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In this hyper-partisan environment, parties are voting more in lockstep (major legislation like the Affordable Health Care Act passes on party-line votes), Congress faces greater turnover in big wave elections (as in 1994, 2006, and 2010), and local elections (like the recent spate of special elections) are increasingly contested on national rather than local issues. This is pattern is self-reinforcing, making for even more extreme partisanship and even deeper deadlock. The American political system seems to be caught in a straightjacket that gets tighter the more the public struggles.

Richard Hasen, alaw professor at theUniversity of California,wonderedin a 2013 article whether this called for drastic measures:The partisanship of our political branches and the mismatch with our structure of government raise the fundamental question: Is the United States political system so broken that we should change the Constitution to adopt a parliamentary systemeither a Westminster system, as in the United Kingdom, or a different form of parliamentary democracy?His formulation of the question, though, was too blunt. As he noted, any such constitutional change would be nearly impossible, especially given the gridlock that already exists. Thus, a Catch-22: The system is so broken that it needs to be changed, but there is no way to change it because the system is so broken.

One way to out of this paradox might to move toward something closer to a de facto parliamentary system, one that wouldnt require constitutional change. The Senate could remove barriers like the filibuster, which prevents a simple majority from effecting change. Democrats might want to hold on to the filibuster now because its a guardrail against Republican policy, but in the long run, the political system would be more effective and accountable.

Congress could also restore now disused procedures like regular order, which McCain drew attention to in Tuesdays speech.Lets trust each other. Lets return to regular order, he said. Weve been spinning our wheels on too many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle.As Peter C. Hanson of the Brookings Institution explains, regular order is the budget procedure for debating and passing individual appropriations bills in each chamber. Today this procedure has been replaced by the passage of huge omnibus packages at the end of the session, with little scrutiny and opportunity for amendment. A few procedural changes (including, as it happens, limiting the filibuster) could bring regular order back to life, making budgeting decisions much more orderly and rule-bound.

Another important restoration would be in congressional staffing, which was gutted by thenHouse Speaker Newt Gingrich in the 1990s. Prior to Gingrichs slashing, members of Congress had large staffs that helped them navigate the choppy waters of policy. Now, much of that work has been outsourced to think tanks, which are beholden to special interests. For Congress to act as an effective parliamentary body, it needs to more policy advisors on congressional staffs.

Congresscould also limit the power of the presidency, curtailing his ability to issue executive orders and to wage war without congressional approval. This would make the president more of a figurehead, with the real power residing in the House speaker and the Senate majority leader. In such a system, voters would, as in a parliamentary system, have a clearer idea of what policies theyre approving when they cast their vote in the booth.

A weak president and strong Congress is not incompatible with the U.S. Constitution. It existed in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, until Theodore Roosevelt came to power. During that period, presidents had sharply curtailed roles, mainly tasked with making appointments and administering the state while important policies were under the control of strong congressional leaders. Theres no reason why such a restoration of congressional power couldnt happen right now.

Much of governance inthe currentAmericansystemis opaqueespecially in periods of divided government, but not exclusively. For instance, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnells elaborate shell game with health care was designed to conceal the Obamacare repeal plan not only from public view, but from Democrats and even many Republican colleagues.If the existing system operated in a more parliamentary fashion, it would bring clarity to politics. As in the United Kingdom, political platforms would take on a much more meaningful role than a simple wishlist. They would be elaborate policy documents, with parties in power judged by their ability to fulfill their specific promises.

To be sure, a full parliamentary system would still be out of reach, because there would still be a bicameral legislaturethe House and Senate might not be controlled by the same partiesand the president would still have some power (although there could be constitutional amendments to limit even those, including the right of veto). Still, it would be more like a parliamentary system than what exists today.

It could be argued that these reforms are unnecessary given that the main problem with American democracy is Republican extremism. After all, the system worked fine in the brief period of Democratic unitary government from 2009-2011. But that was a two-year window that has only existed once in the last two decades. The greater norm is division or Republican unitary government.

Another objection might be that this reformed system would be less democratic than what exists now, a problem given that the current system already has many undemocratic featuressuch as the existence of the electoral college, and the Senates unequal representation. But surely the most undemocratic feature is the lack of public engagement, far lower in the United States than other comparable democracies (58 percent turnout in the last national election). A move towards a more parliamentary system might well increase political participation.

