John Boehner wants to sue Obama for "Not doing his job"

[Crossroads Inc.]

News from The Wire

House Speaker John Boehner says that he plans on suing President Obama for eroding "the power of the legislative branch" through his use of executive actions.

Republicans have decried the president's so-called "overreaching" for months, but Boehner is finally putting (taxpayer) money where his mouth is. The fact that the president has issued fewer orders than several of his predecessors — including Ronald Reagan — seems irrelevant.

Boehner denied that he was trying to rile up the Republican base ahead of the midterm elections, but instead said Wednesday that "the constitution makes it clear that the president’s job is to faithfully execute the laws and in my view the President has not faithfully executed the laws."

According to CNN, the lawsuit likely won't be filed until next month, after the top three GOP leaders meet with the top two Democrats who make up the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group.

Despite Boehner's denials, Republicans have been pushing party leadership to respond to the president's uptick in orders. During his State of the Union speech in January, Obama said he was no longer going to wait on Congress and would instead use his "pen" to sign more executive orders. Since then he's signed orders on several issues stalled in Congress, including raising the minimum wage for federal contractors and banning LGBT workplace discrimination.

That birthed the Obama lawlessness meme, or the idea that King Obama I was trying to govern without Congress by failing to enforce existing laws (particularly concerning immigration). The problem with that idea is that Obama is a pretty bad dictator. As the chart below shows, Obama's on track to issue fewer orders per term than Presidents Clinton, Bush Jr., Bush Sr.



If you want to talk about dictators, check out the executive orders on FDR. Unfortunately, Boehner will have to settle for a president who's done less to erode the power of the legislature than any leader in decades. And while it could work out well for Republicans, Boehner may end up spend millions of taxpayer dollars — like the $2.3 million the GOP spent on its Defense of Marriage Act lawsuit — only to lose.

So.. Yeah... THATS happening...

[Sidewinder]

The Republican Party needs to conduct a purge. Ideally, the sane people would expel John Boehner & Co. from the party, but we can still claim victory if the reverse happens. [sarcasm]Without sane people to restrain the insane, the Republican party membership will be radicalized until it inevitably endorses acts of domestic terrorism, like an Oklahoma City bombing redux. Then the party will be declared a criminal organization, with law enforcement agencies breathing down the neck of each and every surviving Republican.[/sarcasm]

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Words cannot express my loathing for this dysfunctional, borderline-useless body of government.

I don't want to derail this too much with political navel-gazing, but is there anything that can even realistically be done at this point to "fix" Congress? I was thinking over this bit of news while stuck in traffic on the drive home today, and this little stunt seems to have been the straw that broke the camel's back, for me: I have absolutely, utterly zero faith or confidence in the ability of Congress to execute its mandated duty anymore. I mean, I was getting pretty cynical before, but I think there was always some little hopeful inner child in me that squeaked, "It's bad, but it'll get better! This government has functioned for over 200 years! Things will be ok!"

Can I charge Speaker Boner with murder?

[Mr Bean]

The worst part about this is there exists a mechanism for the Speaker of the House to punish the president... It's call impeachment and Boehner does not have the balls to do it. His little lawsuit should be thrown out of Court Day one with the Judge reading aloud a copy of the US constitution referring him to the relevant article to deal with this little issue.

[Highlord Laan]

Words cannot express my loathing for this dysfunctional, borderline-useless body of government.

I don't want to derail this too much with political navel-gazing, but is there anything that can even realistically be done at this point to "fix" Congress? I was thinking over this bit of news while stuck in traffic on the drive home today, and this little stunt seems to have been the straw that broke the camel's back, for me: I have absolutely, utterly zero faith or confidence in the ability of Congress to execute its mandated duty anymore. I mean, I was getting pretty cynical before, but I think there was always some little hopeful inner child in me that squeaked, "It's bad, but it'll get better! This government has functioned for over 200 years! Things will be ok!"

Can I charge Speaker Boner with murder?

