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The quest for bipartisanship scuttled the (stated) goals of the Obama administration. In 2009 Thomas Frank said “never has Beltway orthodoxy looked as clueless and futile as it does today.” Oh if he only knew what fresh horrors the future would bring. But in 2009 Sinema was still a state representative and had yet to bring her unique brand of centrist theatrics to the national stage.
So while the quest for bipartisanship has often led to the loss of opportunity to do good and improve people’s lives (are you listening Joe Biden, Kamala Harris et al?) there is an unexplored flip side, often unappreciated, how absolutely awfully we the people get screwed when the two parties actually find common ground.
In 1999 Congress in a wonderfully bipartisan fashion repealed the Glass-Steagall act which prevented savings banks from rolling the dice in the Stock Market. It was passed after the Great Depression to prevent a second one. After it was repealed, there was in fact a second great economic crash a mere 8 years later. This is the equivalent of tearing down a dam and looking around and saying “who could have predicted that would lead to floods wiping out the town?”
Now that I hope, dear reader, you realize the scope of the awfulness of that legislation in 1999, how bipartisan was it? Off the scale. It passed the Senate with a vote of 90–8 and the House with…
