Rules and Power and Roe
Making sense of last week.
I’m back. Thanks to everyone for their well-wishes. More about me later in the week. Let’s jump into it.
1. Different Rule Sets
This is a thought you often hear:
Joe Biden is unpopular because he was elected to bring normalcy back to politics, and instead there is inflation and $5 gas. And in addition to a couple of big-ticket bipartisan bills he passed, Democrats also failed to pass a couple of large-scale, party-line bills that were unpopular.
This is a thought you never hear:
Ron DeSantis is unpopular because he spends all of his time passing culture-war legislation that has nothing to do with people’s real lives and he does this without any bipartisan support.
This is a thought you often hear:
Democrats are in trouble because whatever Joe Biden’s legislative achievements may be, he gives too much rhetorical ground to the left wing of his party.
This is a thought you never hear:
Republicans are in trouble because they attempted a coup on the American government and support for this coup is now an item of dogma for most GOP candidates, at every level of government, nationwide.
This is a thought you often hear:
Democrats overreached when they failed to pass two bills—BBB and H.R. 1—sufficiently moderate to attract 16 Republican senators. Voters are going to punish them for this overreach.
This is a thought you never hear:
Republicans overreached when they passed laws awarding bounties for citizens who spied on women seeking abortions and for passing many laws banning abortion that have barely 40 percent approval. Voters are going to punish them for this overreach.
This is a thought you often hear:
Democrats must not use Procedure X (eliminating the filibuster, adding states, expanding the Supreme Court) because (1) voters would punish them for such unwise maneuvering and (2) you should never play hardball politics because some day the other side will be in charge and they will do the same to you.
This is a thought you never hear:
After Republicans refused to vote on a Supreme Court vacancy while Barack Obama was president and then rushed to fill a Supreme Court vacancy shortly before Donald Trump was defeated, (1) voters were deeply upset by this procedural irregularity and (2) Democrats retaliated once they took control of the White House and Congress.
It is almost as though there are different rules for the two political parties.
The reason for these divergent rule sets is that voters still apply the standards of the before times to the Democratic party. And the Democrats themselves still act as though they are living in the before times.