[macintologist]

Hat tip to The Book of Xavier.

I created two charts in Keynote 2.0 showing the balance of power in the United States Congress between Republicans and Democrats from the last 60 years.



As is plainly seen in the chart, by historical standards, the current GOP majority in the Congress is miniscule. In fact there are three sessions on the chart where the Democrats had more than a 2/3rds majority in the House: 1964, 1974, and 1976. They held one seat below a 2/3rds majority in 1958.

This chart refutes the claim that because the Democrats have been losing seats as a minority party in Congress, it means they are slowly becoming irrelevant. Any intelligent person can examine the facts and see - though the Republicans were a minority party, especially in the 1960s, they managed to take power, for many reasons, one of the biggest being realignment and the Southern Strategy. The 1994 Republican Revolution was testament to their tight organization skills as a minority party, and capitalizing on public perceptions that a Democratic majority in Congress has been corrupted by longterm power.

What do the Democrats need to do to become the majority again? They need to streamline theirmessage, expose the corruption of the majority leadership, and aggressively purse the Western Strategy. Seeing at how small the Republicans were as a minority party before they took power should encourage them even further.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by macintologist:
As is plainly seen in the chart, by historical standards, the current GOP majority in the Congress is miniscule. In fact there are three sessions on the chart where the Democrats had more than a 2/3rds majority in the House: 1964, 1974, and 1976. They held one seat below a 2/3rds majority in 1958.

You are missing the point. The point is that from the New Deal to the early 1990s, the Democrats dominated Congress. They held almost uninterrupted power in 1/3 of the US government. Occasionally, the Republicans would eke out a small majority in the Senate, but those periods of majority status rarely exceeded 1 or 2 years. The House was always firmly in Democratic hands.

With that majority status came the power that comes from controlling the committees and the agenda, to shape legislation, to decide what legislation came to the floor, to hold hearings that could shape public opinion, to make or break an Administration, to confirm or deny appointments to the cabinet, ambassadorships, or judiciary (which is hugely important, because the federal judiciary is one third of the US government), to pass budgets, raise or lower taxes, shape the regulatory and taxation structure of the country, and a host of other powers. It ensured that no matter what the outcome of a presidential election, Democrats always had a key seat at the table. Their ideas were always represented, and central to the agenda of the federal government.

All that which was taken for granted for generations changed in 1994. And since 1994, it has only gotten worse for the Democrats in Washington. That's the point you are missing.

[macintologist]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
You are missing the point. The point is that from the New Deal to the early 1990s, the Democrats dominated Congress. They held almost uninterrupted power in 1/3 of the US government. Occasionally, the Republicans would eke out a small majority in the Senate, but those periods of majority status rarely exceeded 1 or 2 years. The House was always firmly in Democratic hands.

With that majority status came the power that comes from controlling the committees and the agenda, to shape legislation, to decide what legislation came to the floor, to hold hearings that could shape public opinion, to make or break an Administration, to confirm or deny appointments to the cabinet, ambassadorships, or judiciary (which is hugely important, because the federal judiciary is one third of the US government), to pass budgets, raise or lower taxes, shape the regulatory and taxation structure of the country, and a host of other powers. It ensured that no matter what the outcome of a presidential election, Democrats always had a key seat at the table. Their ideas were always represented, and central to the agenda of the federal government.

All that which was taken for granted for generations changed in 1994. And since 1994, it has only gotten worse for the Democrats in Washington. That's the point you are missing.

I think the point I am making is just because the Democrats have a relatively large minority in the House and Senate doesn't make them irrelevant. Parties come back. They have their ups and downs. The longer the GOP stays in power (and the larger they grow) the more the divisions will grow within the party, and don't forget that power corrupts. We're already seeing that with Tom DeLay & Co.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by macintologist:
I think the point I am making is just because the Democrats have a relatively large minority in the House and Senate doesn't make them irrelevant. Parties come back. They have their ups and downs. The longer the GOP stays in power (and the larger they grow) the more the divisions will grow within the party, and don't forget that power corrupts. We're already seeing that with Tom DeLay & Co.

