Mitch McConnell as Republican Leader, &
BRIEFLY NOTED: For 2022-11-13 Su
FOCUS: Mitch McConnell as Republican Leader:
Consider that so far in this century the concentration of democrats in large population states has meant that a 50-50 nation would generate a Senate that woul have a 56-44 Republican majority.
Consider that in 2009, Mitch McConnell and his Republican Senate leader laid down the law: we are going to do no legislating, but instead be as obstructionist as possible to underline partisan differences. It is true, he told his supporters in the Senate, that such obstructionism means that for the next two years you will have no job—you will find that you might as well have been a potted plant. But afterwards, after we have focused Americans attention on how important the partisan differences are, we will have a durable majority, and will be able to do our jobs and succeed in changing America into what we want it to be.
How has that been working out for him? Well:
NOTE: For 23-25, not 51.5 but rather 50.5
Republicans will have held the Senate majority for only 6 out of 16 years. And they will never have managed to obtain the 56-seat majority that simply turning down the heat and expecting people will simply fill in their customary box on the ballot would have produced.
Moreover, what did McConnell get from his six years as Majority Leader? A lot of nut-boy and -girl judges appointed, yes. And a pointless upper-class tax cut that did nothing to encourage economic growth or investment in America, and that raised a lot of money by taxing Republican worthies via reduction in the SALT deduction.
Why have the results for McConnell been so extraordinarily subpar? On those very rare occasions when he speaks, he says things like "candidate quality”. But what has led Republican primary electorates and Republican moneymen to choose low-quality candidates? The answer is this: when you turn up the partisan heat to 11, you make a political environment uncongenial for dealmakers and very convenient for grifters and for the unhinged. Had McConnell turn down the partisan hea—encouraged the 20 left-most members of his caucus to make deals and legislate where there was legislation to be done—he would, I think, I have spent not six but twelve of the sixteen years covered in the table above as majority leader.
Moreover, now he has created a Senate in which the right-most members of the Democratic Party are willing to vote for policies far to the left of those they are comfortable with just to stick it to McConnell.
And the Washington press corps portrays this as a successful stint as Republican leader?
One Video:
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"The rise of the neoliberal order in the 1970s and 1980s coincided with the demise of the socially beneficial corporation."
I think the diminishing threat of Communism as an economic threat meant high income owners had less incentive to "play nice" as employers and to sic their political lackeys to play rougher.
Was there (is there) a Pigou subsidy that would have internalized the positive externality of Bell Labs- like activities? Centralizing basic research in the federal government has some downsides.
But this presumes that McConnell in fact wanted to achieve something beyond a 6-3 SCOUS and transferring income to upper income tax (non) payers and running up the deficit to try to scare Democrats into reducing transfer payment to low income people. Not impeaching Trump was a strategic mistake.