist to one’s head, claiming a case of the Vapors, and retire to service on several corporate boards and/or in a lobbying firm.
Lance on 17 Feb 2010 at 11:42 am #
Yes, yes. That is it exactly! Sure, we have partisan gridlock. And we have a lot of hand-wringing. But, relative to the extra-Congressional public expressions on the right and the left, the elected ones seem so thoroughly decorous and restrained. Even the scandals over the uttered phrase “You Lie!” and Dick Cheney’s filthy mouth were pathetic, defining “inappropriate” downward. If politics is a contact sport, let’s find our Claude Lemieux! There’s work to be done!
Paul on 17 Feb 2010 at 12:17 pm #
It seems like Congress has gone back and forth over time between periods of greater partisanship and periods of greater willingness or ability to compromise. Rather than being a sign of decay from a much better past, I would suggest that the highly charged partisan atmosphere of today is more likely to represent one extreme of the swing of a pendulum that goes back and forth.
I do wonder if the media climate of today, in which national-level politicians feel the need to stay constantly in “campaign mode” to stay in the public eye and keep the contributions flowing, encourages heightened partisanship and less willingness to compromise on both sides. I wonder if there used to be more of a willingness to make pragmatic compromises and then try to sell the deal to one’s supporters and the voters in general later on.
perpetua on 17 Feb 2010 at 12:47 pm #
I feel certain the media plays a role in all this, but I’m not sure what. What disturbs me about partisanship and gridlock is that it doesn’t seem to represent in any way (except perhaps on the fringes) the real experiences, desires, or politics of the American people. (I keep wondering what would happen if we had an *actual conversation* about health care reform in this country, since the majority of people actually want it!) Perhaps it all goes back to the problem of gerrymandering, which many have argued has permitted more and more zealots to take office (and by “zealot” I mean hard-lined right-wingers, since there are like 2 “hard-core” lefties in politics today, if that). So there’s this shifting to the right of political culture in DC, which I’ve never been convinced reflects an actual shifting to the right of the American people. Basically, the Republican Powers that Be have worked out an amazingly successful formula of propaganda and screed (fed to public via Fox) and the Dems have existed in a state of complete political and moral collapse since the 80s, permitting more and more ground to be gained by the Republican leadership. I mean, c’mon Dems, you’ve collapsed onto your fainting couch with a case of the vapors for two-to-three decades, longer than even a Victorian lady. It’s time to throw yourself under a train or get your act together.
Historiann on 17 Feb 2010 at 1:02 pm #
Heh. I like the image of today’s Dem party flat on the rails, Anna Karenina-style.
In the past, I have written that the problem is that one party cares about politics (R), and one party cares about governing (D). But, I don’t think that’s correct. The Democrats care about serving themselves, and if it means serving corporate interests, so be it. In this respect, then, the most meaningful difference between the Ds and Rs is that the Republicans are more honest about serving corporate interests, because they believe that this serves American interests.
Indyanna on 17 Feb 2010 at 1:04 pm #
It can be said, at least, that there’s still a train for them to throw themselves under. The high point of the Great Democracy after 1981 was stuffing the Reaganaut “kill-Amtrak” bill at the goal line what was it, six (8?) years in a row? But they pretty much left it all on the battlefield with that. Vapors indeed. If they can’t figure out how to ram (or railroad) bills through the Senate with 59 votes, there’s not much left to hope for. This business of playing cat-and-mouse with the Republicans over holding a “Debt Summit” (or is it a Health Summit) a week from now seems pretty pathetic. It kind of feels like an “Assembly of Notables” moment. What comes after that?
Meanwhile, the Republicans sit there wondering how far to get in bed with the Tea Bag insugency. Their judgments, or misjudgments, on that question may be the only game left really worth watching for a while.
Comrade PhysioProf on 17 Feb 2010 at 7:52 pm #
These fuckers are goddamn lazy shits! If I hear the word “bipartisanship” one more fucking time, I’m gonna fucking puke. (Unless it’s in the sentence, “Listen asshole, take your ‘bipartisanship’ and shove it up your motherfucking ass!”) Fuck all these fucks.