democrats

Don’t like Congress? Your opinion doesn’t matter.

~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

RealClear Polling doesn’t show a Congressional approval rating above 40% in the last 15 years. In the short term, Ballotopedia agrees. Gallup has Congress’s job approval rating in the teens.

In other words, everywhere we look, nobody likes what Congress is doing or how they’re doing their jobs. Every news story using those numbers predicts a massive change in Congress at the midterm election, shifting control to the Democratic party, and watchers hope they’re right.

But what none of those polls and none of those pundits are doing is looking at four hundred and thirty-five individual campaigns for four hundred and thirty-five individual seats in the House of Representatives.

And that’s why I think a lot of people looking forward to that massive change are going to be very disappointed next January 3, when the 120th Congress is seated. It’s very difficult to do legitimate polling on such a granular level, but the way our government is put together, combining the results of such tiny polling samples is the only way to get a legitimate estimation of what is going to happen. Because while the sentiments of 55%, or 60%, or 70% of the voting public in the US may be with the Democrats, that doesn’t matter. What matters is which candidate gets the greater number of votes in the California 41st, and the Texas 32nd, and the Florida 9th, and the New York 15th, and on and on and on. Each district, by itself, in an election of several hundred thousand people, upon which the opinions of 99.8% of the population matters not one whit.

Congressional approval ratings are always low. People never like what Congress—as a whole—is doing, or its direction. If that were the only thing that mattered, we’d see a tidal wave of electoral defeats among Representatives every two years. But we don’t. We don’t see that tidal wave, and we won’t as long as we have a body made up of representatives by geography who have chosen the boundary lines of their own districts in order to guarantee their re-election. And we, the voters, always vote to re-elect our own Congressional representatives.

As Ballotopedia told us, in the election of 2024, fifteen Representatives running for re-election were defeated in primary or general elections. Further, they say, since 2014 (six elections), a total of 125 House incumbents were defeated: an average of 21 per election (remember, out of 435 seats).

That’s the reason we keep getting the same non-functional Congress we all hate not doing what we want: because we only vote for our own representative. It doesn’t matter what I think of the Speaker—who lives in Louisiana. And it doesn’t matter what I think of the minority leader—who lives in the next district over from mine in Brooklyn. Neither does my opinion of any of the 432 other members of the House matter. I only have a say in who will represent New York’s 9th district. And the two major political parties have done such an excellent job of choosing their voters through political gerrymandering that almost none of the 435 districts have any chance of changing the party of the person who represents them.

A year ago—in April of 2025—Fair Vote said that 81% of the House seats were already decided… for the 2026 election! And this is not surprising or new. It’s been going on for decades.

So when everyone around me expresses optimism for change following the election of 2026, I’m the Eeyore. I’m the one who is not looking forward to the results, because I don’t expect very much, if anything, to change. Unite America claimed that only 69 of the seats were competitive elections in 2024. We’ve seen absolutely no reason to think it will be any different this time around.
https://www.uniteamerica.org/articles/research-brief-why-are-most-congressional-elections-uncompetitive-2

And this is one of those times that I don’t have a solution to propose. We’re stuck. We’ve let the parties gerrymander the country too damn far, and we can’t find a way out of it. So as much as I hate that Congress has abdicated its responsibilities; as much as I hate that Congress—even if its members wanted to—can’t do anything it should; as much as I hate the political gridlock caused by extreme politicians who only campaign in the primaries because they don’t have to compete in a general election… I fear we’re stuck with it all until we can find a way to tear down walls of power that the Democans and Republicrats have built for themselves.

Put simply: we’re screwed.

Democrats Can No Longer Afford Moral Purity

~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

I’ve said it before in a different context: when only one side is playing by the rules, they’re setting themselves up for a moral victory accompanied by a crushing actual defeat.

The Democratic party’s insistence on moral purity is what led them to purge their own Senator Al Franken. It’s what allowed Antonin Scalia’s Supreme Court seat to sit vacant for ten months, while Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s was filled in ten days. And it’s what continues to cause massive headaches for those of us who actually worry about the future of the country.

Chuck Schumer was absolutely correct in his vote for the “continuing resolution” to keep the government funded: voting against it is what the Trumpians wanted. There may have been moral purity in rejecting the bill, but then what? Shut down the government? Declare moral purity by not voting for the bill? That is exactly what the Trumpians wanted.

Indeed, they’re already doing it. Look at what has happened during Trump 2.0: USAID has been shut down. NOAA has been shut down. The Department of Education is nearly shut down. They’re shutting down the government piecemeal while patriotic ex-employees file pitiable lawsuits, hoping to keep their jobs.

Not adopting Speaker Mike Johnson’s continuing resolution would have done in one fell swoop what Trump & Co. are doing slowly, department by department: it would have shut everything down.