Nope. It's polarized to hell and gone, and the worthless fucking retards will neither die nor step aside any time soon. Their populaces' are either bought and paid for, or gerrymandered so much that any opposing candidates have little to no chance of getting the seat, so it's not like election would do anything. And even if they did, the corporations and brokers that own the system won't let anyone not beholden to their cash donations pass go.

[Maraxus]

Words cannot express my loathing for this dysfunctional, borderline-useless body of government.

I don't want to derail this too much with political navel-gazing, but is there anything that can even realistically be done at this point to "fix" Congress? I was thinking over this bit of news while stuck in traffic on the drive home today, and this little stunt seems to have been the straw that broke the camel's back, for me: I have absolutely, utterly zero faith or confidence in the ability of Congress to execute its mandated duty anymore. I mean, I was getting pretty cynical before, but I think there was always some little hopeful inner child in me that squeaked, "It's bad, but it'll get better! This government has functioned for over 200 years! Things will be ok!"

Can I charge Speaker Boner with murder?

Sure. Kill the fillibuster and take back the House. Divided government is pretty much always ineffective, particularly given how ideologically polarized the parties are now. It's still totally possible for the Dems to take back the House, although obviously not this year. Best case scenario would be that the Dems hold onto a bunch of swing-state legislatures out in the Midwest following 2020 and can redistrict the bejesus out of the Republicans.

Sad thing is that Boehner is probably the sanest guy we could have in charge of the House right now. He's obviously a very conservative dude but he's also first and foremost a practical politician. He clawed his way back to power after getting fired from leadership in 1998 and has pretty much always been wary of the knuckleheads getting ahold of the party. He was more than happy to tap into the Tea Party nonsense in 2009 and 2010, just like all sane Republicans. The folks who have buggered the House beyond all reason aren't the Boehnerite conservatives, although they obviously don't help a great deal.

TBH this is probably just a fundraising scam, just like the Select Committee on #Benghazi. this'll just be something they can put onto mailers when they convince gullible people that donating money to the NRCC is a sound investment.

The worst part about this is there exists a mechanism for the Speaker of the House to punish the president... It's call impeachment and Boehner does not have the balls to do it. His little lawsuit should be thrown out of Court Day one with the Judge reading aloud a copy of the US constitution referring him to the relevant article to deal with this little issue.

Whether he has the balls to do it or not is irrelevant. Worst case scenario, like if the sky fucking falls and Democrats lose everywhere by 8%, the Republicans will have 56 seats in the House. They'll need 67 votes to remove Obama from office, and he's not going to resign over some pissant scandal like #benghazi or the IRS or any of this hokey crap.

Nope. It's polarized to hell and gone, and the worthless fucking retards will neither die nor step aside any time soon. Their populaces' are either bought and paid for, or gerrymandered so much that any opposing candidates have little to no chance of getting the seat, so it's not like election would do anything. And even if they did, the corporations and brokers that own the system won't let anyone not beholden to their cash donations pass go.

Stop, seriously. I know it's easy to be vaguely angry at stuff you don't really understand, but you should resist that urge. The Democrats passed an awful lot of progressive legislation when they were in charge between 2006 and 2010, and they can start doing it again if they retake the House. Killing the fillibuster would have made a lot of the stuff that did fail a reality, and boy is it likely to die once the GOP retakes the Senate.

Or, you know, you could continue to grouse about stuff online and think that it's all fixed and nothing can ever be OK again. I'm sure that'll get plenty of good people elected.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Sure. Kill the fillibuster and take back the House. Divided government is pretty much always ineffective, particularly given how ideologically polarized the parties are now. It's still totally possible for the Dems to take back the House, although obviously not this year. Best case scenario would be that the Dems hold onto a bunch of swing-state legislatures out in the Midwest following 2020 and can redistrict the bejesus out of the Republicans.

