I realize I just put the words “thrilling”, “civics” and “lesson” in the same headline. I’m sure that’s going to drive a lot of traffic.

But, that’s how I see the last few years in politics.  Anyone over forty grew up in a relatively stable moment in our politics and government.   For a while there in the eighties and early nineties, so few members of the House and Senate lost re-election that a very serious effort to enact term limits for federal legislators had significant support in the country.  We just took for granted that we understood how our government worked.  And that it always would work.   But, recent events remind us just how much of a miracle it is that this thing functions at all.  And that, in some ways, government by the people is a consensual illusion that we all conspire to keep going. Until we don’t.  For example, here’s a list of a few things we thought we knew, but now we know we don’t.

The Speaker of the House is a powerful person:  We remember legendary figures like Sam Rayburn.  Will anyone ever have that much power again in this country? Tip O’Neill.  Even the forgotten ones like Carl Albert exercised great authority.  One of the many, many rewarding parts of Robert Caro’s biography of LBJ is how Caro shows Johnson’s genius for creating political power.  When Johnson became Minority Leader in 1953, the Eisenhower Administration was having difficulty moving its program through a Republican congress.  Johnson, seeing his opportunity,  put together coalitions of Republicans and Democrats that enabled the Eisenhower measures to advance through congress.  He was both daring and subtle, and he moved the ball.  And created political power in a minority leader’s job where it hadn’t existed before.

Imagine if John Boehner had done something similar?  If, realizing that he had no chance to manage the more radical elements of the House GOP, he had forged a working majority with “moderate” House Republicans and Democrats?  It might have cost him his Speakership, but would that have been any worse than his shuffling off to retirement, having accomplished nothing?

The president appoints supreme court justices.  There is of course, no actual definition of what “advise and consent” means.  It’s just always been assumed that the congress will review and approve a nominee unless they have some unique disqualification.  The Garland situation is well discussed.

But, consider this.  If and when Hillary defeats Trump, and assuming the GOP keeps the Senate, what’s to stop McConnell and Grassely from just refusing to consider her nominee to replace Scalia?  What if they just refuse?   What’s she going to do?  Sue them? How many Republican senators would actually lose their seat two years later by refusing to replace Scalia with a liberal justice?  How many Republican senators would face a primary challenge if they allowed a liberal justice to replace Scalia?   Likely, Hillary would just make the appointment, note that the senate has declined to advise or consent, and then have the newly appointed justice show up for work one fine Monday morning.  And, what would John Roberts do in that case?  Start the normal orientation process?  Or ask the security guards to escort Mr. Garland to the parking lot?

I vote for someone and, you know, I kinda thought that I voted for them:  As Mr. Jones noted, we are all learning about the 50 different arcane systems we have for choosing presidential nominees.  As I noted in a comment on Mr. Jones’s post, when I worked for Gary Hart in 1984 in Pennsylvania, I learned that, while PA voters do vote for candidates, those votes are non-binding.  Voters need to vote for individual delegates whose names appear on the ballot under the presidential candidates.  It was an insanely difficult thing to explain to voters when you usually have about 8 seconds of their time to ask them to vote for your candidate.