A governmental reform movement is perhaps the only way out of the current chaos. As American political parties act more like parliamentary ones, its time for the system to change accordingly.

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Why American Democracy Is Broken, and How to Fix It - New Republic

Janan Ganesh is one of the worlds great newspaper columnists, and his column in Tuesdays Financial Times is another stellar entry in a remarkable oeuvre. Casting about for a macro-level explanation to the tumults of our time Trump, Brexit, and their ilk he finds one in the apparent complacency that has overtaken Western society since the end of the Second World War. There is no Passchendaele, no D-Day, no Iwo Jima to give our politics an anchored, foundational meaning; over time weve become bored with the way things are and lost the discipline that did so much to create our current prosperity. The typical view sees Trump and Brexit as reactions to the economic and social dislocations wrought by globalization and its attendant forces. Ganesh sees them as the opposite, products of our faded memories of past trauma.

It is a fascinating argument: It runs perfectly counter to conventional wisdom and raises serious questions about the future viability of our system of governance. But complacency and the fractures of globalization alone cant explain our current predicament. Something significant has also changed in the way that we govern ourselves..

The first half of the 20th century was, for better or for worse, a period of mass democratic involvement in Anglo-American society. In the United States, the votes of the people effected the New Deal, a fundamental change in the relationship between American government and society; in the U.K., something similar happened under the postwar government of Clement Attlee, whose New Jerusalem dramatically rewrote the British social contract or recognized it as having been rewritten to provide a generous welfare state for all. These were times when people mattered, or at least believed they did, and when the choices they made at the ballot box stood a fair chance of entirely upending the existing order, typically for the better.

It is hard to say that sort of democratic choice exists today. Rather, in the words of John Lanchester, democratic choice now has something of a thinned, diminished texture to it, there is a sense that democratic choice [has] narrowed; that, in most elections, a narrow set of economic ideas would be the dominant facts of life, irrespective of where you put your x. The precise date that this diminished texture came into existence is a matter of debate one might say the elections of Reagan and Thatcher were the last times the votes of individuals could recreate the system under which they lived, but even that pair had only minimal success in rolling back the post-war welfare state. What matters is that voters no longer possess this feeling of control over the vicissitudes of their own lives; the system exists, and it cannot be changed.

There is much to the idea that the underlying explanation for Trump and Brexit (and perhaps also Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece) is that people feel powerless to bring about any meaningful change and have thus chosen to direct the instruments of democracy toward ends foreign from the system. Complacency is indeed an evil, and it seems true enough that the fading memory of the great democratic struggles of the mid 20th century is a factor in the tumults of 2016. But an equal factor must be that people feel unable to escape the abiding sense of complacency even when they desire to do so. The Petri dish of radicalism, to use Ganeshs phrase, is not mass suffering, but a combination of prolonged order and diminished democracy.

The solution, then, seems clear enough: Reinvigorate the moribund democratic spirit of the Anglosphere through both cultural shifts and political action. Remind people that they really can effect deep changes in the way their societies operate, that not all votes are simply useless howls into an entirely uncaring ether.

There is a problem with that proposal, though. The institutions that Ganesh describes the ones that may well have generated the complacency that in turn eased the path toward our ongoing troubles are, by and large, good. War, despite the fantasies of the alt-right, is on the whole a bad thing, and the vast human toll of the world wars seems a high price to pay for the reminder that politics is indeed a rather serious business with rather serious consequences. So too do the dual phenomena of Trump and Brexit the former is doing much harm to the United States, both domestically and on the world stage, while the latter seems to be drifting listlessly toward a disastrous scenario in which the United Kingdom crashes out of the European Union in March 2019 without having secured an exit deal of some sort. These phenomena may, it is true, do their part in forcing us to confront politics with a cold, rationalistic mind once again. But surely there are better, less wantonly destructive ways to drag ourselves out of the politics-as-sports morass into which we have been drawn.

