The mistake we made was believing Obama could fulfill his promises (even if he wanted to)

[DaveofCali]

We should've known better, that the radical change that Obama as a candidate and the Democrats wanted to do was simply not possible with the way that Congress is structured. While the House of Representatives is structured to reflect public opinion, the Senate by design is supposed to circumvent popular rule, and especially with the filibuster put in, is I believe supposed to have a moderating effect, so that it is much harder to pass dramatic legislation through without making concessions, and make it very hard to pass radical legislation, thus in reality favoring a conservative worldview of change happening slowly rather than abruptly, and thus probably the greatest barrier against a progressive agenda from happening in Congress.

The mistake that we made is in believing that Obama could really get all the stuff that he promised through the congress, because Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in the House of Representatives got Obama's agenda through, the whole problem has been in the Senate, and the Senate is by design supposed to be a barrier against popular rule. Remember, the Senate was itself a compromise during the writing of the Constitution (The Senate is supposed to represent the states, in recognition of their sovereignty, not the american people in general) and is also supposed to be a check against the House of Representatives.



I guess its not our fault though for not knowing that the modern filibuster is not a real filibuster and that one only has to say that they are filibustering to filibuster and require cloture to break the filibuster. When the hell did they change that rule in the Senate, someone has to find out....