20 April 2018

Fighting Dirty

I respect David Faris a lot. I haven't read his book, It's Time to Fight Dirty; How Democrats can build a Lasting Majority in American Politics, but I've heard him interviewed by Sam Seder and Ian Masters, and I think he's right on. The Right, McConnell as much as Trump, have thrown out all norms (think filibuster misuse, which was their doing, think the Merrick Garland heist). And we've just taken it. Faris advocates getting back control by aggressive politics (and Trump is a gift in this respect), then hitting them with some stuff that we haven't been able to do before. DC and Puerto Rico statehood. End the filibuster entirely. A new National Voting Rights Act that makes gerrymandering illegal. Split up California and some other Blue states to get more senators. Hell, pack the court. The Constitution says almost nothing about the Supreme Court. Legislation alone could impose 18 year term limits (his idea), with a guarantee that every president gets to name two justices every term. And they could insert rules that if the nomination isn't approved or rejected within say five weeks, it's automatically approved; if two justices in a row are rejected, the third and all subsequent ones can only be rejected by 2/3 vote. Stuff like that. These reforms can be made by majority vote. The Republicans would be unable to undo all of them, because I think they would end up being very popular. The Demographics are on our side. Democrats have won the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, and consistently get more votes in House races than Republicans, but still lose because of gerrymandering. It really is high time we take back our democracy. 

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