James Fallows - 'The Two Great Classes-Tramps and Millionaires' - The Atlantic - 0 views
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Mike Lofgren, for many decades a Republican Senate staffer
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Our great-grandparents would have recognized the current Supreme Court and the Citizens United decisions for what they are: the institutions of government in the grip of what they then called the Money Power.
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"We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. The people are demoralized. . . . The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right to organize for self-protection, imported pauperized labor beats down their wages. . . . The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind, and the possessors of these, in turn, despise the Republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes - tramps and millionaires."
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Charles Stevenson, who was for decades a staffer to Democratic senators before becoming a professor at the National War College. He writes:
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I used to think that increased party polarization was simply the result of the growing ideological unity of each group, a process reinforced by redistricting into safe seats. Now I think that a better explanation is a combination of a capture of the GOP by a radical fringe and the defeat of congressional institutionalism by partisanship
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Newt Gingrich was the godfather to both movements, starting with his rejection of the bipartisan 1990 budget deal and continuing with his strategy of "destroy[ing] the House in order to save it" by undermining public confidence in the institution....
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Congressional norms have also changed, most dramatically as you've noted in terms of the abuse of the filibuster. But they've also changed in terms of defending the congressional institutions and their proper Constitutional roles.