re: #132 ericblair

My grand unified theory of bipartisanship is somewhat different. In short, it’s to make sure that the interests the Confederate Party, the eternal cabal of white rural mostly Southern gentry, is always paramount.

The Confederate Party used to be bipartisan: almost all Southern Dems and GOP belonged to it. Therefore, you would get bipartisan support for things that benefitted the white rural Southern gentry, and everyone could congratulate themselves for their enlightened polity that transcended mere grubby politicking. The current form of the filibuster codified this.

Over time, the Dem members of the Confederate Party became GOP or disappeared, and the GOP and the Confederate Party became the same thing. Of course, the need to please the Confederate Party stayed. Therefore, nowadays, Dems still need to show bipartisanship by pleasing the GOP, like we see right now. But, the GOP doesn’t need to show bipartisanship by pleasing the Dems: nobody in the media was clutching their pearls about bipartisanship when the GOP passed a huge tax cut with zero Dem support. That’s perfectly consistent with “bipartisanship”, because in both cases the Confederate Party’s interests are the only things that matter. QE fuckin D.

I’m speaking from the perspective of the Beltway press, mostly dominated these days by Gen Xers and older Millenials who got their start in the business during the days of The Great Penis Hunt (h/t Charles Pierce) and the very real effort by America’s news media to tear down the Clintons as “illegitimate.” So many of them feel that there was this perfect period in American politics where both sides had put aside their differences and were working to the benefit of all Americans…and then the Clintons got elected and that started the downfall into partisan politics that we’re all familiar with today.