In Bold defiance of irony McConnell frets over partisanship!
"Listening to Mitch McConnell talk
about the decline of bipartisanship is like listening to Jeffrey
Dahmer complain about the decline of dinner party etiquette."
I can not take credit for either of the above two quotes but I thought they were excellent opening words to what I have to say about partisanship and politics. Before anyone gets their panties in a wad rest assured that the second quote is not accusing Senator McConnell of being a serial killer, nuff said.
Politics in America today is a nasty, smelly cesspool and almost every member of Congress is guilty of helping to create the current mess. Of course, they don't get all the blame, at least an equal amount is our own fault. We keep electing the same people over and over again. We never demand any sort of change. We don't hold them accountable. We know next to nothing about what they are doing in our name, partly because we don't pay attention, and partly because they only tell us what they want us to know.
How many of us know who the ten largest donors are to the campaign fund of our Congressional representatives or Senators? How many of us know anything about those donors, who do they work for, what sort of things do they expect for their donations. How many of us know whether our Senators or our Representatives have written or sponsored any legislation at all and if they have what it was. Do you pay any attention at all to the votes those people have made? Did they vote no on a piece of legislation that would have made your life better? How about something even more basic....what did your congressperson do before they got into politics? Do you even know what town or county they are from or how long they have lived in your district?
Politicians in Washington figured out a very long time ago that they can pretty much get away with anything and the majority of their voters will never know a thing about it. We have been willfully ignorant and we are paying the price.
Politicians in Washington figured out a very long time ago that they can pretty much get away with anything and the majority of their voters will never know a thing about it. We have been willfully ignorant and we are paying the price.
What the above quotes actually say about Senator McConnell is that it is absolutely laughable for him to complain about partisanship when he had been one of the biggest drivers of that partisanship, for the past dozen years, at least.
Some partisanship is expected from the leaders in Congress, some is even desirable from the point of view of "keeping the team in together working on common goals" so to speak, but enough is enough and too much is a disaster for everyone. In one sense we send our representatives to congress and expect them to act in our favor, but at the same time to use their best judgment in that regard regardless of how the "leaders" think they should act. I would not want my Senator doing only what the party leader in that chamber wanted....I mean really, if that's what we are going to do then why do we even need two senators from every state if only two senators are making all the decisions.
Often two people can look at a problem and come up with different solutions to that problem. I believe we expect our representatives will not always agree on what solution to a problem works best and I get that, but we are currently in a much worse predicament than not agreeing on solutions. Where we are now is that we don't even agree on what is a problem and what isn't a problem and that my friends is a disaster. Once upon a time, there was a center that held the right and left together. The center has grown weak, having been chipped away by both the right and left. There is very little holding the two sides together these days. Maybe nothing at all.
Finally, I will leave you with this one simple example of how Mitch McConnell has broken the Senate. You really only need to look at McConnell's treatment of Judicial appointments under President Obama to understand just how far McConnell is willing to take partisanship. Under all the presidents before Obama, in other words from George Washington to George Bush 86 Judicial nominations had been blocked by filibuster. In just the Obama presidency McConnell used the filibuster to block 82 nominations and that does not include his refusal to even consider taking a vote on Obama's last Supreme court nominee.
Hearing him whine about partisanship turns my stomach.
Some partisanship is expected from the leaders in Congress, some is even desirable from the point of view of "keeping the team in together working on common goals" so to speak, but enough is enough and too much is a disaster for everyone. In one sense we send our representatives to congress and expect them to act in our favor, but at the same time to use their best judgment in that regard regardless of how the "leaders" think they should act. I would not want my Senator doing only what the party leader in that chamber wanted....I mean really, if that's what we are going to do then why do we even need two senators from every state if only two senators are making all the decisions.
Often two people can look at a problem and come up with different solutions to that problem. I believe we expect our representatives will not always agree on what solution to a problem works best and I get that, but we are currently in a much worse predicament than not agreeing on solutions. Where we are now is that we don't even agree on what is a problem and what isn't a problem and that my friends is a disaster. Once upon a time, there was a center that held the right and left together. The center has grown weak, having been chipped away by both the right and left. There is very little holding the two sides together these days. Maybe nothing at all.
Finally, I will leave you with this one simple example of how Mitch McConnell has broken the Senate. You really only need to look at McConnell's treatment of Judicial appointments under President Obama to understand just how far McConnell is willing to take partisanship. Under all the presidents before Obama, in other words from George Washington to George Bush 86 Judicial nominations had been blocked by filibuster. In just the Obama presidency McConnell used the filibuster to block 82 nominations and that does not include his refusal to even consider taking a vote on Obama's last Supreme court nominee.
Hearing him whine about partisanship turns my stomach.
No comments:
Post a Comment