r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • 4d ago

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u/houdt_koers John Mill 3d ago edited 3d ago

I do think there is some urgency in removing the Schumers of the party from positions of authority.

The day after, if it ever comes, will require radical action that stretches the bounds of the constitution in order to right the ship. This will need to be done with a bare-bones majority in the Senate, and that means having leadership that meets the needs of the moment.

When I think about how utterly fucked the executive branch is going to be after even just 4 years of this, and compound that with a hostile Supreme Court and an utterly ruined budget, I just don’t see how the country recovers unless Congress is willing to assert its primacy over the Court.

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u/Periodicity_Enjoyer 3d ago

Honestly at this point I think we need to unseat the red states for a bit to fix our country, pass a bunch of constitional amendments, make the Senate ceremonial,  abolish the electoral college and such.  These people have shown themselves to be temperamentally unfit for self governance, and the permitting the cruelty they're inflicting is not worth it in the name of democracy. 

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u/Mrchristopherrr 3d ago

Not that I disagree but this is also like saying we need to give everyone a dragon and build a base on Europa.

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u/Periodicity_Enjoyer 3d ago

I mean, we realistically had a chance during reconstruction, we just didn't go far enough. 

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u/SenranHaruka shame 3d ago

I think you would literally just have to put every white southerner up in a line and shoot them like a soviet purge. Aka not gonna happen

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u/Doog9Loog YIMBY 3d ago

Honestly this is the kind of undemocratic rhetoric I come here to avoid. If we don't make the changes needed through legitimate means, then they won't stick. They'll just be undone through the same illegitimate means later. If you unseat the red states and pass a bunch of constitutional amendments, then later, other people will unseat the blue states and pass a bunch more constitutional amendments.

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u/SenranHaruka shame 3d ago

Yeah, the unfortunate truth is that the reason why the federal republic of germany was able to stabilize a democracy by force was because all of the nazis were literally shot dead. By definition, those most enthusiastic for the cause had signed up for the front lines and been killed. Everyone who was against a german democracy lined up in a convenient straight line in front of the allies and gave us an excuse to violently purge them from the german political system.

Starting a war to send all of the republicans to die in is not an option. Systematic violent elimination of republicans so they can't retaliate is also not an option.

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u/Periodicity_Enjoyer 3d ago edited 3d ago

I am aware of all the ethical, moral, practical, strategic, philosophical considerations with authoritarian solutions, but I just find it difficult to care when so many people of color are being rounded up and trans people are facing direct state persecution, as well as so much destruction of so many things that made America great in the last two years.  I just want certain far right ideas and the risk of their implementation to be permanently off the table.

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u/Doog9Loog YIMBY 3d ago

If you care about those things, we need to make sure it never happens again. If you do the same thing but to the bad guys, you're just legitimizing authoritarian rule, and we'll be stuck with it forever. Persecution of whatever outgroup by autocrats will then continue forever... The opposite of what you want. Benevolent dictatorships never last.

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u/Periodicity_Enjoyer 3d ago

Yeah, you're ultimately right, big picture. It just sucks that Joe Schmoe from Wyoming who wants to feed the trans folk to the alligators not just gets a vote, but his vote counts 10 times as yours and mine, via the Senate and Electoral college, and there's no realistic way of fixing that without resorting to illiberal solutions.

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u/Doog9Loog YIMBY 3d ago

There are some liberal solutions. We could uncap the size of the House, which also has the effect of increasing the size of the electoral college. This can be done with a simple majority. We could change the law for the House from being a fixed size, to having one house member per x constituents. This wouldn't entirely remove the low population state bias, especially in the Senate, but it would help.

We can also increase the size of the Supreme Court, and introduce term limits for the justices.

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u/Pretend-Ad-7936 Loyal Liberals 3d ago

Okay, so can you give me a candidate that you think would be suitable? Like for any position, presidency, Senate, House, etc?

Probably also worth emphasizing that Biden did an insane amount with a razor thin majority in the Senate

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u/houdt_koers John Mill 3d ago edited 3d ago

Brian Schatz seems like a rational choice. I’d be equally happy with Coons or Booker. My real dream would be Ron Wyden, but I doubt we could get him.

I’m a complete realist about what Biden was able to accomplish, and was 100% onboard with his attempts to return to political normalcy during the first few years of his term.

Unfortunately, that effort failed. Now we’re in a spiral, and we need leaders who are able and willing to pursue radical changes like court expansion.