The Winter of America’s Discontent: Tim Rutten on the Malfunctioning U.S. Political System
The winter of America’s discontent
Dissatisfaction with both political parties runs deep.
By Tim Rutten
Los Angeles Times, February 5, 2010
It has been more than four decades since the Congress of the United States has been able to summon the will to pass a major piece of social legislation. Not since 1965, when Medicare and the Voting Rights Act both overcame decades of opposition to become law, has Congress proved itself up to the task.
Significant healthcare reform is all but dead for this session, and the chances of substantively addressing the regulatory breakdown that allowed Wall Street’s irresponsible speculation to precipitate the worst global financial crisis since the Depression seem to recede with each passing day. So too the prospects for passage of further stimulus measures to remedy the crisis of unemployment and underemployment that continues to ravage the lives of families in states from Michigan to California.
In the face of these daunting issues, what was it that preoccupied the Senate on the eve of its long weekend recess? The legislative drama du jour is the standoff between the White House and Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), who has put a personal hold on more than 70 executive branch appointments until the Obama administration agrees to fund a couple of pork-barrel projects he has earmarked for his state. One involves tens of millions of dollars for an FBI laboratory focusing on improvised explosives — something the bureau doesn’t think it needs. The other involves contract specifications for an aerial tanker that Northrop Grumman and Airbus would manufacture in Alabama, if they win the deal. (Boeing also is competing for the plane, which it would build in Topeka, Kan., and Seattle.)
Unless the administration agrees to give Shelby what he wants, he intends to invoke an archaic senatorial privilege that allows him to prevent the chamber from considering any of the administration’s nominees to executive branch vacancies, no matter how crucial. Without the 60 votes to force cloture — another archaic convention — there’s nothing the Democrats or the White House can do.
Outside the Senate, Shelby’s conduct would be called extortion; inside the chamber, it’s a “parliamentary tactic.”
It’s also the sort of shabby situation that brings into sharp focus both the sources of congressional dysfunction and the popular discontent on both the left and right with the congressional parties. Earmarks and pork are anathema to a majority of conservatives and independents; the Senate’s outdated, made-for-obstruction rules and susceptibility to special interests are a source of increasing frustration to liberals and some independents. Yet, here we have one senator from one Southern state obstructing with impunity an entire nation’s business — purely for his narrow constituency’s financial interests.
You don’t have to attend a “tea party” convention to see the corrosive effect this sort of otherworldly political navel-gazing has on American attitudes toward the institutions of national government and the parties vying to control them. Evidence of the damage is scattered throughout the recent polls:
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey, for example, found that although 52% of the nation’s voters retain a favorable view of President Obama, only 38% have a similar appraisal of the Democratic Party. The Republicans fare even worse; just 30%, fewer than
1 in 3 voters, view the GOP favorably.
A recent CBS News poll found that nearly half of all Republicans, 45%, disapprove of their party’s congressional delegation.
A national Washington Post/ABC News poll found that just 24% of Americans, fewer than 1 in 4, trust congressional Republicans, like Shelby, “to make the right decisions for the country’s future.” (Wonder why?) The House and Senate Democrats didn’t fare all that better, and are trusted by just 32%. Forty-seven percent of those polled — still less than half — have confidence in Obama’s ability to make the right decisions.
When people’s mistrust of their elected officials and the parties reaches these levels, there is little for political leaders to do but take counsel from their own anger and anxieties — and, these days, the popular mood fairly seethes with both those things. Discontent with the present and apprehension about the future have become the background noise of our politics, yet both sides of the congressional aisle seem deaf to the din.
In one of his magisterial explorations of German politics between the wars, the historian Ian Kershaw mused that “there are times — they mark the danger point for a political system — when politicians can no longer communicate, when they stop understanding the language of the people they are supposed to be representing.”
It would be reckless not to insist that this country and its politics remain, in crucial ways, far distant from Weimar. It would be rash, though, to pretend that the distance remains as great as it once was.
February 7th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
As far as Shelby’s ‘power’, do I understand it is Only A Rule Of The Senate
(Not a Constitutional Principle) involved.
If it is so odious, why not be urging change in the Senate Rules rather than using this as an issue of discouragement for inpotent voters.
Maybe this guy should be investigated as possibly a subversive (or maybe he just is the victim of a confused mentality)
In either case, why is he In Print ?
What kind of Paper is the L A TIMES, anyway ?
February 7th, 2010 at 6:53 pm
So – what is the payoff? And who is pulling the strings? And how do we get a true picture of what is going on?
February 7th, 2010 at 7:14 pm
It may be a Rule issue. But it’s more than that: the willingness of Republicans to behave in such a way is one of the symptoms of the whole disease represented by this unprecedentedly lying, obstructive, destructive opposition party. It simply represents an occasion to help people SEE what it is that’s happening over there in this party that has decided to use filibusters in a way, and to a degree, never before seen: to try to defeat EVERYTHING, to require that NOTHING can be enacted unless it commands the votes of 60 Senators. SHelby is part of that same pernicious picture.
February 7th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
So . . its not about solving the problems of appointments but an effort to tar the other party. I’m afraid the general public are not impressed at this point; it seems to me they are seeing only the Pot calling the Kettle Black.
(oh good grief; do we need another word for the color of the pot and the kettle !
Just see what a stupid mess it is ! and all so unnecessary !
February 7th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
Pot calling the Kettle Black? I don’t think so.
When have the Democrats ever held up a nomination for many months, and then passed it almost unanimously? Or, another Republican practice of late, when have they ever fillibustered a nomination, and then voted almost unanimously for it when the fillibuster failed?
February 7th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
I’m afraid the general public are not impressed at this point; it seems to me they are seeing only the Pot calling the Kettle Black.
Maybe not ABS but by polls of The General Public’s perceptions
so I seem to read. And I’ll join in the opinion at the moment.
Andy, what kind of shenannigans have they pulled in trying to get an largely unread hundeds of pages health care bill through ?
In fact, that kind of unprincipled activity cost them any high ground they may have had on that issue and possibly triggered Brown’s election to the Senate.
So !
February 7th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
A few months ago, Tom Coburn (R) Nebraska put a hold on the bill to give family members who are caring for traumatically injured veterans financial assistance. In most cases, these family members had given up their jobs to do keep their service members in their homes. Senator Coburn, who insists his staff members call him Doctor Coburn(he is a doctor, but is acting as a senator in his Washington office) said he wanted to ensure he understood how the bill/law would be paid for, though he of course never advertised that he had placed the bill on hold. After his identity, thousands of family members called the senator’s office, and thirteen veteran’s groups
kept his lines hot for days. The hold was lifted, and the bill passed, and the President signed it. Senator Coburn had no problem voting President Bushes programs, it would seem that only when Democrats are involved, there is any concern due for fiscal responsibility. A good example of how dthe paty on no spends its time.
February 7th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
My bad-Coburn is from Oklahoma.
February 7th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
I believe this to be a mischaracterization, which is also part of the right-wing lie machine. I expect that more people in Congress are aware of what’s in this legislation –after their months of hearings and discussions and votes– than are aware of the contents of MOST legislation.
February 7th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
A few months ago, Tom Coburn (R) Nebraska put a hold on the bill to give family members who are caring for traumatically injured veterans financial assistance. In most cases, these family members these family members had given up their jobs to do keep their service members in their homes.
On the surface you have to wonder if Coburn is really human. But then, he being a Doctor no doubt has no trouble being indifferent when the money is the consideration. AND I DO KNOW
However, one must wonder about people giving up their jobs keeping the ‘patient’ in their homes. Maybe a wife of a young husband ?
But claims such as this do need to be checked out. But for injured in these stupid wars, the complicit American taxpayer owes all of whatever is the legitimate need.
I guess the point is that Coburn is a R’, but the fact that he is also a Dr comes right away to my mind.
February 7th, 2010 at 11:11 pm
THE CORPRATOCRACY IS IN THE DRVER’S SEAT NOW….
February 8th, 2010 at 9:03 am
The President needs to show he has concern for the thousands living in the streets around the Capitol Building! It`s cold and snowy, might he have the gumption to pass out hot coffees to the indigents?
February 8th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
All we really needed to do was to let people know that he was holding up payment to injured veterans, and he would be in trouble with the American People, but we didn’t bother.
We need to take back the media!