Indeed, finding those better ways is the most crucial task before us today. A robust version of democratic choice is a boon to any society it invests citizens with a thickened sense of purpose and meaning in their own lives and it provides the means for an endogenous course correction when the projects and schemes of the ruling elite either go wrong or run out of steam. What is crucial is that a reinvigoration of democratic choice does not mean a reneging on the institutions of post-war governance that have served us relatively well for most of their existence, creating prosperous economies, stable political systems, and open, tolerant societies. We would be better off directing our democratic energies toward the murky and uncertain future to come.

The politician or intellectual who comes up with a solution to that question lying at the nexus of civilizational complacency and democratic inspiration will have gone a long way toward squaring the political circle of our time. And the need to square it is evident. More Trumps could prove a fatal blow. So too could the present democratic malaise. Both problems merit solutions. But let us make sure that in finding them we do not destroy an existing order that has earned its chance to adapt.

Noah Daponte-Smith is an editorial intern at National Review and a student of modern history and politics at Yale University.

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On Complacency and the Thinning of Democracy - National Review

Lashing out at the BJP for its greed for power, BSP supremo Mayawati on Saturday said the recent developments in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat had put democracy at risk.

The political developments in Goa, Manipur, Bihar and now in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh are proof enough that the Modi government has put democracy at risk, she said in a statement here.

BJPs greed for power has turned into lust for power. The manner in which the official machinery and power is being misused is most condemnable, she said.

The BSP chief said the central government had misused its power in a very blatant manner in Gujarat, following which MLAs have been forced to leave their state and move to a safer place.

After forming its government in Goa and Manipur by crushing democracy, whatever is happening in Bihar, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh is an example of misuse of official machinery like ED, CBI, income tax etc against opposition leaders, she said.

All this is being done to divert attention from the wrong policies and works of the BJP government, she added.

The governments in Odisha and West Bengal are also facing official terror, she alleged. On the resignation by three MLCs, two from Samajwadi Party and one of BSP in Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati said rather than bowing before the BJP, they should have faced the challenge.

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BJP's 'greed for power' is putting democracy at risk, says Mayawati - The Hindu

By Jared Bernstein By Jared Bernstein July 28 at 10:44 AM

Jared Bernstein, a former chief economist to Vice President Biden, is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and author of the new book 'The Reconnection Agenda: Reuniting Growth and Prosperity.'

Im at a conference (where I just moderated a session with the great economist Paul Krugman Ill post the podcast at some point), so I dont have time to write much on what happened last night in health care. But if I dont write something, Ill burst, so here are some quick reflections.

It aint over, but what a great win, thanks to numerous people and forces:

the three Republican senators who voted down the latest, and for now, probably last repeal effort;

Senate Democrats, who held fast against a terrible assault on both health-care policy and the political process (more on that point next);

the research and analysis community, with a loud shout-out to my colleagues at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities who quickly, deftly and with consistent accuracy, explained the human costs of the Republican plans for the record, to do what they did is much harder than it looks;

the progressive advocacy community, which came together and relentlessly pressed the issue;

the health insurance lobby (yep ), whose members clearly pointed out the extent to which the latest Republican plan would destabilize markets;

the doctors, via the American Medical Association, who were a consistent and authoritative voice against the damage the various GOP plans would do to people;

Im sure Im leaving out some important groups, people. Please add in comments.

Im a pretty hard-boiled old-timer whos seen more than his share of D.C. cray-cray, but the process by which Senate Republicans were trying to change the way we deal with 18 percent of our economy, and a part thats existentially important to people, was unlike anything ANYTHING Ive ever seen. At one point, they basically wrote a health-care overhaul bill over lunch.

So, yeah, its a great day, and for now, the system worked. But just barely by one vote. Its crucial not to lose sight of how unrepresentative the process has been, how a major party is working against the will of the majority, and how its doing so in a way that is utterly irrational, with no deliberation, no factual input (Quick, lets get this to the floor before the CBO can score it!), false claims (Obamacares imploding!) and no transparency.

Yes, most 10 year olds run their lemonade stands better than that, but the larger point is that this isnt democracy. Im breathing a lot easier for now, and just maybe this in tandem with what partisans from all sides agree is peak chaos at the White House is a sign of the fever breaking a bit. But weve a lot more work to do to get back to where we need to be.

