Chris Murphy thread: The death of honor in the Senate and why we can't just let it go... [View all]

[Nevilledog]

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https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1309113788487041025.html

1/ A THREAD on the death of honor in the Senate and why we can'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't require a Senate vote on a President's nominee for the Supreme Court bc they assumed fair play. They never envisioned a situation like 2016 where the Senate's majority party refused to vote on the president's pick.

4/ McConnell's figured out the Constitution lets him operate the Senate any way he wants, and he's moved to demolish tradition at a dizzying pace. SCOTUS filibuster, blue slips gone. Debate on nominees curtailed. He's tasted how easy it is to grab power, and he isn't finished.

5/ And there's no logical end. He can keep cutting down debate. He can start denying resources to the minority party. Now that he'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's potentially lethal for our democracy.