Winning Elections Is Hard, Apparently

I've got two degrees in Political Science and up until now they've served as the punchline to the inevitable, "yeah, they look really pretty on my wall" kind of joke people my age make when they're trying to accept the grim economic reality of student loan debt. But Holy Hannah in a Handbasket am I getting tired of bloviating sermonizing from writers who get gigs at publications like The New Republic and then proceed to write the worst kind of drivel imaginable proclaiming that "well, actually [insert platitude/institution that the Establishment/Elite Progressives hate] is the real problem."

Case in point: The Constitution Is The Crisis.

Just the title alone is enough to raise my blood pressure, but it only goes downhill from there. It should be noted that if this article had appeared in say, I don't know, the Federalist or the National Review or the Wall Street Journal it would have been absolutely excoriated as "advocating for fascism" and why it isn't being similiarly excoriated as "advocating for leftist authoritarianism" is a question we should be asking ourselves- even though we already know the answer. The New Republic is blessed and favored by the Establishment and certain quarters of the Progressive Left are probably okay with this take as well. After all, if we got rid of the Constitution we wouldn't have these pesky laws and the elites of society would be able to run the country how they want and the unwashed peasantry would just have to live with it. Never mind all the tiresome Handmaid's Tale cosplay every fucking time abortion is debated in our nation's capitol-- they're advocating for a one way ticket to The Hunger Games here and no one is calling them on this absolute bullshit.

The sub-heading is even better: "There's no reason why a rigged Supreme Court should have the final say on the law of our land."

Look, it's been 150 years since we expanded the Supreme Court. We've got more states and a hell of lot more people now and nine is an entirely arbitrary number set by Congress. I would not be against a moderate and well-reasoned argument in favor of expansion by let's say...two justices? 11 seems like a reasonable number. If you get crazy and slap like seven new justices on there, you might be getting into 'court packing' territory and yes, in the partisan times in which we live, we should be concerned perhaps that this spirals out of control and we end up with a Supreme Court bigger than Congress itself currently is. 

But, that being said: 9 is a totally arbitrary number and if a hypothetical President Biden wanted to say, add two new justices to the Supreme Court (please, let one of them be Merrick Garland, so I can stop listening to people rend their garments on social media about the alleged theft of "his" seat- as if Seats on the Supreme Court belonged to anyone) I would be okay with that. It's reasonable. You can make a decent argument in favor of it. Its probably time.

It's not rigged. It is the way it is because while the Left was on it's long march through the institutions, they didn't realize that much like the marching band at the end of Animal House, they were walking into a cul-de-sac- because they forgot to actually you know, win some sustained and meaningful political power along the way. That's what this article is saying, winning elections is hard, so the problem isn't the voters not voting for us, it's the Constitution. It's like waking up and finding out your toilet is leaking and therefore deciding to demolish your entire house instead of calling a plumber. 

Consider: when I was born, there were 24 states with at least one Democratic Senator and 11 states with two Democratic Senators (which included Nebraska!). The year I turned ten, there were 21 states with at least one Democratic Senator and 16 states with two Democratic Senators (still including Nebraska!). By the time the 107th Congress had rolled around: 14 states had one Democratic Senator and 17 states had two Democratic Senators (including all four Senators from the Dakotas)-- the 115th Congress: 14 with at least one Democratic Senator, 16 with two Democratic Senators. In other words: over the course of my life, there have been increasingly fewer Democratic Senators elected nationwide. No one on the Left seems to give a shit as to why- they just want to complain about "unfair" the Senate is.

You want to know how to make the Senate into advantage for Democrats? Elect more fucking Democratic Senators, you absolute dipshits. And don't tell me that it's impossible: in the year 2000, all four Senators from both Dakotas were Democrats. As recently as two years ago, there was a Democratic Senator in North Dakota. North Dakota. And the year I was born, both Senators from Nebraska were Democrats. It's not impossible. Howard Dean has been the most effective Chairman of the DNC in my lifetime, because in the wake of 2004, he looked around and said: "Hey, we need to build a party that can win all 50 states" and shortly thereafter, you know what happened? Democrats won across the goddamn country. (But that makes it harder to keep your party in it's pre-defined and tiny ideological box, so we can't be having that either, apparently.)

I don't understand. Is there something that happens to these people when they move to the coasts and start writing for elite publications like The New Republic? Does all common sense leech from their heads? I do not understand this weird fetishism the Left has for the federal government. Most people don't trust the federal government. It's too fucking big and too far away- and the gap between the government and the governed, especially on the federal level is getting bigger with every passing year- but instead of decentralizing government and bringing it closer to the citizenry it serves- thereby convincing people that, hey, the government can be useful from time to time- which is a key barrier for Progressives to overcome- people want to advocate for a Federal Government that can do whatever the fuck it wants in the name of "we know best."

Do you, though? Consider this beautiful, enraging money 'graph that is racing around the right wing blogosphere and might as well be an in-kind contribution to the potential Hindenburg that is the Trump Campaign:

The American left should work toward abolishing the Constitution someday-- either for a new document or a new democratic order without a written Constitution. 

Oh goodie. This will help-- unwritten Constitutions aren't a pain in the ass at all. The British Constitution is such a pain in the ass sometimes they kick around the idea of codifying their Constitution. India- a country with a billion people has a written Constitution. But, I see where you're coming from: can't worry about pesky originalists and textualists on the future five hundred member Supreme Court if you have an unwritten Constitution. 

And as for abolishing the Constitution somday? Mother fucker. Literally the only fucking thing the Left has to do is not being certifiably insane and they can't even manage that. If this is the project the American left is going to dedicate itself towards, y'all are gonna make it next to impossible for me to vote for you.

Rant over. You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.