These people won’t be remembered at all. They’re chaff in the wind. Nobody outside of some bespoke politics nerds will bemoan Paul Ryan or Bill Frist or Tip O’Neal or Mike Mansfield for their successes or failures of the political moment.
In another forty years we’ll remember Trump in the same way we remember James Polk or Calvin Coolidge or Harry Truman, as an artifact of history that wins praise or scorn in cloistered corners of the ideological landscape based on the hagiographies written by modern shills and propagandists. But the middle-management Congress that facilitated/obstructed their rein? Barely a byline in the history books.
Individually they won’t be remembered at all. Collectively they will be remembered as the fascists who ruined the USA, just like we remember their counterparts in 1930s Germany as Nazis.
This is why I’m of the opinion that we should refer to everyone in the legislative branch by state. Names should only be necessary for campaigning for the primary and the general. Sure, put their name in the title bar at the bottom of the screen as they speak, but the media should just refer to all politicians by their state of origin.
hear me out
We have almost 600 people in power in the legislative branch. 100 in the senate and 435 in the house. My home state has 10 Politicians in this branch, Georgia has 16, California has 54 . Most people struggle with 10 names at a party lasting 4 hours. Good luck trying to keep track of all of them on, unless you are a political science major, a purely casual basis. We will only be able to keep track of 3 to 5 politicians that just… truly suck. A few that we really like, and the rest… let’s just be real here, do god knows what.
You can do a lot of damage being hidden and convoluted, and I don’t think it’s unfair to simplify it by grouping politicians by state. If a Georgia politician does not want to be grouped with Marjorie Taylor Greene then they need to provide ammunition to get them ousted in the next election cycle. If they don’t then they’re part of the problem. This also drags all of the state into things. If I don’t like Tom Emmer, I sigh and move on about my day. If I find Minnesota did something dumb, then I get cranky. Oh wow, this is the guy in my district, or my neighbor’s district? I had no idea. I want this guy out!
What’s more, it incentivizes cooperation and competition at a state level, and begins to break up the more monolithic federal level of the parties. Federally, it’s easier to pace the unpopular positions to be pushed by people with 4 years left in office, and hope the heat cools down three years later. If the entire state gets dragged into unpopular positions, it makes them much harder to push.
I think there are a lot of cute ideas to reframe the optics around any given megalomaniac in a Senate Seat. This is good. Making them wear their sponsors on a jacket while on the chamber floor would be another one. I’m also very partial to the Original First Amendment, which failed back in 1789, with the intent of guaranteeing one House Seat per 30,000 residents. Now a house district can be as large as 600,000.
But so much of our struggle is bound up in the privatization of mass media and the consolidation of ownership and decommissioning of so many regional offices and bureaus. The coverage of individual candidates is stacked by a handful of kleptocrats. And the airwaves are swamped with misinformation 24/7/365 as it stands, only hitting a hysterical pitch in the weeks before the election.
As it stands, I don’t think we really benefit from “The Representative From Texas” and “The Representative from California” getting generic obnoxious headlines, as the hate between people in this states is already so intense and so artificial as to make it redundant.
One the one hand I get what you are saying. On the other hand people absolutely remember Newt Gingrich and Mitch McConnell. Republicans who were counter to Democratic presidents.
I would hazard a guess that people like Henry Kissinger, Ollie North, and Arthur Laffer won’t be forgotten any time soon either.
I hope to remember Trump as someone who was murdered with love by the American people to protect their democracy from fascism, nazis, and empire expansion (and collapse) in order to show Americans and the world that they won’t stand up for this.
My guess though is that we’ll all remember Trump as a rapist and he’ll have a trauma centre named after him once’s he’s gone.
“The Trump grab em by the oussy sexual assault and healing center”
I was gonna make a list starting with McConnell Grassley and Schumer, but Nixon was a long time ago, so they don’t cover all at the same time. Point received.
Name five Congressmen from the Bush Era.
Name five Congressmen from the Reagan Era.
Name five Congressmen from the Nixon Era.
These people won’t be remembered at all. They’re chaff in the wind. Nobody outside of some bespoke politics nerds will bemoan Paul Ryan or Bill Frist or Tip O’Neal or Mike Mansfield for their successes or failures of the political moment.
