winterbadger (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
winterbadger) wrote2008-02-18 07:51 am
winterbadger) wrote2008-02-18 07:51 am
Entry tags:
(no subject)
William Krisotl has an interesting op-ed in today's NYT. In it he argues that Democrats have forgotten how to govern and have gotten used to sitting in the opposition benches and simply sniping.
That he thinks General Hayden and AG Mukasey are "highly respected and nonpolitical officials with little in the way of partisanship or ideology in their backgrounds" is both hilarious and typical of Republicans, one of whose faults is to idealise anyone who is in position of authority and who agrees with them. Nevertheless, his point remains valid: the Democrats of the current Congress have, for the most part, proven themselves incapable of accomplishing anything in foreign policy, most notably the simplest (one would think) of tasks: describing a concrete, practical, detailed alternative to the policies of the current administration. In large part, I would argue, this comes down to one of the great weaknesses of the US legislative system when compared to the British system.
You can argue back and forth about the relative merits of fixed elections versus at-will elections, or the system of vesting executive power in the head of the legislature rather than in a separate elected officer, but one place where the British Parliament has it all over the US government is in leadership.
A party in Parliament has a leader, and there is almost never *any* question as to who that leader is. It can sometimes change rapidly. And it often changes violently when it becomes apparent that the population feel the party has lost direction and show signs of wanting to change it out. But Parliament is rarely in position the Democrats are in now and have been since they "took power" in 2006--floundering and unable to decide what direction to move in. And the longer they are unable to form a coherent policy, the shorter the patience of the American people for the Democratic Party will be. And at some point someone will take advantage of that gap in realistic alternatives. The Iraq War may, indirectly, lead to something we have not seen in over 100 years--the emergence of a new political party.
That he thinks General Hayden and AG Mukasey are "highly respected and nonpolitical officials with little in the way of partisanship or ideology in their backgrounds" is both hilarious and typical of Republicans, one of whose faults is to idealise anyone who is in position of authority and who agrees with them. Nevertheless, his point remains valid: the Democrats of the current Congress have, for the most part, proven themselves incapable of accomplishing anything in foreign policy, most notably the simplest (one would think) of tasks: describing a concrete, practical, detailed alternative to the policies of the current administration. In large part, I would argue, this comes down to one of the great weaknesses of the US legislative system when compared to the British system.
You can argue back and forth about the relative merits of fixed elections versus at-will elections, or the system of vesting executive power in the head of the legislature rather than in a separate elected officer, but one place where the British Parliament has it all over the US government is in leadership.
A party in Parliament has a leader, and there is almost never *any* question as to who that leader is. It can sometimes change rapidly. And it often changes violently when it becomes apparent that the population feel the party has lost direction and show signs of wanting to change it out. But Parliament is rarely in position the Democrats are in now and have been since they "took power" in 2006--floundering and unable to decide what direction to move in. And the longer they are unable to form a coherent policy, the shorter the patience of the American people for the Democratic Party will be. And at some point someone will take advantage of that gap in realistic alternatives. The Iraq War may, indirectly, lead to something we have not seen in over 100 years--the emergence of a new political party.
no subject
For a new major political party to emerge in the American system, it would take something like the collapse of the Whigs and the rise of the Republicans in the late 1850s. It's an interesting thing to consider. Both major parties have fractured several times in their history, but have managed to retain their identity (even though they've also managed to switch positions on just about everything in the last 150 years). The closest anybody came was the American Progressive Party (aka the Bullmoose Party) of Teddy Roosevelt and Robert LaFollette.
no subject
The US Senate is an elected body, and it is generally treated in many ways as the senior elected body (though, of course, the House has some prerogatives, like the requirement that all legislation authorising spending must originate in the House), but the two are by and large co-equal.
The House of Lords is currently far less powerful than the Senate, as a result of egalitarian reforms that have taken place gradually over time and have recently threatened to remove it altogether. It is not an elected body, and as such it has been tradition for several centuries now that the leader of the government had to come from the lower house, the Commons. Once or twice peers (lords) have actually given up their rank and title so as to serve in the Commons as government leaders, but usually being given a title is like being "kicked upstairs" to an honorary board of directors after serving as a senior corporate officer.
Originally the Parliament consisted only of the lords, but the knights and burgesses began creeping in ;-) when the Crown needed money for wars (as always). The Lords was still the more powerful house until the 1832 Reform Act (and, some would say, everything has gone downhill from there...)
Australia has a rather fascinating variation, about which more can be read here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_system
My speculation about a new party was mostly just specualtion, but it's hard to imagine that if the Democrats don't clean up their act and find some cojones somewhere that they would be able to withstand a challenge from an organized challenger that carried a unified, strong message and platform and was not just a one-man band (like Ross Perot's 'party') or based on a single issue. THe Dems have incredible roots and massive amounts of funds, but so did the Roman Empire, and it collapsed in the face of dynamism. The only question is whether the people with the drive and energy to create such a thing wouldn't just try to take over an existing major party (as the loony-tune religious crackpots did the GOP). But to me it's a question of branding: right now, the Democratic brand just doesn't seem very inspiring or appealing to anyone.