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1/ A THREAD on the death of honor in the Senate and why we can& #39;t just let it go and brush it off as "Republicans doing Republican things".
2/ Democracy is predicated on the exercise of restraint and fair play. Our Constitution has enormous amounts of wiggle room in it - enough so that a democracy could be converted to a one party system without a technical violation of our founding document.
3/ For instance, the founding fathers didn& #39;t require a Senate vote on a President& #39;s nominee for the Supreme Court bc they assumed fair play. They never envisioned a situation like 2016 where the Senate& #39;s majority party refused to vote on the president& #39;s pick.
4/ McConnell& #39;s figured out the Constitution lets him operate the Senate any way he wants, and he& #39;s moved to demolish tradition at a dizzying pace. SCOTUS filibuster, blue slips gone. Debate on nominees curtailed. He& #39;s tasted how easy it is to grab power, and he isn& #39;t finished.
5/ And there& #39;s no logical end. He can keep cutting down debate. He can start denying resources to the minority party. Now that he& #39;s made the decision that power is more important than comity, he can effectively muzzle the opposition.
6/ Further, now that lying has been normalized (and newsflash - they were lying when they said there was a new rule not to confirm judges in an election year), an institution that requires deal-making and compromise cannot function - if keeping your word in now passe.
7/ Any democratic parliamentary body runs on the principles of restraint and honor. And in the last 10 days, McConnell and his caucus have destroyed both.
Now there are new rules - I get this and I will have to live by them - but it& #39;s potentially lethal for our democracy.
Now there are new rules - I get this and I will have to live by them - but it& #39;s potentially lethal for our democracy.