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This moment in health care and democracy - Washington Post

CARACAS, Venezuela Government opponents are begging Venezuelans to sit out a vote on Sunday forwhat they see as a puppet congress and the last step toward dictatorship in this South American country. But Jos, a Caracas bus driver, said he and other public transit employees were given an ultimatum by their bosses.

Turn out and vote for the new congress, in an election in which nearly every candidate is a supporter of President Nicols Maduro.

Or else.

Theyre obliging us to vote, said the young father of two, who declined to give his last name, fearing repercussions.If not, theyll fire us, and what are we going to do without a job?

Venezuela is not yet the kind of dictatorship that once proliferated in Latin America with rulers who disappeared opponents, banned books and movies, and ran mass torture centers.Government pressure and violence against journalists have drastically curbed the press, but digital media outlets thrive. Hundreds of political prisoners are in jail, according to human rights groups, but opposition leaders continue to forcefully speak out. This month, the government allowed one major critic Leopoldo Lpez, the former mayor of Caracas to exchange his jail cell for house arrest.

Yet on Sunday, critics say, an authoritarian system long in the making will be formalized, reviving memories of an era that the region had hoped was over. In defiance of international warnings, the socialist government is pushing forward with a vote to elect a constituent assembly that will have the authority to change the 1999 constitution, supplant the opposition-controlled legislature and potentially keep Maduro in power indefinitely.

The opposition on Thursday called for three days of massive, nationwide protests as the government showed no willingness to back down and following the slaying of seven more demonstrators in two days. Responding to the spiraling tensions, the U.S. State Department ordered the departure of family members of American staff at its embassy in Caracas. It also authorized voluntary departures for American staff, and issued a broad travel warning for U.S. citizens.

Maduro the anointed successor of firebrand leader Hugo Chvez, who died in 2013 strongly defends the new assembly, saying it will fortify what he hails as the communal state. While its unclear exactly what he is seeking in a new constitution, it would likely give more power to communal councils in poor neighborhoods. Leaders of those councils, critics say, are government loyalists who in practice would sideline elected politicians and win direct pipelines to government funds.

On the surface, the assembly vote, along with the governments pseudo-Soviet speak, hark back to old-school Marxist regimes. But many here see something perhaps more sinister emerging a 21st-century thugocracy that rules by coercion, extortion and violence.

About 100 people have died in three months of anti-government street protests. Arrests of political activists have accelerated. Bands of pro-government toughs known as colectivos roam poor neighborhoods, waving guns, intimidating protesters and journalists, beating opposition politicians, and warning locals to toe the government line.

[How a new kind of protest movement has arisen in Venezuela]

More than 7 million people voted against the establishment of the new assembly in an informal referendum July 16. Opposition parties are boycotting the election.

In a country where the government is the largest employer, state workers say they are being ordered to vote Sunday, at the risk of losing their jobs. HIV patients say officials have threatened to cut off their supplies of antiretroviral drugs if they do not turn out for the election. Families risk being scratched off government food distribution rosters for not showing up a dire outcome in a country where a socialist experiment and economic mismanagement have sparked hyperinflation and food shortages.

Such threats are not idle, either. Yanelis Banco, 36 years old and nearly nine months pregnant, said her boss at thegovernment postal service called her in along with other department heads for a talk last week. He ordered them, she said, to sign a form pledging to vote Sunday.

She and five other senior staffers refused. All of them lost their jobs, she said.

Im a pregnant woman who has been working in the company for 10 years and four months, so I didnt think theyd fire me, she said. Why do I have to sign if I dont agree? I thought the law protected me!

She added: All the other employees are terrified. Now theyre sure that if they dont vote, theyll be fired. None of them can afford that.

[Stuck in a death spiral, Venezuela is borrowing money at any cost]

Maduro has acknowledged that the government is pressuring public employees to vote. At a rally with public energy workers this month, he said: Take the lists of workers from all the state institutions and businesses to create a constituent committee. For each business, call all the workers and organize how theyll vote on July 30th. At the end of the day, check the list. If there are 15,000 workers, there have to be 15,000 votes, with no excuses.

