Let us think about the participants in the famous events of January Sixth. Those people involved in that unique invasion of the Capitol appear in many films (it has to be the most photographed major historic event in history) to be purposely fighting to get into the great marble temple of democracy. Once in though, they clearly have no idea about what to do. They wander from room to room picking up documents and setting them down. After the great heart-beating excitement of invasion they seem out of place and lost.
And they were lost. Many clearly had been fooled…
Back at it: We appear to be at the beginning of a new political era. During the period from 1933 till 1979 (after the 1978 election) Congress was dominated by the Democratic Party in all but four years. During those years, the minority Republicans could get things passed only by cooperating with the majority Democrats. And that did often happen because there was within the Republican coalition a large faction of moderates who were themselves modernizers.
That period of Democratic Party dominance ended due in large part to the efforts of Richard Nixon to gain a Republican majority by capturing…
Back at it: We appear to be at the beginning of a new political era. During the period from 1933 till 1979 (after the 1978 election) Congress was dominated by the Democratic Party in all but four years. During those years, the minority Republicans could get things passed only by cooperating with the majority Democrats. And that did often happen because there was within the Republican coalition a large faction of moderates who were themselves modernizers.
That period of Democratic Party dominance ended due in large part to the efforts of Richard Nixon to gain a Republican majority by capturing…
Back at it: We appear to be at the beginning of a new political era. During the period from 1933 till 1979 (after the 1978 election) Congress was dominated by the Democratic Party in all but four years. During those years, the minority Republicans could get things passed only by cooperating with the majority Democrats. And that did often happen because there was within the Republican coalition a large faction of moderates who were themselves modernizers.
That period of Democratic Party dominance ended due in large part to the efforts of Richard Nixon to gain a Republican majority by capturing…
Yesterday the House of Representatives passed Joseph Biden’s 1.9 trillion dollar economic rescue package. It represents the new Democratic administration’s first major effort to deal with the effects of the pandemic on ordinary citizens and on the larger economy. It was passed in the House on an almost party line vote, Democrats for and Republicans against.
Next week the Senate, in which Republicans and Democrats are exactly tied (50–50), will get a chance to make changes. The general assumption seems to be that the bill will survive any elective surgery by the Senate. …
Back at it: We are in an odd place. The Trump presidential era is in the process of ending but Donald Trump remains a master at keeping himself in the news. His pronouncements from Mar-A-Lago are faithfully reported by the media. They make it clear that he intends to intervene in the 2022 congressional elections to punish Republican candidates who have failed to back his claim of “victory” in 2020.
Donald Trump will back his own candidates in Republican House districts and in Senate races across the country in order to defeat Republicans who failed to join him in lying…
We are in the third day of Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial. It will probably end tomorrow. It is a peculiar “trial” because everyone involved, including his staunch Republican defenders, knows that Trump is in someway guilty. The Democratic Senators who are exactly half of the “jurors” in the trial, and who are united in assuming his guilt, have to anticipate that he will be found not guilty. The standard explanation is that Republican Senators terrified by the loyalty of Trump’s voters, will find a way to rationalize exonerating him.
The details of the debate and the video of the…
Let us think about Marjorie Taylor Greene. Greene is the newly elected Representative from Georgia’s 14th Congressional district. The district is south of Chattanooga, Tennessee (the three northern most counties are part of the suburbs of Chattanooga). The remaining nine counties contain distant western exurbs of Atlanta. With 732,000 residents spread over twelve counties, the district is overwhelmingly Republican. Greene’s victory with 75 % percent of the vote is fairly typical for Republican candidates in the 14th.
Marjorie Greene had never held a political office before running 2020. Greene and her husband run a construction company in Alpharetta, Georgia, purchased…
Think about the Democrats in Congress. The Democrats are in an odd place. They have a small plurality in both houses of Congress. The Republicans are terribly divided. It would seem like the Democrats in the Congress should be able to win all the time. The truth is that the Republican divisions are real but that those divisions don’t really help the Democrats. Those divisions among the Republican members are a predictable product of the primaries that we discussed last time.
First, a little history: If we go back to, say 1910, the districts electing people to Congress were roughly…
Until women finally got the vote one hundred years ago, the political parties were essentially men’s clubs. Joining a political party was a demonstration of manhood. One of the first things male immigrants would do having attained citizenship, would be to join one of the parties. Even if they were working a physically punishing menial job that paid virtually nothing (say mining copper in the Upper Peninsula), joining meant to them that they belonged.
Party leaders chose candidates for office but those chosen knew that they would not serve long. At all levels, elected office holders were constantly rotated because…
Hank Rishel
Retired political science professor of 40+ years. Educated at Olivet, UofM, MSU, Northwestern, & Harvard. Hoping to make politics a fun & exciting topic for all
