General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: What is the "hard left"? [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I meant the way "liberal democratic" politics in this country works tends to arbitrarily impose them.
Which is why there have been calls for universal healthcare since Truman(actually, they started when FDR was still in) and the ACA, after all that time, is the closest we've come to that.
And it's part of the reason why Jim Crow lasted from 1876 to 1964.
We need to finally get rid of the Electoral College, so that no one has to run to be president of the white South in order to be president of the United States. It's finally time that the vote of every American carries the same weight in presidential elections as does the vote of every OTHER American. There's no good reason to give small states or the South or the Mountain West a veto over who sits in the Oval Office. The people in those states deserve no greater say than anybody else.
We need at least a real modification of the filibuster-perhaps something like the constraint they put on the power of the British House of Lords to block legislation-the Lords had repeatedly blocked Irish home rule bills passed by the House of Commons-that might say the Senate could delay a piece of legislation for one or two months, and only delay it once.
We should make it a requirement for Senate Democratic candidates that, if nothing else, they agree not to block any cabinet or judicial nominees and that, while they are free to vote against any legislation, that they must not put a hold on any bills or filibuster them. it's enough to be able to vote against them.