The Democrats and Congress

It's not uncommon these days--with the war still raging, and the constitution in tatters, and FISA a mess, and the climate at its breaking point--for critics to put everything at the feet of Democrats. Kevin posts an exchange he had with a friend:

A friend of mine emailed this morning to ask a question:

"So, let me get this straight: When the Democrats are the minority in the Senate, the Republicans get their way, and when the Democrats are the majority in the Senate, the Republicans get their way."

That's about the size of it.

And taken that way, it's no surprise that plenty of liberals feel as if the Democratic realignment in January 2007 changed almost nothing. Kevin probably doesn't feel this way, but many others do, and I think it's about half wrong.

Putting FISA to the side for now, the relevant criticism of the Democrats is that they haven't acted aggressively enough on the key issues of the day. They've allowed, as Kevin's correspondent suggests, for the Republicans to scuttle any attempts at real change without at the very least forcing a single serious instance of public recrimination. They've made it easy for the media to report that "Congress has failed to end the war in Iraq" instead of drawing the real situation--the Republican party's slavering for war--into the spotlight. I've written about it. So have most of my peers. It's an important reality.

The problem with it, though, is not really that "the Republicans get their way." It's that the status quo is really terrible... unless, of course, you're already a Republican congressman or powerbroker. And the Democrats just don't have the power (or haven't fully exercised the power) to undo that status quo. I imagine the Republicans are pretty happy about the fact that the war they started continues raging to this day. And I imagine they're thrilled about the rare instances in the past year when their preferred bills (think FISA) were proactively passed by the Congress.

But if Republicans "had their way", then social security privatization might well be on the floor again, more oil/gas/coal handouts would be up for discussion, minimum wage would be frozen, anti-MoveOn resolutions would be floating around every week, etc. etc. They don't have that power anymore, and so the menu of legislative offerings that ever see the light of day--even if much of it sucks--represents a vast improvement over the menu as it was this time last year. Democrats control the floor, and that's a pretty big deal.