Parties do indeed have their ups and downs, and I certainly wouldn't count the Democrats out by any means. However, it has been eleven years now since the Democrats lost control of Congress, and that flash in a pan fluke has become awfully entrenched. The numbers of Democrats in Congress has been pretty steadily declining, and structually, it is only going to get worse.

That is because the demographic trend has been away from the so-called blue states and large cities where Democrats do well, toward more rural states and suburbs where Democrats do relatively poorly. Every time there is a census, the map gets redrawn in a way that is more and more unfriendly to Democrats, and more and more friendly to Republicans.

In addition, Republicans have been doing relatively well in the state legislatures. That means when it comes time to redraw congressional districts, the Republicans are in a better position to gerrymander safe seats than the Democrats are (both parties will try to do it where they can).

The two trends combined make it increasingly unlikely that the Democrats will reverse the trend toward Congressional minority status that has been going on since the late 1970s. In fact, they would have to reverse that trend just to stand still.

Add to this the additional fact that the Democrats' seem to have run out of intellectual steam. That can be reversed, but it is hard to do without offending and losing internal constituencies with a vested interest in keeping the current Democratic positions on the issues. That is why Democrats are most effective when it comes to defending the status quo (e.g. Social Security). The problem is that just defending the status quo makes the party seem like a dinosaur that is stuck in the past. You can see this in issues from taxation, to the economy, to foreign policy (the fixation on Vietnam particularly hurts Democrats).

In addition, the internal Democratic coalitions are under some strains. The power of traditional labor organizations has been declining for decades. They only really have clout in the public sector. Identification with the labor movement reenforces the Democrat's reputation as resistant to new ideas, and being the party of cumbersome government. That makes it harder to bring in newer free trade oriented groups. The same goes for their identification with urban elites and special interests like environmentalists, public education unions, and so on. There is a stale whiff of the 1970s about all of this. There are also emerging splits between the various minority groups that make up the Democrtatic coalition. Especially between socially conservative blacks and latinos, and socially liberal gay and pro-abortion activists.

But I don't want this to make it seem like the Democrats are out for the count, because they aren't by any means. The GOP has its own problems, and its own splits. For example, between social conservatives and libertarians, Realists and Interventionists, popularists and conservatives, and so on. The GOP is also facing a huge temptation to overreach, and, human nature being what it is, they will overreach, and they will lose battles and lose supporters because of it.

But while I don't think that the Republicans can afford to ignore the Democrats, I do think the basic balance of power is fixed for the forseeable future. The Democrats are going to have to adapt to being in the minority position that the Republicans found themselves in after FDR became president in 1933. Democrats won't be able to just rely on a natural majority status any more because they have lost that status.

The point of my post above is that this is the reality, and just denying that reality isn't going to get the Democrats anywhere. They would do better to adapt to the new reality and try to make it work for them where they can.

[budster101]

Originally posted by macintologist:
I think the point I am making is just because the Democrats have a relatively large minority in the House and Senate doesn't make them irrelevant. Parties come back. They have their ups and downs. The longer the GOP stays in power (and the larger they grow) the more the divisions will grow within the party, and don't forget that power corrupts. We're already seeing that with Tom DeLay & Co.

Wait just one cotton picking second.

The democrats under the leadership of the Chair in this matter has consistently LEAKED information that looks damning to the Senator.

cough- B. Boxer -cough

It's the political game, and both sides have played it, mostly it is played by the one's that want the power and have lost it...

Some people are tossing some hefty stones around, and those stones have a tendency of coming right back at them.

[Millennium]

I think the point of these stastics is that it's too soon to tell whether the Democrats are truly becoming irrelevant or not. Certainly it should set off alarm bells, because the current situation is very different from historical trends, but it is by no means a death knell.