Are Politicians REALLY All Crooked?

There have always been disagreements among Americans about what this country should be. Immigration, social programs, foreign relations - every possible subject has been a source of impassioned argument. The main parties have taken differing positions over the decades as well, often switching back and forth between extremes. Regarding Democracy itself, or if you prefer, government in the form of a representative, constitutional republic, was for a long time, more talk than walk. Initially only white landowners could vote. Native tribes and descendants of Africans weren't even considered people according to the law. Once some of these hurdles were jumped and all adults theoretically had a say in government, there were still many laws that were designed to disenfranchise black citizens, beatings and lynchings took place when the laws weren't restrictive enough. In many big cities, political machines had votes bought and paid for. But by the last half of the twentieth century we had convinced ourselves that we really were a democracy and that "one person, one vote" was a reality, not a pipe dream.

Unlike in past eras when the "wrong" people were simply not allowed to vote, or votes were coerced or purchased by the local political parties, today we have the illusion that we live in a Democracy.  (and anyone who "corrects me with "no, it's a Republic" gets a smack in the head) The form of democracy is there. People aren't, by law prevented from voting due to their gender or race; the majority theoretically gets to elect representatives to carry out their will; those elected representatives get to carry out their political agenda while their term lasts.

However, one of our two main political parties has made it their mission to subvert democracy. I'm talking about the Republican Party. There was a period of time when the Democrats and the Republicans, while opposed on many fronts, could work together, or at least achieve workable consensus on important issues. There was once such a thing as compromise, whereby one side would give a little to get something that they wanted, where the other party wasn't viewed as the enemy. The beginnings of this attitude on the part of the modern Republican party appeared during Bill Clinton's presidency when Newt Gingrich orchestrated a Republican electoral takeover of the House of Representatives. It didn't come to a head, however, until President Barack Obama was elected. Obama enjoyed a Democratic majority in the House and a veto-proof majority in the Senate. But at the time, Senator Mitch McConnell, who was the Senate Minority Leader, publicly stated that his main goal was to deny Obama a second term. Part of this plan was to block everything that Obama tried to accomplish, no matter what it was.

The Senate has a rule called the filibuster, which is a procedure whereby a member can delay a vote by simply talking...for a long, long time. The filibuster can be ended by a 3/5 vote, called cloture, that ends debate. In the Senate, 3/5 has been 60 members, the number of Democratic Senators that Obama started with. The Democrats lost that filibuster-proof majority when Scott Brown, a Republican, was elected in 2009 to fill the seat vacated when Ted Kennedy died. This allowed McConnell and the Republicans to effectively block everything that Obama wanted to do. Obama's signature achievement, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA - or simply ACA), was only possible because, at the time, the Republicans had no mechanism for obstruction. And not only was it legislation that was being blocked, but judicial appointments. Starting in 2010 McConnell mounted a campaign to, in many cases, deny Obama the ability to appoint federal judges by mounting filibusters. This went on until Senate Majority Leader at the time Harry Reid changed the filibuster rule as it applied to federal judges, eliminating the need for minority buy-in. This however, was only a brief respite, since the Republicans gained the Senate majority after the 2014 elections and resumed their obstruction of federal judgeship appointments. At the time this did not apply to Supreme Court appointments, but McConnell got around that by refusing to even consider Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the seat vacated by the death of Antonin Scalia.

In case you were wondering if Trump was lying about appointing a record number of federal judges: this is one of the rare cases where he was not lying. McConnell's obstruction prevented president Obama from appointing many judges during his last two years. Technically, the president's constitutional authority to appoint federal judges is tied to "the advice and consent" of the Senate, but historically, very seldom is this "consent" withheld.

But McConnell is only the most visible of the Republicans who labor to overturn "the will of the people". Here are a few examples of Republicans ignoring what the people voted for:

• Wisconsin voters elected a Democrat as governor. Before he could take office, the Republican legislature voted to strip the governor of many of his powers
• North Carolina did the same thing
• The Democratic North Carolina governor vetoed a budget that the legislature with a Republican majority submitted, but they didn't have enough votes to override. They waited until the entire Democratic caucus was at a 9-11 memorial and voted to  override the veto, since the 2/3 override threshold wasn't 2/3 of the entire legislature, but 2/3 of those present
• Several states, including my own state of Nebraska, voted to expand Medicaid coverage. The Republican governor has instructed state agencies to delay implementation and to throw up roadblocks to prevent people from actually utilizing it
• The same Nebraska governor, when faced with Republican legislators (in a ostensibly non-partisan legislature) who did not vote with him, he bankrolled primary challenges to those "disloyal" Republicans. 
• Lincoln Nebraska Republicans bankrolled a ballot initiative to term limit a Democratic mayor who had already announced that he was running for another term
• In Maine, South Dakota, Nevada and Oklahoma citizen ballot initiatives were overturned by the Republican governors and the legislatures
• In Florida, a ballot initiative restored voting rights to convicted felons who had served their sentences. The Republican governor and legislature instituted roadblocks that would prevent most from actually being able to vote (this was overturned by the courts)
• Let's not forget voter suppression laws. They require identification, and then close DMV's and other places where ID can be secured. 

And all of this brings us to the current impeachment process. Let's stipulate that there can be legitimate differences of opinion regarding whether Trump should be impeached and removed from office. (I don't really believe that, but stick with me) One would expect both Republicans and Democrats to listen to the evidence and make their decisions based on the evidence. But was it happening is that the House Republicans have made no pretense of listening to the evidence, but their "defense" is shouting irrelevant nonsense. The other day McConnell stated in a television interview that he would be coordinating with the White House during the probable upcoming Senate trial. Other top Republican Senators have also stated that they have already made up their minds. While the Democrats have agonized over the last almost three years over whether Trump's increasingly long list of impeachable actions is in fact impeachable, the Republicans have had no similar crisis of the soul. 

The difference is that Democrats, no matter what you think of their actual policies, naively believe that you have to play fair, that you have to respect the will of the people. When they lose, they do a lot of naval gazing and try to figure out how they failed, usually blaming themselves, then try like hell to get back in power...by way of the next election. Republicans, on the other hand, will do whatever is necessary to put their policies in place and maintain their positions of power. It doesn't matter what the voters say or do, it doesn't matter what the law says, it doesn't matter what's ethical, they will ignore it all to stay in office and get their vision implemented. This goes a long way to explaining why Republicans, who used to be all about family and God and fiscal responsibility and solid foreign alliances and free trade have hitched their wagons to Trump, who is none of those things. Trump, they have discovered, can deliver voters, many of whom don't care about the Republican agenda, so they put up with him in order to put conservative judges on the bench and cut taxes for the rich. 

So, when you dismissively say that all politicians are corrupt and that there's no difference between the two parties, take a look at what the Republicans are doing and get back to me when you've taken the blinders off.