The U. S. Senate and The World
As of mid-August, the Democrats had only one senate seat even leaning Republican in the November election, Doug Jones in Alabama. Meanwhile Republicans were rolling their weight uphill.
In Arizona McSally’s seat was leaning Democrat and six Republican incumbents faced toss-up races: Gardener in CO, Perdue in GA, Ernst in IA, Collins in ME, Daines in MT, and Tillis in NC.
The Senate voting balance now is 53 Republican to 47 Democrat. Keeping in mind that the Republican Vice President can vote to break a tie, in order to dominate the Senate the Democrats need to turn 4 Senate seats from Republican to Democrat.
If the Dems keep Jones’s seat in AL then they need to upset 4 out of the 6 Republicans running for re-election. If the momentum keeps moving in the Democrats’ direction, then it is do-able for the Dems to take over the Senate.
In the Senate and the House the rule is winner-take-all. And in this time of take-no-prisoners, which is Mitch McConnel’s brand of political warfare, Democrats are super motivated to take the Senate. Keeping control of the House and running the Senate, the Dems would control appointments to the bureaucracy and allotments and payments of money including for the Department of Defense.
The Constitution gives Congress the right to set the number of Justices on the Supreme Court. This number has varied from five to ten, currently nine. Congress set the number nine in 1869 and its been left at that since. A current proposal suggests that there be fifteen Justices-five from each party who then, together, choose five more. Would that make the Court unwieldly? Probably not. The Court has a lot of work to do and there are a lot of cases that are simply bypassed now.
The point is, that if the Dems dominate Congress they could change the Court and put many other monkey wrenches in Trump’s way if he is re-elected.
Trump’s bombarding the nation with propaganda via Twitter and with Executive Orders and the Democrat’s retaliating with investigations and court orders is not a good way to run a country.
We have arrived at this poor condition because of a conversion of massive changes in America and the world. Before we failed in our responses to Covid we failed in our responses to the change in the condition of our working class. Like the Covid challenge, we knew about the challenges that were falling upon our workers, the challenges of automation and globalization, and we did little or nothing to counteract them. Thus 30–40 percent of our population lost out in modern education and were condemned to dollar-store consumption. These are the folks that now sneer at masks and support Donald Trump. I feel for them.
At the finish of WWII the U.S. was left as King of the Hill, the only power left standing with all its resources and its infrastructure in good condition. The U.S. had a good run as King of the Hill for about 60 years after 1945. Our dollar was king, our technology was king, our military was king. But digital technology has created a more level playing field in the world and China has resumed its colossal place in the world after being kept in shackles for 200 years.
Our politics are reverberating from the fully predictable earthquake-shock changes in the world economy and world power. We could have prepared better to deal with the changes, but we didn’t.
And now our political system is reverberating and demonstrating weaknesses. Once upon a time the resilience of our system buffered world change. Now, as we tweak on the margins of the system we have inherited we fear for the very continuity of that system.
The question is not merely who wins the Senate, though that is deeply significant. The profound question is, what changes do we need to make in our system of government and administration to guarantee our survival in a more competitive world?
