How the US Senate destroyed the "balance of powers" and democracy?

[kentuck]

From the beginning, Mitch McConnell and the Republicans surrendered the authority of the Senate over to the Executive Branch. In the process, they destroyed the "balance of powers", which was created to protect the people from abuses by one branch or the other. This was a blunder of tragic proportion.

They simply refused to investigate or ask any questions about any suspicious or criminal activities from the White House. When the House impeached Donald Trump, they even refused to hear witnesses. It was nothing more than a whitewash and a cover-up.

So here we are today. The US Senate has torn down our defenses against authoritarianism and made our democracy very vulnerable to attack.

The guilty must be pointed out.

[CurtEastPoint]

1. That entire body needs to be eliminated. Of course, no chance of that happening.

It's unequal, unfair, unbalanced, patriarchal, oligarchical....every kind of wrong for our democracy.

[kentuck]

5. The Republican Party stands for nothing anymore.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. It was just the opposite when Obama was in the WH.

Senate and the House attacked any proposal that Obama made as though they were protecting democracy.

[lostnfound]

3. This should be a nonstop panel discussions every single day on cable

Exactly right. The crisis is not primarily that a madman is in the White hous, it’s that the senate isn’t curtailing his power or performing oversight. No balance of power.

The transformation of the US into a “dynastic kleptocracy” is all on McConnell and his yesmen.

[JT45242]

4. It is deeply needed...the problem is the senators

One of the beautiful things about the Senate is that senators have 6 year terms. They can worry about long-term problems and are not slaves to primaries and general election every two years. For over 200 years it led to compromise....then came Moscow Mitch, Ted Cruz, and both Paul dirtbags from Kentucky.

Why were McCain and Biden able to work together, because they could find ways that both thought would make the country better.

Why does it fail now. Because Moscow Mitch and friends no longer care about the country, they only care about loyalty to the party and the big donors like the Koch brothers.

A root cause analysis of Benghazi would say that it was caused by the budget cuts of the sequester which forced the embassy to use cheap locals rather than American troops. Who caused the sequester...Cruz, mostly, with help from Moscow Mitch, Paul Ryan, and Rand Paul.

Why was the sequester there in the first place? Bipartisan senators thought that they would put such a horrible poison pill into legislation that no one would risk it because it would be horrible for the country.
Reasonable folks wouldn't trigger it before Citizens United and the wide spread bribery it brought about.
Get rid of the traitors, get rid of citizens United, and the Senate can go back to being the place where reasonable people find compromise to make the country better.

Many here will say that I am gullible like diogenes looking for an honest Republican is a hopeless cause. But remember, the ACA only survived at all because of one Republican, John McCain. There are some out there...maybe it will be a new party that grows out if this as the Republican party dies like the Whigs...either way, the Senate is needed. It just needs to not be a criminal enterprise run by Moscow Mitch.