The other thing everybody kind of already knew...

Republicans are the problem.

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

No, really.

The Republican Party is severely dysfunctional, not severely conservative. And it's going to take honest, sane, conservatives to restore it to health. How that can happen, alas, I have no idea at all.

I read that over the weekend.

Weird part was that I found myself getting angry at Obama for not leading by directly naming and taking on the dysfunction in the other party. Not that that excuses what an Anti-American shit-show the GOP has become.

Is there any point in pointing the obvious? You will not convince Fox-watching Limbaugh-listening GOP core base, they are beyond reasoning, people who would listen, conservative intellectuals, are already ostracized from GOP and have no influence, and everyone else is already know this.

What do you propose? That people just sit back and not point out the elephant in the room?

Concentrated effort at completely destroying GOP party as it exists today so Conservatism could come back to US political scene.

The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin

While I do not necessary agree with "all conservatism", it certainly applies to the current GOP.

I don't buy that line of reasoning at all. I really don't think there's any need to go searching for deep and mysterious psychological reasons for conservatism when the obvious ones that the conservatives willingly admit to are perfectly good at explaining the situation.

Conservatives just think that the principles that they value are being destroyed by liberalism and big government.

I suppose on some level you could try to connect that to a sense of loss at a previous political landscape in which government was small and stayed out of your business and didn't overtax you, but then it would be equally true for liberals mourning a lost egalitarian society of the 40s and 50s in which labor unions didn't get destroyed by rapacious corporations and the 99% didn't get fleeced by billionaires. If that's the case then all politics is about loss and the claim just becomes circular and tautological and can't be applied uniquely to conservatives.

It's like I've said in other threads/places:

1) Conservatives supported the wars because they believe on principle bad guys should be punished and western democracy should spread with no regard for cost/benefit analysis
2) Conservatives support deficit reduction because they believe on principle that you shouldn't spend money you don't have with no regard to how global monetary policy actually works
3) They support traditional morality because they believe on principle that people should follow societal rules and they see the Judeo/Christian ethos as being the supreme expression of societal order and harmony with no regard for whether it's actually possible to legislate morality

Again, none of this requires complicated psychology. The reason for the extremeness of the reaction is driven by the extremeness of the perceived situation. There is a perception that we are teetering on a cliff here and that anything less than a complete political/cultural assault is basically going to "lose" the war.

Ok you win. It is all about loss...the conservatives are rooting for a liberal loss. :D

Spoofy: to an extent that makes sense. But all of those things have been true for a long time, and up until the past ten years or so conservatives and liberals were able to make common cause at least here or there. That they believe these things doesn't explain the sudden virulence of their opposition, or their willingness to engage in scorched earth politics.

The Q&A done with one of the authors is a pretty good read: http://live.washingtonpost.com/republicans-120430.html

#3 is the only one that Conservatives are even remotely consistent about. With regard to #1, they support deficit reduction except for when they don't, which is a surprisingly large amount of the time, especially when they are in a position to set the federal agenda. A massive chunk of our current debt is from deficit spending during the Reagan and Bush II administrations. Reagan presided over all-time record deficits, which stood as a high water mark until Bush II blew them out of the water.

Re: #1, Conservatives say that bad guys should be punished and democracy should be spread, but they are wildly inconsistent at following this ideology, which leads me to conclude that it's bunk. The GOP does not support going to war to punish bad guys. They support war if it promotes American strategic self-interest; that's pretty much the only guiding principle I have ever seen.

Yeah I agree with all that. None of what I said is an attempt to defend conservatives or explain away their hypocrisies. Though I would draw a distinction between rank and file conservatives and the GOP leaders/politicians. I think there's more of a tendency for the rank and file to be consistent in their application of the core principles and then hold their noses or even complain when the leaders abandon them. This is true on the other side too.

jeffd I think what's different in the last ten years is that you have 9/11, two wars, economic craziness, and a lot of other problems suddenly thrown together into a toxic brew. I would argue that there's no particular need to search for deeper answers than that the circumstances have been particularly crazy in the last decade or so.

