He took solace in the fact Trump lost his reelection bid - he really did - and was thwarted from pursuing an even more egregiously subversive second-term agenda. Most voters, he said, “want to work well for everyone, are not attracted to conspiracy theories and don’t want an autocrat, demagogue or fascist or whatever you call it running things.”įor all his gloom, Mann was not entirely cheerless. The point, Mann said, is allowing the party that gets the most votes to actually govern, pass laws and then be held accountable at the ballot box. Alternatively, he would require 41 votes to keep a filibuster going, not 60 votes to end it, placing the burden on the minority to continue the obstructionist tactic. Instead, he would change the requirement to end a filibuster from a supermajority of 60 senators to three-fifths of those present and voting, an easier threshold. One step Mann supports but believes is unachievable right now is eliminating the Senate filibuster, which is perhaps the strongest weapon in the minority party’s arsenal. He would do more to strengthen third parties, promoting cooperation and more political coalition building. He would make voting a mandatory requirement of citizenship, the way it is in Australia. He would abolish the electoral college and choose the president based on the popular vote. He offered other, more drastic prescriptions aimed at sidelining the GOP’s scorched-earth wing. The proposed bill puts forth restorative justice measures, taxes marijuana and lays a framework for regulation. Politics Senate moves to legalize pot at federal level. “One-party rule is autocratic rule,” Mann said. (A starting point might be some of those Republicans negotiating with the Biden administration to pass an infrastructure bill.)Īmerica needs two strong governing parties, Mann said, to keep each other in check and hold each other accountable. Only then, he said, will less extreme, more pragmatic elements of the GOP be positioned to rebuild the party atop its rubble and set the country on a healthier course. The remedy, Mann said, begins with an utter repudiation of Trump and his authoritarian impulses, first in the 2022 midterm election and then in 2024, when the White House is again up for grabs. He leaned forward, elbows planted on the table before him, which wobbled as Mann made his point. “This is the first time an extreme set of forces like this has actually won the White House and tried to steal it a second time.” “We’ve always had extremist groups on the left as well as the right, but they’ve always been marginalized or co-opted to become more moderate,” said Mann, 76, a senior fellow at Washington’s Brookings Institution and a resident scholar at UC Berkeley. (Well, what about.) But, Mann said, they haven’t commandeered the party to the same extent as the 147 Republicans in the House - among them GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield - who refused to certify Biden’s election, or the state lawmakers nationwide who’ve passed legislation making it harder to vote and allowing partisans to overturn elections they don’t like. Yes, Mann said, Democrats have their fringe elements. The Republican Party has only grown more obdurate since their 2012 work was published, more invested in conspiratorial thinking and more willing to undermine democratic values, such as the sanctity of free and fair elections. More to the point, Mann and Ornstein have proved prophetic.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |