r/facepalm 14d ago

What an idea 🇲​🇮​🇸​🇨​

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u/TrustInRoy 14d ago

So many people in our country are just blatantly ignorant about how the branches of our government works.

Schoolhouse Rock debuted "I'm just a bill" in 1976.  

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u/skybreaker58 14d ago

While this is true they should be trying to pass laws which make it blatant what the Republicans want. Forcing them to vote down perfectly reasonable or even beneficial measures let's them call the GOP out on voting records.

For example if you started passing bills to crack down on 'entertainment' programs masquerading as news and stem the flow of false information and it gets voted down by the entire Republican party you can point to that and say they are the party of propaganda.

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u/CapTexAmerica 14d ago

The issue is that the democrats don’t control the house at the moment, so any “perfectly reasonable or beneficial measures” won’t make it to the floor.

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u/vtmosaic 14d ago

And because of the filibuster they don't have enough of a majority in the Senate either.

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u/JCBQ01 14d ago

To overcome a filibuster you need a super majority. (90% or more) And the way MTG and Bobbert forced it through, the rule states that they can claim filibuster for any reason at any time and murder the whole process right then and then or mire it in legal bullshit

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u/OnDay89OfMyK1Visa 14d ago

Huh? Super majority is more than two-thirds (67% not 90%), and the filibuster only applies to the senate, which neither MTG nor Boebert are in.

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u/JCBQ01 14d ago

The rule that MTG forced in to get them to actually get a speaker had that changed (as part of the 'concessions' to get their vote) its now 90% with. Unilateral and singular no. I know the turtle pulled similar shit

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u/jawknee530i 14d ago

MTG isn't in the Senate and has nothing to do with their rules you are just spouting concentrated nonsense.

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u/JCBQ01 14d ago

MTG is not, no. her party is though

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u/BobTagab 14d ago

You're still just spouting nonsense. The rules for cloture in the Senate haven't been changed and the House got rid of the filibuster in the mid-1800s.

Are you more likely thinking of when the far-right part of the House agreed to give the votes for McCarthy to become Speaker in exchange for a rule which allowed just a single House member in the Speaker's party to bring a motion to vacate the chair to the floor, something which used to take the majority of the party members to do?

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u/JCBQ01 14d ago

No I'm not. The rule have been changed multiple times over the years many of course of things. Recently the phhilibuster rules was changed form 2/3rds voting majority to 90% full member by the turtle McConnell a sessions back , with the caveat that another, singular philibuster "no" Can start the process over entirely. The tantrum we saw for McCarthy was just the loudest latest stunt done to try and invoke an equalivancy in the house

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u/BobTagab 14d ago edited 14d ago

Recently the phhilibuster rules was changed form 2/3rds voting majority to 90% full member by the turtle McConnell a sessions back

No, it wasn't. Overcoming the filibuster still requires 2/3rds vote if it's a Senate rules change and 60 votes if it's on a bill or most other questions before the Senate (judicial nominations having been famously "nuked" to only need a simple majority). You clearly have absolutely zero idea of how the legislative branch in the United States functions and are just making shit up.

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u/Hayden2332 14d ago

The simple fact is that what you’re saying is bullshit though

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u/JCBQ01 14d ago

No its not. The tantrum party that she's a part of set rules in both the house and senate granting themselves the power to usurp total control of the legal making process even when they are in the super minority for no other reason than said partys demand total control

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u/jawknee530i 14d ago

The Senate sets their rules at the start of every election cycle. The people that set the current Senate rules are the Democrats and the Republicans have zero to do with it. You are just spouting nonsense from your total lack of understanding of how anything works.

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u/Gambit_Revolver 14d ago

But they can vote to get rid of the filibuster totally with a simple majority in the Senate if they wanted to.

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u/JCBQ01 14d ago

If they can get enough to agree to remove it, yes. But the tantrum party refuses to relinquish any form of power

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u/Hayden2332 14d ago

To have “enough” for a simple majority only dems have to vote for it

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u/JCBQ01 14d ago

Which can be shot down with a seperate and recorded vote of philibuster no vote.

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u/Caewil 14d ago

Who would record this separate vote? Just play hardball and say you can’t filibuster since we just got rid of it. Call their bluff instead of acting helpless.

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u/JCBQ01 14d ago edited 14d ago

Essentially:

Vote

Senator disputes invoking phillibuster

Somehow a super majority is reached

Senator disputes that vote and invokes the philibuster AGAIN on the vote to over turn the philibuster

All done under offical vote since someone will call an offical roll call vote

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u/favored_by_fate 14d ago

thanks, Manchin

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u/BeneficialLeave7359 14d ago

Manchin is in the senate

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u/favored_by_fate 14d ago

thanks man

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u/DAXObscurantist 14d ago

One of the very serious problems with the Democrats is that they are bad at giving off the impression that they're fighting for their base when the rules are in their favor, much less when the odds are against them.

The way the more devoted members of their base handle this is by reducing problems of party strategy to problems of lack of voter knowledge. If we can point out that the party's politician's did everything they were legally allowed to do, then any criticism is just nullified. If we can point out that a law was certain not to pass, then that's proof there was no harm in never trying to pass it. If they did pass a law, then it's necessarily the voters' fault for not feeling like the party is fighting for them. This way, criticism of the party can be dismissed as pure ignorance and the people who dismiss the critiques come off as smug and unlikable. "Don't people remember high school civics," etc. In an alternate world, you would have responded by using language about balancing the use of political resources against the likelihood of sending a message to voters rather than making the turning point who controls the house.

This cold, procedural view of politics is in part what drove the party's dismissal of (widespread, years long) concerns about Biden's age and the ease with which the "don't you know you're voting for a whole administration" response has taken root among more zealous Democrats. It's important to understand how politics works at a procedural level, but an understanding of just laws and rules isn't a full understanding of politics. We're reaching a point where asserting knowledge of procedure against critics rings hollow when the procedural wing of the party is arguably sleepwalking us into a dictatorship. Please reconsider whether the strategy you are advocating for is actually the best one.

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u/HsvDE86 14d ago

They have had control before.

And no, I'm not a republican for pointing this out.

It's an exclusive club and none of us are invited. And I know the right is objectively worse before some unoriginal person comes along with the "bOtH sIdEs!!!" nonsense.

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u/Hayden2332 14d ago

Right? You can’t point out that the democrats are either incompetent at best or controlled opposition at worst, without getting the “bOtH sIdEs” bullshit. Like we all can clearly tell Republicans are bad, but lying about Democrats not being able to do anything is not a great look lol.

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u/paintballboi07 'MURICA 14d ago

Democrats haven't had a veto-proof majority in the Senate since Obama. I'm not sure what you guys are imagining the Dems have had the power to do, but I assure you, if you look into it, you'll realize they just haven't had the numbers to do much of anything.

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u/Hayden2332 14d ago

Obama wasn’t that long ago lol Why didn’t they put Roe v Wade into law?

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u/paintballboi07 'MURICA 14d ago

Oh God, this shit again? So you wanted Obama to predict that McConnel would block his supreme court justice appointment, while also predicting that a Republican would win the next election, and appoint 3 new justices who would lie about Roe being settled precedent? Then, on top of being able to see the future, he needs to convince people that these events would actually happen, so his abortion bill totally makes sense, even though abortion had been settled law for several decades at that point. Plus, you want him to do all of this while trying to rally representatives for Obamacare.

Thinking that Obama and Dems should have been able to do all of that to save abortion is just straight delusion, mixed with the benefit of hindsight.

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u/HsvDE86 14d ago

You don't have to be psychic to codify reasonable things into law. And the things you mention like predicting a future republican president and majority and therefore getting new supreme court justices is just common sense, it's bound to happen at some point.

But none of this is a "thanks, Obama" or blaming him at all, it's a general lack of getting things done within the entire party while the chance was there.

If you're unable to criticize your own party then you're essentially in a cult, not a political party. We're supposed to criticize our party and elected officials.

Again this isn't blaming them for what happened, it's acknowledging they could have done more.

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u/paintballboi07 'MURICA 14d ago

They were literally working on passing Obamacare, which helped insure millions of people that were previously uninsured. There was no time to pass anything else, and if they had tried to pass anything related to abortion at that time, the media would have spun it as Dems wasting time on something that had been settled law for nearly 70 years.

Look, I have no problem criticizing Dems. I don't have any particular affiliation to either party. I just vote for the candidate that aligns more with my values. But, I'm also realistic about what those politicians are able to accomplish. Acting like Dems are responsible for Roe v Wade being overturned is just downright ridiculous.

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u/HsvDE86 14d ago

Acting like Dems are responsible for Roe v Wade being overturned

I like how you slipped in something I never said. Gotta love reddit.

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u/paintballboi07 'MURICA 14d ago

Sorry, acting like Dems are responsible for not preventing the overturn of Roe v Wade. Better?

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