If the GOP actually had some of the convictions it claims to have I would still disagree with them, but could respect them. Sadly they simply do not.
- They flagrantly start wars in the hope of personal/corporate gain -- not even US gain.
- They flagrantly waste money hoping to "Starve the Beast", while blaming Democrats for it.
- They claim to be all about protecting people from government, but are behind the worst erosions of civil liberty.
- They claim to be all about protection from terrorism, but then drop the ball, blame others for losing it, and then try to take the credit when others find it.
- They claim to be for "Family Values", yet consistently legislate against things that actually help families.

The GOP, frankly speaking, has become dominated by two-bit charlatans like Newt Gingrich, corporate rip-off artists like Mitt Romney, or worse (Santorum, Palin, etc). And that is at its best, when more typically it is simply a front for mega corporations.

The GOP is run by self interested hyopcrits who have no answers -- there's no need to look for a more complex root cause. Calling them merely dysfunctional is entirely too polite. Why can they still succeed politically despite this? Because money dominates American politics.

Name a pre-Obamacare feature of the US that 1950s mainstream conservatives would be upset about. It's very difficult without resorting to something about blacks, gays, or feminism; in just about every imaginable way the economic hand of government is lighter now than in 1955.

And yet it is still full of ridiculousness, redundant paperwork and inanely over specified laws. I'm not talking in abstract either; the company I work for categorically refuses to work with the US government because the procurement process for ports is insane. Much of it comes from local politicians who try to improve things in their community through 'Buy Local' directives that end up costing them ten times more (at minimum) than any normal entity would charge them. Some of the RFPs almost look like they've been written with a specific company in mind.

And that's ignoring stuff like Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank that should never have existed in the first place.

You can do deficit reduction with a monetary stimulus of equal and opposite size to cause net zero impact on the economy. Not only is this basic mathematics, it's also a well known feature of monetary policy used in numerous fiscal consolidations by intelligent central bankers. The problem comes from an excessive insistence on targeting rates that give misleading information about just what happens to be going on with the economy.

So, for instance, if you were a European government in the midst of deficit reduction you'd be really irate about the ECB under Trichet and Draghi prioritizing inflation over unemployment and refusing to do anything to ease the difficulty of a mid recession pare down. It's probably especially annoying when inflation is calculated for the system as a whole while your fiscal position is calculated for your nation in particular.

Putting it more simply, you can reduce the deficit all you want mid recession without hurting anything so long as you aren't so insistent on a particular level of inflation.

Oh I think he's going to. Once the general election is in full swing I expect the dominant Obama theme will be "Obama vs the do-nothing Congress," or if Obamacare gets struck down, "Obama vs the do-nothing Congress and their deadly jurists." I'm pretty sure he's going to come out guns a-blazing against Republican intransigence. And about time.

I mean, if I'm him, I'm going to come out and say "I got the economy into recovery mode, I gave everybody healthcare, I helped along the Arab Spring without costing American lives, I ended the war in Iraq and am ending the one in Afghanistan, and oh yeah I killed Osama bin Laden. The Republicans and their USSC appointees have done nothing but say no to everything, fought every one of my achievements every step of the way, damaged our credit rating by holding the economy hostage, and took your healthcare away.

Plus I am super-charismatic and they nominated an irrepressible douchebag."

In fairness to them, the irrepressible douchebag was a few steps above most of the alternatives.

With regards to the specific discussion, the observation that the US has an often byzantine legal framework is irrelevant because, as you point out, it's always been byzantine. "Conservatives are super pissed about regulations," doesn't make sense as an explanation because the level of conservative insanity has increased dramatically, while the level of regulation simply hasn't. Therefore, other explanations are needed, which is the crux of Jason's point (I think).

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that the amped up virulence and viciousness of the Republican party is mostly just an extension of deliberate trends that have been stoked for decades now. The GOP elite has always courted and stoked the crazy fringe because they found them useful; it just so happens that they seem to have largely lost their ability to focus the crazy. Inmates are now running the asylum, etc.

The GOP overwhelmingly voted against the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. A piece of legislation with zero downside, and fixes a discriminatory problem. Why? Apparently because the GOP doesn't believe that women aren't paid .77 for every dollar. Literally in denial of it.

They're fucking nuts at this point.