In another forty years we’ll remember Trump in the same way we remember James Polk or Calvin Coolidge or Harry Truman, as an artifact of history that wins praise or scorn in cloistered corners of the ideological landscape based on the hagiographies written by modern shills and propagandists. But the middle-management Congress that facilitated/obstructed their rein? Barely a byline in the history books.
You could honestly name 5 current congressman and run a decent chance of being right… /s
Individually they won’t be remembered at all. Collectively they will be remembered as the fascists who ruined the USA, just like we remember their counterparts in 1930s Germany as Nazis.
I don’t think of Congress under Nixon when I think about Watergate. I don’t think they’ve even crossed my mind until just now, even collectively
This is why I’m of the opinion that we should refer to everyone in the legislative branch by state. Names should only be necessary for campaigning for the primary and the general. Sure, put their name in the title bar at the bottom of the screen as they speak, but the media should just refer to all politicians by their state of origin.
hear me out
We have almost 600 people in power in the legislative branch. 100 in the senate and 435 in the house. My home state has 10 Politicians in this branch, Georgia has 16, California has 54 . Most people struggle with 10 names at a party lasting 4 hours. Good luck trying to keep track of all of them on, unless you are a political science major, a purely casual basis. We will only be able to keep track of 3 to 5 politicians that just… truly suck. A few that we really like, and the rest… let’s just be real here, do god knows what.
You can do a lot of damage being hidden and convoluted, and I don’t think it’s unfair to simplify it by grouping politicians by state. If a Georgia politician does not want to be grouped with Marjorie Taylor Greene then they need to provide ammunition to get them ousted in the next election cycle. If they don’t then they’re part of the problem. This also drags all of the state into things. If I don’t like Tom Emmer, I sigh and move on about my day. If I find Minnesota did something dumb, then I get cranky. Oh wow, this is the guy in my district, or my neighbor’s district? I had no idea. I want this guy out!
What’s more, it incentivizes cooperation and competition at a state level, and begins to break up the more monolithic federal level of the parties. Federally, it’s easier to pace the unpopular positions to be pushed by people with 4 years left in office, and hope the heat cools down three years later. If the entire state gets dragged into unpopular positions, it makes them much harder to push.
I think there are a lot of cute ideas to reframe the optics around any given megalomaniac in a Senate Seat. This is good. Making them wear their sponsors on a jacket while on the chamber floor would be another one. I’m also very partial to the Original First Amendment, which failed back in 1789, with the intent of guaranteeing one House Seat per 30,000 residents. Now a house district can be as large as 600,000.
But so much of our struggle is bound up in the privatization of mass media and the consolidation of ownership and decommissioning of so many regional offices and bureaus. The coverage of individual candidates is stacked by a handful of kleptocrats. And the airwaves are swamped with misinformation 24/7/365 as it stands, only hitting a hysterical pitch in the weeks before the election.
As it stands, I don’t think we really benefit from “The Representative From Texas” and “The Representative from California” getting generic obnoxious headlines, as the hate between people in this states is already so intense and so artificial as to make it redundant.
One the one hand I get what you are saying. On the other hand people absolutely remember Newt Gingrich and Mitch McConnell. Republicans who were counter to Democratic presidents.
I would hazard a guess that people like Henry Kissinger, Ollie North, and Arthur Laffer won’t be forgotten any time soon either.
I would bet at least a whole dollar people only know Ollie North because of American Dad.
https://youtu.be/lFV1uT-ihDo?si=N7vAUfLmcUKO552X
Guilty
Some people, yes. Mostly younger. Sounds like you did. Not most people.
I hope to remember Trump as someone who was murdered with love by the American people to protect their democracy from fascism, nazis, and empire expansion (and collapse) in order to show Americans and the world that they won’t stand up for this.
My guess though is that we’ll all remember Trump as a rapist and he’ll have a trauma centre named after him once’s he’s gone.
“The Trump grab em by the oussy sexual assault and healing center”
I was gonna make a list starting with McConnell Grassley and Schumer, but Nixon was a long time ago, so they don’t cover all at the same time. Point received.