Tag: political parties

Political parties and government dysfunction

Political parties and government dysfunction

Posted on by Jack

I have previously written much about the “cancer at the heart of our democracy”, often citing Mickey Edwards book The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans.

Mr Edwards has another piece on The Unraveling of Government due to the excessive power of political parties. This appeared online last week on the New York Times website and a version appeared in the Sunday NY Times.

I have cited other examples of party ridiculousness and I’m sure almost any reader can think of others.

Ronald Reagan got it partly right, the problem is not government per se but how we run our government. The political system, and in particular the power we give to political parties, is making our democracy dysfunctional.

My party, right or wrong

My party, right or wrong

Posted on by Jack

I see that Todd Akin, the “legitimate rape” guy, now has the support of the Republican Party. The Senate is supposed to be a great deliberative body but, of course, it doesn’t always work out that way.

But this seems to be a new low. The Republican position seems to be: better an ignorant extremist in my party than a reasonable person in another party.

Where are the independents when you need them?

Deficits matter only if the other party did it

Deficits matter only if the other party did it

Posted on by Jack

About 10 years ago, Vice President Cheney supposedly declared that “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter” as the administration moved us from the surplus at the end of the Clinton administration to the deficits of the Bush administration. Then a few days ago Mr. Cheney realized deficits do matter .

At first I was a bit confused. But then I realized, the difference. When a Republican run a big deficit, it doesn’t matter. But if a Democrat does it, it is terrible. This is true even if the Democrat inherited much of the deficit from his Republican predecessor.

We should all be grateful that this is cleared up at last and that we have a two party system to guide us through this difficult time.

VoterID laws Republicans work to supress the vote

VoterID laws Republicans work to supress the vote

Posted on by Jack

Here in Pennsylvania, the Republicans in the state legislature have based a strict voterID law. I say Republicans because the law did not attact a single Democratic vote. The Philadephia Inquirer has had a good series of articles on the difficulties of getting the ID that some people experience and the legal battles.

Many have a hard time but a few are lucky. Often a case highlighted by the paper is given help by the state but a recent one was Jim Cramer’s dad. Yes, it was that Jim Cramer of Mad Money fame.

A recent study by News21 (http://votingrights.news21.com/article/election-fraud/) rather convincingly shows that the type of voting fraud that would be prevented by VoterID laws is extremely rare. In the study they canvassed voting officials in all 50 states.

They found 10 cases of in-person voter impersonation among 146 million voters – about 1 case in every 15 million. By the way, there were 0 in Pennsylvania. In-person voter impersonation is the only type of voting fraud that would would be prevented by the VoterID laws.

There were about 200 times as many other types of voting fraud but VoterID laws and the Republicans who support them focus on the rare cases because they also happen to disenfranchise large numbers of voters who may side with Democrats.

Why solve real problems when you can stick it to the opposition?

Podcast alert: cancer at the heart of our democracy

Podcast alert: cancer at the heart of our democracy

Posted on by Jack

Yesterday I heard a great radio interview. Terry Gross of Fresh Air  interviewed Mickey Edwards whose new book The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans is about our hyper-partisan political system.

In the interview, he calls political parties “cancer at the heart of our democracy”. Strong words but well deserved.

I have previously written about this excessive power of party and am glad Mickey Edwards‘ views are getting wider coverage. I enjoy listening to podcasts when I go for a walk. If you enjoy podcasts, be sure to get this interview by Terry Gross.

Although the citizens (or we the people) are theoretically in charge, the people we elect to represent us and govern are too busy posturing and refuse to compromise and so are unable to govern and solve our country’s problems. We have given too much power to the 2 major political parties.

The parties control our elections and limit our choices, determine what laws are come up for a vote and how our representatives will vote. The votes will be in the interests of the party leaders, rather than the people.

The NPR website has highlights of the interviews as well as comments on the interview and the roles of parties in our dysfunctional system.

Is this anyway to run a democracy?

Parties or People

Parties or People

Posted on by Jack

We the people are theoretically in charge yet the people we elect are busy posturing and refuse to compromise and so are unable to govern and solve our country’s problems.  The obvious conclusion is that there is just too much partisanship.

Nearly everyone would agree with that but very few have any ideas about fixing the problem

Mickey Edwards expressed these ideas and suggested a few solutions in the  Atlantic .

Then he expanded these ideas into a book, The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans.  Mickey Edwards had been a congressman and then a professor of government so he knows what he is talking about. 

The overriding theme is that we have given up too much of our control to the 2 major political parties.   This is done on several levels. 

Parties limit our choices to a few candidates.  This is particularly true in states where ballot access is limited and/or primaries are open only to members of a political party.

Once one of these candidates is “in”, he or she is then beholden to the party for both current power in office (example committee assignments in Congress) and the chance to be re-elected.