563 Comments

Seems to me that we've been under minority rule for the better part of the last 30 years. There are numerous issues that are popular with the public but that Republicans refuse to consider — gun control, minimum wage, ending citizens united, decriminalizing drugs, etc.

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Methinks we're going to need a nationwide Texas Catastrophe to get the people who keep electing Republicans to see the error of their ways. Apparently, 500,000+ Covid deaths and all that comes with fighting the pandemic weren't enough.

Willful ignorance and prideful stupidity are tough obstacles to overcome.

Three weeks to the equinox and the first day of Spring.

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I just don't understand. I would guess that many of the insurectionists storming the Capitol Jan. 6 are part of the very people in need of the stimulus check, unemployment benefits, a wage increase, covid relief, small business funding, and all that is in the bill. But the Republicans supposedly on their side don't want to help anyone. Period. Trump twiddled around doing absolutely nothing but spreading lies and hate. Now that much needed help is proposed by a true leader, it's still blocked by selfish, greedy, power mongers. It makes me sick. America is in shambles physically, medically, financially, socially, emotionally, and attacking itself. I can't be more depressed.

Thank you, Dr. Richardson. I hope the sadness, depression, and frustration does not harm you in any way. You have to be so tired of this. Stay well.

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This is why I hate U.S. politics – It is not a democracy as we have been lied to, but a game with convoluted rules that make no sense, played by overpaid, underworked politicians with no concern for their constituents’ lives or welfare. (Need I mention Ted Cruz?)

There should be no filibuster to prevent a majority vote from performing its job. (Why haven’t the Dems done that?) There should be no Districts to Gerrymander and no Electoral College to give some votes more weight than others. Each Person’s Vote should be counted the same. Of course the Repugnant Party can’t have a true Democracy, which is why they are now working to suppress more votes in their controlled states.

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Pay member of the House and the Senate $15.00 per hour. Let them learn how difficult it would be to live on that income. Someone who makes $15 per hour would not even qualify as middle class. They are the working poor - barely struggling to get by. Legislators have lost their collective minds. Outrageous.

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"Not a single Republican voted for the bill."

- Not a single Republican wanted to help their impoverished, struggling constituents!

- Not a single Republican was willing to assist their states' governors and mayors.

- Not a single Republican was interested in having their constituents vaccinated.

- Not one single solitary Republican gave (nor gives) a damn for the citizens of this country!!

For SHAME!

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Thank you Heather. Your letter perfectly explains how dire the situation is in the Country. For those who thought we were out of the woods when Biden was elected, can clearly see we are not. Not by a long shot. This is a grim reality check that if a bill this monumentally important to all citizens cannot muster a single GOP vote and even opposition from some Democrats proves as a Democracy, we are screwed. This will be status quo as far as voting for the next 4 years, maybe less. This voting pattern clearly shows Party over People. I feel this perfectly illustrates that regardless of the election results and the vast numbers that voted for Biden, it is not reflected when the rubber meets the road.

The GOP is out to destroy Democracy, make no mistake about it.

Be safe, be well.

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At what point does the Republican citizenry realize that their Republican “representatives”are not, in fact, representing them? Can that fact not be brought to bear on the situation?

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The more I read this explanation of the reality of how Congress is not working for the People who voted for change, the madder and sadder I became. I do appreciate being informed, but it is getting to me, on top of everything else. I live in Texas where the incompetence of leaders has led to billions of dollars in damage and tragic death in the recent freeze.

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So very sad. It’s all going to be an uphill battle... I hope the For The People act passes.

Whatever happened to the emoluments clause? Is it just words? Not really a law?

What happened with the security breech to the Pentagon? What happened about the bounties on American soldiers? Do we just ignore these things? Come out after an election that they’re still claiming was stolen and play nice?

This is what our country is becoming. Divided by hate. So very sad.

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Thank you so very much, Dr Richardson, for your letters and how you very simply lay it all out. It's very much appreciated. From day to day. Today, I'm so very saddened and disheartened, as others here have already mentioned in these wee hours, at the lack of Republican support for the American Rescue Plan. It hurts me to my core that we can not, as a nation, come to an understanding and embrace measures that are designed for the good of the people. I also think of President Biden and what a kind and compassionate, yet very seasoned politician, man who is trying to lead our nation through these very darkest of times. God speed to all of us.