It's a bit more complex than that. I've talked to some conservative types who absolutely acknowledge that women are paid .77 on the dollar, they just think it's A-OK because free market something something.

More on the general theme: Even Worse Than It Looks. It's a review of the book the previously linked op-ed is based on.

Now Mann and Ornstein have decided that the time has come to abandon the evenhandedness still fashionable among political journalists (as opposed to the partisan talking heads and bloggers now so popular). The blunt result will be invigorating for some readers, and infuriating for others.

Their principal conclusion is unequivocal: Today’s Republicans in Congress behave like a parliamentary party in a British-style parliament, a winner-take-all system. But a parliamentary party — “ideologically polarized, internally unified, vehemently oppositional” — doesn’t work in a “separation-of-powers system that makes it extremely difficult for majorities to work their will.”

These Republicans “have become more loyal to party than to country,” the authors write, so “the political system has become grievously hobbled at a time when the country faces unusually serious problems and grave threats. . . . The country is squandering its economic future and putting itself at risk because of an inability to govern effectively.”

It hits on a point I've made in my own posts on the subject:

Their principal conclusion is unequivocal: Today’s Republicans in Congress behave like a parliamentary party in a British-style parliament, a winner-take-all system. But a parliamentary party — “ideologically polarized, internally unified, vehemently oppositional” — doesn’t work in a “separation-of-powers system that makes it extremely difficult for majorities to work their will.”

The thing is that in terms of analyzing the fundamental problem this is spot on; political parties in the US are going the same direction as political parties in pretty much every other modern democracy. The problem is that our system is uniquely poorly suited to handle the reality of well-disciplined parties.

(h/t Kevin Drum).

jeffd: you quoted the same passage twice. ("Their principal conclusion is unequivocal: etc. etc.") Was that for emphasis, or a copy-paste error?

Total error, and now since you've called me on it I can't even ninja-edit. :(

The whole more loyal to party then country is hardly limited to republicans, its the major reason from both sides that our political system is broken right now. Things that were horrible when one party was in charge become ok when your own party is in charge.

OH HEY LOOK A FALSE EQUIVALENCE FINALLY.

I AM SURPRISE.

Nothing false at all, BOTH parties put party first in many cases. Again its the major reason our political system is broken today.

It's actually provable that the modern Republican does this much more than the modern Democratic party. Go review minority party behavior from c. 2000-2006 and 2008-2012.

Not that I expect you to get in the way of your usual nonsense.

And that invalidates what I said in what way? All I said is that it is a behavoir that BOTH parties are guilty of. Which is something you seem to agree with here not by saying the dems do not do it, just that you feel the republicans do it more.

What jeff said - yeah, there's stupid government, but it was more so in the 1950s. The only significant increase in regulation is the EPA, which is brand-new.

Actually you know what nm abort abort.

They haul out all sorts of maths and statistics that are fairly unrelated like number of hours worked, etc.

The most hilarious was one guy who said that if the .77/100 thing was true, every employer would hire women because they're cheaper! SEXISM DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY.

Without wading too deep into gender politics, there's some theoretical economic reasons for women receiving less pay than men, based on US law and customs regarding pregnancy and maternity leave and these are entirely separate from sexism (or rather, discrimination. They represent a sort of sexist way in which we've structured society such that women are expected to be the ones who take care of children).

It can also be a bit more complex than that; I'm just not sure that pointing out most of humanity's lack of empathy, unless a single person really, really thinks hard about an issue, is all that new or original a point. I almost brought this up in the "Has anything interesting happened to you?" thread a while back but didn't, as it's political in nature: my family reunion weekend brought along quite a few "interesting" tidbits, and among them was the fact that my mother, a closeted-dyed in the wool second wave feminist Church going Baptist liberal, flippantly and without provocation offered up the opinion that she didn't understand why nor agree with the fact that, via legislation, the government offers any minority business/education protections or incentives. She was referring, specifically, to African-Americans. Her argument was boilerplate free market vs government interventionism. In response I brought up that caucasian women, i.e. explicitly the group most likely to have, still have not achieved pay parity, despite years of equal pay legislation and that she was advocating that we put more severely disadvantaged groups than hers in even more severely disadvantaged positions than they are now; that if we do not intervene then the entrenched powers that be will never offer the opportunity for the minority in business, eg everyone except them, to achieve parity, whether it be pay parity, lead time parity, cost of business parity, access to education parity, what have you. As opposed to having a discussion about the subject she literally cut our talk off at the knees, saying that my argument was unreasonable; usually we can talk politics without that happening, but I also can't remember a time I've ever used her gender or her gender politics as a tool in a political argument.