Venezuelas political protests have been fueled by the disastrous state of the economy, growing authoritarian rule and the governments resistance to early elections. The countrys electoral council ruled against the opposition when it soughta referendum in 2016 that could have cut short Maduros six-year term. The council also pushed back elections for governors, scheduled for 2016, to December of this year. Critics fear that the new assembly will cancel those, as well as the presidential election in 2018.

The U.S. Treasury Department in February froze Vice President Tareck El Aissamis American assets over his alleged involvement in narcotics trafficking and took similar action against eight justices of the pro-government supreme court after it tried to strip power from the opposition-led legislature. On Wednesday, the Trump administration targeted 13 more Venezuelan officials, alleging violations of human rights and corruption.

[Trump administration hits 13 Venezuelans with sanctions in advance of vote]

Once the richest country per capita in South America due toits vast oil reserves, Venezuela was also cursed with vast disparities that kept an elite in luxury while the poor languished in slums. The result was Chvez, who used the petroleum wealth to launch massive social programs, even as he concentrated power. He remains much beloved by millions of Venezuelans, although many others especially in the middle and upper classes loathe him.

Maduros approval rating, on the other hand, is hovering around 20 percent, with opponents calling this weekends vote the only way for him to remain in the presidentialpalace.

He has promised Venezuelans that the assembly will herald a new era of security and stability.

July 30th will be the birth of a historic trigger of the homeland for a new phase of peace and advancement, Maduro told a campaign rally this week.

Yet many Venezuelans fear just the opposite a deepening of official repression. It is already starting, they say.

Take, for instance, 51-year-old Lisbeth Aez, or Mama Lis. For years, shewas known for aiding anti-government protesters, bringing them blankets and cooking them fresh arepas, or cornmeal cakes.

In May, she was arrested and charged with treason.

Her case is in the hands of amilitary tribunal. In recent months, scores of civilians who have taken part in demonstrations or other perceived anti-government acts have been sent into the military court system, where they can face lengthy prison sentences.

I cant sleep, I cant eat, even if we had enough food, said her son, Luis Gonzlez Aez, 23, who said he was refused entry to her trial. I have nightmares, thinking about her in jail ... I didnt think things could get worse, but they have.

Gabriela Ramrez, Venezuelas former public ombudsman and a longtime Chvez supporter, said she feared the government would become worse than a dictatorship.We will have a narco-authoritarian regime, she said.

Ramrez, who carries around a pocket version of Chvezs 1999 constitution in her purse, is among the ranks of former Chavistas or Chvez backers who have turned against Maduro. She has paid for it with harassment, she said, including a recent hackin which intimate photos of her and her husband were leaked on social media.

There will no longer be any check on their power, she said. They will control everything.

Following an opposition-called 48-hour strike, the government on Thursday issued a ban on public gatherings and protests lasting from Friday through Tuesday. The opposition responded by calling for nationwide mobilization, asking citizens to take to the streets from the Caribbean Sea to the Andes Mountains.

In an interview, Freddy Guevara, an opposition leader and vice president of the National Assembly, played down the chances of any deal to suspend or cancel the vote. Former Spanish prime minister Jos Luis Rodrguez Zapatero is in Caracas, and has served as an intermediary between the government and opposition. Guevara denied reports that a deal had been offered to suspend the vote.

It is wishful thinking, he said. I am sure they are going forward with this scam, and that we are going to respond with pressure.

But even leading members of the opposition appear to be losing hope that Maduro will back down.

Scenarios for what happens next range widely. Some observers suggest that social unrest and international sanctions will worsen, prompting, perhaps, a military coup or fueling an anti-government guerrilla movement. Others say the government, likely with the aid of Russia and China, will somehow manage to hold on as the country becomes an international pariah.

Still others see a worst-case scenario of social implosion and anarchy.

Somalia, said Henrique Capriles, an opposition leader and governor of the state of Miranda.

We could become a failed state.

Mariana Zuiga contributed to this report.

Read more

Things are so bad in Venezuela that people are rationing toothpaste

Venezuelas paradox: people are hungry, but farmers cant feed them

Maduro wants to rewrite the constitution. Thats rocket fuel on the fire.

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Venezuela's vote for a constitutional assembly could destroy democracy, critics warn - Washington Post