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This makes me so angry I can’t even put it into words. These people are pure evil. I cannot understand what they hope to gain by destroying our country. It’s this kind of behavior by those people that throws me back into raging despair.

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There is PLENTY of bipartisanship. It's just NOT in the Congress, especially the Senate. Jen Psaki has been pointing out in her briefings that a super-majority--more than 70% of Americans--is in favor of the Biden legislation. Sounds pretty bipartisan to me!

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It is a bit silly to write about this again but having read most of the comments that are still so focused on the specifics I will. What do you do when you confront a situation that makes no sense? You look left you look right up, down it still makes no sense; you have to back up, take a larger view. Sometimes this means looking to the past and Heather is good at that but sometimes even that doesn’t make sense if you aren’t standing back far enough to recognize the underlying causes of the history.

What is going on when people repeatedly devote their attention and conform their behavior to a path that is ultimately self-destructive? Where do we see this time and again in human history and individual human lives? The answer is addiction. In this case power addiction the most powerful and sinister addiction of human kind.

What can someone un-addicted do when confronted with someone who is behaving from the demands of addiction? First understand that from within the addiction lying is normal, respected, not recognized but rather celebrated as what is justifying the addiction. And recognize that as the addiction becomes deeper and consequences pile up the addicted are not more likely to see the error of their ways, rather they are going to double down on their lies and justifications to support their addiction in any and all ways they can. Also, recognize that within a cohort addiction, a group process, the whole group is affected. In this way they are pulled together by the energy of addiction and made more solid in the fantasy that they are living to support it.

Rationalizing, negotiation, placating, hoping for the best, thinking the future is going to change without drastic measures is the behavior of the co-dependent, the other pole of the disease of addiction. Not one Republican is going to support a single effort by the Democrats. It is not going to happen. It is much more likely that a Democrat or two are going to be sucked into the addiction. It has nothing to do with the need, popularity or justness of the individual bill. We haven’t been governing that way for a long time now.

Forcing the addicted to experience the consequences of their actions is the only way to break this cycle. What does that look like in the massive arenas of politics and public opinion? Well, until we starting using the word ‘addiction’ we haven’t even started.

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Thank you. This is not encouraging news. Why do the Republicans seem to hate even their constituents?

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Good morning HCR. Nice blog! I greatly appreciate how you lay out the facts with such clarity! You must be a really top-flight history professor.

However, what you describe as "dangerously close... to minority rule" strikes me as minority rule as status quo. The fact is that, for the past several decades, when Democrats win they can only govern with a GOP ball-and-chain pulling them down and can never fully deliver on their campaign promises, even when they are supported by a large majority of American voters. The structural lack of real democracy written into the US Constitution (2 Senators per state, the Electoral College, voting procedures determined by state governments, etc.), ratified over 230 years ago when half of the original 13 colonies had economies based on slavery and the overall population was mostly rural, is a huge, huge problem. Americans have grown accustomed to this, and our venerable Constitution continues to be revered, but it is slowly killing the American experiment, along with other more recent and surprisingly undemocratic institutions such as Facebook, owned by a tiny number of unelected and barely regulated entrepreneurs.

So poor Joe Biden is faced with an impossible task. If he cannot get his big economic/anti-covid spending bill passed without ditching the most important element, which is the $15 minimum wage increase, he will lose the main ingredient holding progressive and moderate Democrats together. As a practical matter, without a sincere change of heart from Manchin and Sinema, he is 2 votes short of a functioning Senate majority. If he cannot legislate real change and improvement in his first two years, we will all be cooked.

This is urgent. There will be no second chances. I see no alternative but to eliminate (not just modify) the filibuster, immediately. If Manchin and Sinema intend to pursue what they see as their personal political fortunes ahead of the commonweal, and cannot be convinced otherwise in private, they need to be shamed, primaried, expelled, whatever.

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