Empathy, or the lack thereof, is a powerful thing. The boilerplate free market argument, as inexpertly wielded by nearly everybody, exists simply to closet their bias.

That's not how Brett's false-equivalence-bot works. As long as he can find one single instance of a Democrat kinda-sorta doing the same thing as a Republican, then it's proof that both parties are equally flawed. The sheer quantity of misdeeds, or any sort of context at all really, never enters into the equation.

Republicans don't just "do it more." They do it a lot more--party discipline is, like, their modern mantra. And the Democrats don't just "do it less." They do it a lot less. Like, almost not at all. As many political pundits have pointed out, the Democrats' inability to enforce any sort of party discipline is a large part of the reason why the GOP is able to wield so much power even when they are in the minority. Personally, I see "lack of party discipline" as more of a feature than a flaw, but there's no question that it reduces the Democrats' effectiveness, as per the arguments in the op-ed linked above. I'm not sure what the solution is.

So in short: Yes, Adam is right. You are doing the false equivalence thing again. Because on this issue, the Republicans and Democrats are in no way equivalent.

madkevin: I know, that's why I hit the abort button. I had brett on ignore on qt3 for a good long time; apparently I forgot that he's not amenable to reason or evidence or really anything.

For anyone who cares about the subject, the following is instructive:

- Compare obstruction levels in Congress from c. 2000-2006 to 2008-2012.
- Note that Pres. Bush got several major pieces of legislation through Congress w/ bipartisan support, note that Pres. Obama basically didn't.
- Note that from 2008-2010 Democrats bent over backwards to attract GOP support to various major pieces of legislation to give them bipartisan cover and basically failed in all cases.

Both parties are certainly going to evolve toward parliamentary-style parties, but one party is indisputably in the lead and that's the reason for our current dysfunction.

My apologies, I have forgotten this is a no criticism of democrats allowed zone. I will allow you all to go back to your previously scheduled echo chamber..

I criticized a Democrat, brettmcd, for having the exact same lack of empathy and for voicing the exact same non-opinion that her Republican counterparts do. I provided the context to my story that might make it necessary to believe that I am posting in good faith and I would be happy to provide more. If called out by anyone on this board that my story is a false equivalence, and it most likely is, I would be happy to admit so. I would then clarify that my point wasn't that Democrats do the same thing; it was that, despite being one of the most empathetic, kind people I know, she was, at that time, arguing about how the government shouldn't intervene into private businesses' affairs, being one of the most cold, callous people I have ever met. She's not even a free market person, she's an anti-trust shake 'em up and break 'em up type of person that is decidedly pro-regulation. Perhaps it the paperwork that annoyed her, or maybe she felt as if the government was doing more to protect other minorities than women. Regardless, I'd reiterate that I felt it was her lack of empathy, and, indeed, a majority of Republicans' lack of empathy, whether unintentional or willful, that leads people to make such remarks. Providing that context and going to such great lengths to discuss a subject that is obviously near and dear to me, instead of casting aspersions upon other board members from afar, sitting in judgment of them one sentence at a time, might be why I am able to criticize a Democrat, even though it is not her voting record nor party affiliation, nor that of any other Democrats', that led her to make such questionable remarks.

As always, I welcome a sincere rebuttal of whatever length you deem appropriate. I do not judge or belittle you. I only wish that you would sincerely engage those of us who sincerely want to engage you - which has been each and everyone one of us since time immemorial.

Brett has achieved stage two in his combo. Achievement unlocked: Up On His Cross. People didn't take issue with his post because it was wrong, they took issue because criticizing Democrats is not allowed. Because of this, Brett has no obligation to engage the challenge to back up his claims, and can freely ignore all the people that explain specifically why he is wrong.