this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
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When was the last time the Democrats held 50+ percent in both houses to pass legislation without needing to cooperate? Believe it was Obama for 2 months in 2009. So all complaining about this for the last decade has been moot.
60% for Obama, which is what was needed to overcome the filibuster, an utterly broken part of Senate procedure.
We had 50+VP for the first two Biden years, but that gave us no room to negotiate with our own party - or 'our own' party, considering that two of the most troublesome fuckwits later became independents when they decided they'd done all the damage they could inside the party. Add to Biden himself being not much more than a milquetoast moderate twat, and you have a recipe for very little getting done.
Not nothing. But not nearly what needed to be done, realistically speaking.
The filibuster is why the government shut down instead of cutting even more social safety net. Until the magat movement completely dies, it is a necessary tool for situations like right now. We need a way to stop the stupid majority as a minority
Why is that 60+ not a requirement for Republicans to pass the legislation and ratify nominations that they want? The Republicans haven't met that threshold since the 67th Congress back in 1921.
The 119th, 115th, 108th and 109th congresses which were all Republican trifectas didn't meet that criteria and the "tea party" and "establishment" flavors certainly aren't any more of a unified front than the democratic party.
Because Republicans don't infight anywhere near as much a Democrats.
I'm pretty convinced that trump has gotten as far as he has because the Democrats parts is like 50/50 corporate shills on Trump's payroll and ideologues.
Of course we never get anything done. Half the party is hellbent on selling out their constituents and the other on performative "moral victories."
Oh, they do. But it is significantly less theatrical.
Beautifully said, and that's what I wanted to draw attention to.
Then they are the stupidest political party in the history of democracy as a concept. We're Americans, if it's not in the media it doesn't exist.
The current legislation they are trying to pass in the Senate is an example. Part of the reason we are in a shutdown, from a legal standpoint, is because Republicans do not have the votes to bypass the filibuster.
As for why nominations don’t require the 60%+ threshold? Because it was something previously agreed between both parties. There are very few things that you can actually Filibuster. You may have heard of budget resolutions as an alternative to getting things passed, it’s for if they want specific economic legislation passed that can’t be filibustered.
Either party could in-theory get rid of the Filibuster, but that is a can of worms neither party wants to go for as a short-term win. The Filibuster is what prevents the worst legislation from even seeing the light of day.
The only reason I could see Dems getting rid of the Filibuster would be if they wanted to uncap the House, but that in itself would require a Dem trifecta and over 50 members in the Senate willing to approve uncapping the House.
We had exactly 60 seats for all of like two effective weeks in 2009, due to various issues. And not only that, a good portion of the dems in that coalition were blue dogs - senators from IA, ND, IN, and MO.
People acting like we've had 30+ Bernies in the caucus are weird.
It seems like that’s exactly the point, progressive democrats are very few and not even that progressive except for a few outliers.
I agree, that's why we need to replace around 70% of them, maybe 80%
Sounds better to start a whole new party instead of fight the entrenched majority.
Spoiler effect means magats would just win by default if we tried
Sure, but the us election system makes starting new parties and having them matter almost impossible.
Howso? Most people understand that third parties are counterproductive spoilers and won't risk it. You have to destroy one of the entrenched majorities first if you want a new party to accomplish anything.
Surely you destroy one of the major entrenched parties by not voting for them and instead voting for someone else who can than take their place.
That's the kicker. If you don't have a clean, single-cycle transition then you're handing control to your worst enemies.
If we're going to fracture a party, let's fracture the right. Destroy the worse one first, then siphon from the less worse one once the fracture takes.
Yeah, it's an absolutely unhinged argument to suggest that the only way to a multi-party democracy is to move to a one-party system first. They haven't thought it through at all.
We're poopooing Obama having the largest majority since reconstruction? Come the fuck on. What have the Republicans been doing with way less "power"? Democrats are useless.
Even if we ever get that again, people will be sorely disappointed because legislation will be too busy fixing damages from the previous administration to make much actual progress. Which will be forgotten by the next election (same as it ever was).
In 2048 Reagan's ghost will still haunt the country, plus Trump's ghost too.
Just make one omnibus that does it all. We wouldnt need to spend time fixing if we were willing to be as roughshod with power as Republicans are. That trifecta won't survive midterms anyway might as well go crazy with it
Probably because you can't use 10+ years worth of GDP in one bill. But I'm no economist nor person with the CBO.
I assume you mean 60+ to break filibuster.
And weren't a lot of them solid conservatives too (not like Manchin, further right)? Hence why pro-choice laws were never solidified.
And what the fuck did Obama do with those 2 months?
Obamacare. Which, for all of its many flaws, was a major step forward in health care in this country, and saved numerous lives - my own included.
Obamacare was Romneycare with blue packaging. A perfect example of the 'compromise' in the comic.
Could have pushed for real healthcare like the rest of the Western world but no, wasted that chance.
Do you... do you not understand that Obamacare, as it was, only barely passed?
And even then Republicans have been constantly chipping away at it and trying to repeal it.
I feel like a lot of people forget that Healthcare was a lot worse before ACA/Obamacare and that's in its crippled state.
Just imagine what the US could do if we consistently elected people who cared about us.
They don't forget. They either weren't around to know or are so young they think things just change in no time with no effort.
It's the ignorance of youth.
By what metrics? Life expectancy tells a very different story:
Note the increase in deviation from the rest of comparable countries starting around 2008.
In-hospital mortality rates which had been decreasing for decades suddenly flatlined while continuing to fall in other countries.
Treatable deaths remained pretty steady.
Maternal mortality rates starting skyrocketing around ~2015 but had been steadily increasing since ~95. There does already to be something weird that happened ~2005 that potentially delayed that rocket for a decade but I strongly doubt there's any correlation there.
No obvious correlation to deaths of despair. It had been increasing for a while due to the whole recession thing and seems to just continue accelerating, especially when comparing age adjusted mortality.
Bankruptcy fillings are the only thing that looks to maybe have some correlation, but even then there doesn't seem to be a strong causitive link and it certainly hasn't lasted:
So again, by what fucking metric?! Because any I can think of there doesn't seem to even be any positive correlation much less any strong causitive link.
People really forget that Obama wanted a much more robust system but had to compromise literally time and time again just to get it passed. I remember all the revisions they tried because Republicans kept changing their demands and prevent the whole thing altogether.
Doesn't that... prove the point?
Meaning, even among the Democrat party, there was little will to adopt the standards the rest of the western world enjoys. If actual public healthcare was a majority position among the party, the party wouldn't have had to compromise with itself.
Pushed to have the American Care act get through, then it got gutted and turned to a piece of shit by the time it got anywhere. If he had 2 months of that in say 2012 or 2013 it may have been different, but it was the first weeks of him holding the presidency and we quickly saw racism rise all around us. If he would have walked on the door with a Project 2009 with teams of people ready to drop in place maybe it would different. But by the time the guy knew where his coffee mug was and made sure his kids were safe, support was gone.
And the representative majority has not supported a health care system to fix anything since. So we sit in degradation
Most of the people complaining loudly about this were toddlers last time it happened.
Hell I was born in 89' and just made the cut off for voting in the 2008 by a year. Had no say in the Bush era
It was the 117th Congress from 2021-2023. Y'know when Roe V Wade was overturned, the DHS was "rebuilding" after COVID, Nicaragua was getting regime changed, etc.
E: for those who can't be bothered to read:
Senate majority Republican. House majority Democrat. Says so in your own link
For the first 2 weeks of 2021. The full text: