How To Beat Republicans At Their Own Game: Robert Reich

[appalachiablue]

Oct. 13, 2020.

I keep hearing from progressives who lament that even if Biden wins, Trump and McConnell have tilted the playing field forever.

They point to McConnell’s rush to confirm Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, after blocking President Obama’s nominee for 293 days because it was “too close” to the next election. And to the fact that Republicans in the Senate represent 11 million fewer Americans than their Democratic counterparts, and are still able to confirm a Supreme Court justice and entrench minority rule.

But that’s not the end of the story.

The Constitution doesn’t prevent increasing the size of the Supreme Court in order to balance it. Or creating a pool of circuit court justices to cycle in and out of it. In fact, the Constitution says nothing at all about the size of the Court.

I also hear progressives express outrage that this imbalance of power exists in the Electoral College, which made Trump president in 2016 despite having lost the popular vote by 3 million, and made George W. Bush president in 2000, despite losing the popular vote by about half a million.

But this doesn’t have to be the end of the story, either. From granting statehood to Washington, D.C. to abolishing the Electoral College, nothing should be off the table to strengthen our democracy.

There is no reason to accept the structure of our democracy when it repeatedly empowers a ruthless minority to impose its will over the majority. Or when it denies full representation to U.S. citizens, as is the case for Puerto Rico, which absolutely deserves self-determination.

Pay no mind to those who argue that these moves would be unfair abuses of power. Unfair, after what Trump and McConnell have done?...https://robertreich.org/

[Thekaspervote]

1. We have got to play hard ball come January

[appalachiablue]

2. No time to waste, I hope Dems are up for it

[lagomorph777]

5. +1000 Mitch's Rules. Brass knuckle time. No more "hands across the aisle" to get bitten off.

[BigmanPigman]

3. If the Dems don't run with the ball

if we win and if they continue to reach across the aisle I will be furious. No more butter knives to a gun fight, no more taking the high road, ENOUGH of that BS. That is how we got here...have we learned nothing in the last 30+ years???

[Sherman A1]

4. +1000