a quick memory of harry reid
Jan. 3rd, 2022 08:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdGonna talk about Harry Reid for about half a second, maybe as part of an essay that's bubbling in my head about bad faith and the Republican Party, but also in the Democratic Party, because holy hell was Harry Reid good at bad faith.
What got me thinking about it was electoral-college shenanigans and thinking about the 2000 election - or rather, having it come to mind, because before that election, the Republicans thought there was a very real chance that they would win the popular vote and lose the electoral, and they were getting ready for that outcome.
They had a lot of plans and strategies, one of which involved trying to get electors to change their votes, complete with a second campaign that would feature sock puppet groups like the one they'd tentatively named "Democrats for Democracy."
A lot of people don't remember that shit, but I do.
But it went the other way, of course, and they immediately flipped on every level over to the sacredness of the electoral college and all that bullshit they do not and have never believed. It's something I think about.
And when Harry Reid died recently, all that made me think of him, but not in the good-memorial way, in the "oh, that fucking bastard" way.
When they say Harry Reid was a master of Senate procedure, what they mean is that he was a master of absolutely shitcanning bills rank-and-file Democrats wanted, sometimes overwhelmingly.
And most of all, he'd arrange it so the bills would actually come up for a Senate vote, but only when they were doomed - so he could vote for them along with the overwhelming majority of Democrats and say hey, I did my best.
One of his favourite tricks was to assign bills to multiple committees at the same time, so you'd get two different versions coming out of the committee process. If he wanted it to go down, he'd pick the one with the poison pill in it. If he wanted it to go up, but gutted or otherwise rigged to his blue dog democrat desires, he'd pick the one which would, in his prerogative as Senate majority leader.
He sank a lot of bills Democrats - particularly net activist Democrats, information freedom Democrats, anti-corporatist Democrats, and queer Democrats - really wanted, using the Republican Party to do it.
He was good at this, and he did it a lot, and he was subtle. Compared to Mitch McConnell's sneering pleasure at ending democracy, he was a master at corporatist horseshit. And seeing all those people sing odes to him last week was... kinda hard.
Because while he wasn't as big a horsefucker as Mitch McConnell, he was still one nasty son of a bitch.
He was just better - a lot better - at obscuring it.
What got me thinking about it was electoral-college shenanigans and thinking about the 2000 election - or rather, having it come to mind, because before that election, the Republicans thought there was a very real chance that they would win the popular vote and lose the electoral, and they were getting ready for that outcome.
They had a lot of plans and strategies, one of which involved trying to get electors to change their votes, complete with a second campaign that would feature sock puppet groups like the one they'd tentatively named "Democrats for Democracy."
A lot of people don't remember that shit, but I do.
But it went the other way, of course, and they immediately flipped on every level over to the sacredness of the electoral college and all that bullshit they do not and have never believed. It's something I think about.
And when Harry Reid died recently, all that made me think of him, but not in the good-memorial way, in the "oh, that fucking bastard" way.
When they say Harry Reid was a master of Senate procedure, what they mean is that he was a master of absolutely shitcanning bills rank-and-file Democrats wanted, sometimes overwhelmingly.
And most of all, he'd arrange it so the bills would actually come up for a Senate vote, but only when they were doomed - so he could vote for them along with the overwhelming majority of Democrats and say hey, I did my best.
One of his favourite tricks was to assign bills to multiple committees at the same time, so you'd get two different versions coming out of the committee process. If he wanted it to go down, he'd pick the one with the poison pill in it. If he wanted it to go up, but gutted or otherwise rigged to his blue dog democrat desires, he'd pick the one which would, in his prerogative as Senate majority leader.
He sank a lot of bills Democrats - particularly net activist Democrats, information freedom Democrats, anti-corporatist Democrats, and queer Democrats - really wanted, using the Republican Party to do it.
He was good at this, and he did it a lot, and he was subtle. Compared to Mitch McConnell's sneering pleasure at ending democracy, he was a master at corporatist horseshit. And seeing all those people sing odes to him last week was... kinda hard.
Because while he wasn't as big a horsefucker as Mitch McConnell, he was still one nasty son of a bitch.
He was just better - a lot better - at obscuring it.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-04 06:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-04 06:41 pm (UTC)