It’s Halloween. Normally the streets would be crawling with ninjas, zombies, Fortnite characters, strollers, and caffeinated parents. But these are not normal times, the roads are empty for the most part, and death pervades the American psyche to a far greater degree than usual. Those that did take to the streets to seek some semblance of normalcy tonight likely did so on heightened alert for the sounds of sniffles and sneezes. Millions of individually wrapped Kit Kat’s, Starbursts, and other treats will be carefully wiped with disinfectant. Any cough that develops over the next 14 days will likely be cause for anxiety.
Yet even now, while we all await the crest of Covid-19’s second wave (or second leg of the first possibly), the endless avalanche of political ads remind us that life continues. The question is just how much life is left in our republic? Just how deeply has the infection of partisanship degraded our nation. There is legitimate concern that the increasing political tit-for-tat has entered a death spiral. It is very possible that the United States as we know it is already dead and shuffling towards crisis.
The perceived political stakes of every issue facing our nation has lead to a situation where both parties are more than comfortable removing any guardrails to outright majority rule. It has reached the point where they issue outright threats to push the envelope further once they assume the reins of power.
In 2013, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Went executed the so called “nuclear option” and removed the 60 vote threshold for Presidential appointments, Sen. Mitch McConnell warned of the downstream consequences of removing rules that forced bi-partisan action.
Now, is this to say that Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats are solely responsible for the current situation where Senate Republicans are forcing through Judicial appointments at historical rates on simple majority votes? No, clearly the system had degraded past the point of bi-partisanship at the time. Reid was forced into the option due to political stonewalling of any and all of Obama’s Judicial appointees. Yet it can’t be ignored that the floodgates were opened at that point for complete disregard of previously respected Senate rules. The move laid the groundwork for the appointment of three Supreme Court Justices under McConnell’s guidance. Yet we are nowhere near the endgame.
We have reached the point of no return. When former President Obama used his eulogy of Rep. John Lewis to press for the removal of the filibuster rule on legislation it was clear there was no appetite to restore the checks on simple majority rule. There is little doubt that within the next several years, perhaps as soon as the next year if Democrats gain control of both the Senate and Presidency, the passage of law in this nation will take place on a simple majority vote.
We stand on the precipice of increasing instability. A reality where the nation could potentially be ripped between two extreme political poles with every change of a simple majority. There will be no stabilizing effect maintained by the Senate.
Where does this leave the nation? It is nearly impossible to maintain any sort of societal cohesion when a plurality of voters will be able to force feed their legislative will on their rivals. It is nearly impossible to craft any sort of lasting legislation without bi-partisan buy in. Each law passed would be subject to immediate nullification following each election, this has dire implications downstream for business and financial markets.
We are left facing a complete degradation of social, political, and financial stability should we continue down this path.