“But then shutting down the government would have been the Republicans’ fault,” the purest of the pure cry.

“So what?” respond the rational people. “That’s what they’re doing today. That’s what they want to do.” And that appears to be what the voters asked for.

Regardless of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s commentary, there was no pathway to negotiate a clean four-week extension. If that negotiation could have occurred, it would have happened weeks ago. But Trump’s minions in the House had no interest in doing so. They have the majority there, so they don’t need to talk to the Democrats about anything.

Had the staunch Democrats succeeded in delaying the bill and shutting down the government, the Trumpians would have been celebrating. And they would have had no reason to negotiate anything to re-open it. We would be suffering through a government shutdown that would last until the next election, all while Trump and Elon Musk determine which pieces of the government are “necessary” and which are not. They would have had the time of their lives, selling off pieces of the government to their cronies at bargain prices, while the Democrats would be mewling for negotiations to fund and re-open the government.

I disagree—vehemently—with almost every action taken by the president and his gang of thieves. I disagree with their policies, their stated goals, and their methods. But the moral purity of the Democrats is a danger we can no longer afford. Adherence to the rules is a path to victory only if both sides are playing by the rules, and if the judges of the contest care about them. November 5, 2024, showed us that a plurality of American voters don’t care about following the rules, and that saddens me. But if we’re going to save our country from the predations of Trump 2.0, we’re going to have to get dirty, get down in the mud with our foes to fight back, hard.

Was Schumer morally impure for allowing the continuing resolution to pass the Senate? Yes. But was it the right thing to do in an attempt to save the country? Also, yes.

Democrats keep attacking themselves

~ ianrandalstrock ~ 3 Comments

The Democrats are doing it again: they’re so busy fighting amongst themselves that the Republicans and the Trumpians can just sit back and laugh, knowing they’re going to win because the Democrats are their own worst enemy. How many of them are yelling at Senators Manchin and Sinema to change the filibuster rule in the Senate, instead of yelling at the Republicans and the Trumpians to protect voters’ rights? They’re just wrong. The reason the original filibuster existed—and the current horrible incarnation of it is in place—is to prevent the tyranny of the majority over the minority. Yes, of course, the majority should decide. But if the slimmest of majorities can stomp all over the largest of minorities, that’s not what we want either. And overturning the filibuster now will only result in even unhappier Democrats in the future, because the pendulum continues to swing, and there will be a time when the Democrats are a minority.

Every time there’s a political debate, it’s the same story: the Republicans yell at the Democrats, the Trumpians yell at the Democrats and threaten the Republicans, and the Democrats yell at… other Democrats. Just the latest instance of the gang who couldn’t shoot straight, DC edition. If they ever focus on those who are actually in the wrong on the issue, they might be able to accomplish great things.

The Democrats are Threatening Suicide, Again

~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

What kind of morons are our Congressional representatives who claim to be Democrats? They’re the majority party (however slim a majority, it is a majority). They can actually adopt important, far-ranging, necessary legislation.

But every sub-group of Democrats in the Congress is doing its level best to kill the party, to make themselves look like the gang who only wants to shoot themselves.

And the Trumpians (the former Republican party) are keeping out of it all, laughing themselves back into the majority at the next election.

The little kids in Congress, the progressives, are quite emphatic that they want want want what they want and they want it all; most is just not good enough for them. Apparently they never bothered to learn negotiation or compromise. They’re continuing to flaunt the Democrats’ Achilles Heel of demanding absolute purity of their members, absolute fealty to their ideals because they seem to think getting most of the way there is unacceptable (but apparently they don’t have a problem with losing everything). And anyone who shows the least bit of fallible humanity is worse to them than the opposing party. If they’d stop being road blocks for five minutes, they could pass one major bill—which would be the first domino in an incredibly long and important chain—and then focus their energies on the next, rather than holding up one because they have to have everything right this minute, all or nothing!

And then we have their two senators, Manchin and Sinema, who early in these negotiations decided to set themselves up as the most powerful people in Washington. They’ve got it. We’re listening to them. No one has heard Chuck Schumer’s name in weeks. So what are they waiting for? What more do they think they can wring from their own party? Or do they think the Trumpians are going to give them more if they kill this legislation, and with it, the Democratic majority? It’s time for them to get their asses off the bench and vote for the damned bills, or else admit that they really are Trumpians in sheep’s clothing, and give the Senate back to Mitch McConnell and his twisted views of how the government should operate.

The Trumpians are laughing all the way back into power, and the Democrats’ loss will be squarely on the shoulders of the House Progressives and Manchin and Sinema. This has been the latest lesson in “how to throw away an insurmountable lead.”