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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • Your Founders barely bothered to outline what the Supreme Court is and what it can do. It was in 1789 that Congress actually determined the details of that and most of the powers of the Supreme Court were determined during John Marshall’s tenure as Chief Justice.

    Actually, this illustrates my point entirely. Article III (which describes the Judiciary) explicitly defines a single Supreme Court but leaves the structure of the rest of the Judiciary to the Congress. So this interplay between Congress and the Court is exactly what they were looking for. The Courts have wide latitude to judge cases, but it has to be within the structure that Congress creates.

    They didn’t get into specifics, on purpose, because they felt that in a well-functioning government, ambitious people would keep each other in check.


  • But it is still a fact that the 2 party system is not engrained in our founding documents anywhere, and we have no idea of an “opposition” party. Either one party controls the Presidency and Congress at the same time, or it doesn’t.

    And although those 2 parties did emerge early in the country’s history, they eventually dissolved, and are no longer around in any capacity. Another poster here noted that parties are simply human nature.

    Rather, the current two-party system is an artifact of the first-past-the-post voting that states adopted. The Constitution doesn’t even mandate it, but it is how most states have run their elections since the founding.





  • There are several reasons why the US has no concept of a formal opposition. One reason is that there is no concept of ever needing to “form a government” in the parliamentary sense. Each elected branch is a separate entity, with its own electoral rules. Particularly in the legislative branch, the majority can do whatever they want (except for the complicated filibuster rules in the Senate.) And the Executive is an entirely separate election. The government is structured directly by the election, and we gave all the levers of government to Republicans last time around. Sometimes the election will result in handing majorities to different parties, and only then will the oppositionhave any real power.

    Another reason is that, believe it or not, we have no formal concept of parties in our founding documents. The founders disdained European-style parties, and did not want to replicate them here. They envisioned a country where individuals ran for office, and then all came to Congress representing their individual districts. They did not forsee how easy communication would get in the future, making the local District perspective less important.(also recall that at the founding, both the Senate and Presidential Electors were appointed by State legislatures, so really all elections were local).

    And of course, by instituting first-past-the-post elections in these districts, they guaranteed that as communications got easier and national campaigns could emerge, elections would eventually coalesce unto one of two options anyway. The founders’ disdain for parties led directly to an even worse two-party system.





  • “Peak X” is a phrase that is often used to convey the highest point in a long term trend. And if we are past that peak, that implies that the trend will continue to be lower and lower for the foreseeable future.

    Consider the nation’s supply of 18 year olds that would normally enter college. We can’t just create more 18 year olds on demand, couples would had to have gotten busy 19-ish years ago to produce today’s supply of 18 year olds. With birth rates declining, not only are there fewer 18 year olds now than before, but those 18 year olds will be able to make fewer humans for the future when they all get busy with each other later.







  • No, I disagree here.

    Trump wants his name in the headlines, and also wants to make deals he can “win” (whatever that means). There is always room to negotiate whenever Trump is in charge. You should expect him to break any “deal” immediately, though, so you should not make any deals that do not have an immediate payoff.

    The Project 2025 folks, on the other hand, want to make government so small it can drown it in the bathtub. They would shut down the (non-military) government permanently if given the chance.

    Ultimately, I think this is why Democrats are picking this fight now. They think they see a window where they can make the two factions fight. I am not sure it will work, but it looks better than doing nothing.