politics
Flip the Filibuster’s Pain
Flip the numbers. Instead of requiring 60 votes to end debate, require 41 to continue debate.
March 12, 2021
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Father. Husband. Writer. Teacher. Son. Brother. Friend. Neighbor. Radical (d)emocrat. Not always in that order.
Flip the numbers. Instead of requiring 60 votes to end debate, require 41 to continue debate.
The President should stop courting the votes of reality-challenged insurrectionists, a.k.a., the Republican caucus.
From Trolling for Truth on Social Media:
Redesigning social media for timely, local, relevant and authoritative information requires a commitment to design justice, which sees technology not as a neutral tool but as a means for building the worlds we want.
From The Enraging Deja Vu of a Third Coronavirus Wave:
“You watch patients who are young and who should have had good lives die without their families by them, and their families being distraught, and then you go out through your community and you see people partying and going to bars.”
[Dr. Gregory Schmidt, associate chief medical officer at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics] paused, then added. “We can do anything for two months,” he said. “But surge after surge, it’s hard for everybody.”
From Pulling Our Politics Back from the Brink:
The goal of American politics should not be “a world where everybody agrees with you,” [Danielle] Allen, [a Harvard politician scientist] said. “That will never be the reward of life in a constitutional democracy. The reward is the chance to participate in free self-government. If you love that, then you can tolerate the hard work of ongoing, routine contestation with people who disagree with you.”
From Don’t Fool Yourself, Trump is Not an Aberration:
For as much as it seems that Donald Trump has changed something about the character of this country, the truth is he hasn’t. What is terrible about Trump is also terrible about the United States. Everything we’ve seen in the last four years — the nativism, the racism, the corruption, the wanton exploitation of the weak and unconcealed contempt for the vulnerable — is as much a part of the American story as our highest ideals and aspirations.
From Trump Proved That Authoritarians Can Get Elected in America:
Make no mistake: The attempt to harness Trumpism—without Trump, but with calculated, refined, and smarter political talent—is coming. And it won’t be easy to make the next Trumpist a one-term president. He will not be so clumsy or vulnerable. He will get into office less by luck than by skill.