That's not a fix, though, that's popping an aspirin and declaring yourself cured because the pain disappeared. And citing more gerrymandering as the "best case scenario" is pretty goddamn bleak. That's just digging this hole even further, and I don't subscribe to the notion that things are looking up just because it's a less-objectionable party doing the digging.

Getting rid of fillibusters (and similar abuses of functional protocol) would at least be a step in the right direction, but I'm not convinced it would have very much of the needed impact. I really do hate to say it, but I don't think our legislative system has the ability to function as a 21st century governing body - I mean, my god, these assholes can't even keep the country from defaulting on its ludicrous debt. The Constitution allows for governmental reform in order to adapt to a changing society, but I'm not sure how you'd even realistically follow any kind of serious Congressional reform in the current political climate.

[Maraxus]

Sure. Kill the fillibuster and take back the House. Divided government is pretty much always ineffective, particularly given how ideologically polarized the parties are now. It's still totally possible for the Dems to take back the House, although obviously not this year. Best case scenario would be that the Dems hold onto a bunch of swing-state legislatures out in the Midwest following 2020 and can redistrict the bejesus out of the Republicans.

That's not a fix, though, that's popping an aspirin and declaring yourself cured because the pain disappeared. And citing more gerrymandering as the "best case scenario" is pretty goddamn bleak. That's just digging this hole even further, and I don't subscribe to the notion that things are looking up just because it's a less-objectionable party doing the digging.

Getting rid of fillibusters (and similar abuses of functional protocol) would at least be a step in the right direction, but I'm not convinced it would have very much of the needed impact. I really do hate to say it, but I don't think our legislative system has the ability to function as a 21st century governing body - I mean, my god, these assholes can't even keep the country from defaulting on its ludicrous debt. The Constitution allows for governmental reform in order to adapt to a changing society, but I'm not sure how you'd even realistically follow any kind of serious Congressional reform in the current political climate.

It's as good a fix as we're likely to get. Don't get me wrong, we could go down the progressive wishlist and name everything that would make Congress more effective. We could talk about publicly funded campaigns, significant campaign spending limitations, increased size of the house, greater emphasis on communities of interest, an improved Voting Rights Act, same-day voter registration, weekend voter registration, and on and on. But let's be real. None of that is going to happen, or if it does it'll be a very long time before it becomes effective. Taking back the House is a plausible course of action. As far as gerrymandering the GOP into oblivion, why wouldn't you do it? The GOP would gerrymander the shit out of every state if they could, and I see no particularly good reason why a Democratic state like California should give up its influence by not allowing gerrymandering while Texas is allowed to do whatever the hell it wants. Besides, there are some fairly strong reasons behind some gerrymandering, and they get ignored in the name of this nonpartisan naivete.

As I see it, the federal government suffers from two big problems. First, the presidency isn't allowed to exercise leadership over Congress without undue obstacles. The fact that we keep letting the GOP have a say over governmental affairs when they pretty definitively lost the 2008 and 2012 elections is silly. Killing the fillibuster would help fix this, although we still have a problem with an obstructionist minority. This isn't unsolvable, though. The second big problem is that one party has a rump caucus that has absolutely no respect for institutional norms. Boehner didn't want to drive the US into insolvency; 80 or so members of his caucus did. Kicking the GOP out of power is the first and most obviously realizable step to getting Congress back on firm footing. I see no need for such pessimism.

Whatever you want to say about the Democrats, and there's an awful lot you can say about them, it's pretty clear to me that they're the infinitely preferable of the two options. The party as a whole may be timorous and spineless, but there are quite a few good people in it that I'd like to see in power.

[Simon_Jester]

That's not a fix, though, that's popping an aspirin and declaring yourself cured because the pain disappeared. And citing more gerrymandering as the "best case scenario" is pretty goddamn bleak. That's just digging this hole even further, and I don't subscribe to the notion that things are looking up just because it's a less-objectionable party doing the digging.

Sometimes, popping an aspirin, declaring your aches and pains over with, and getting on with your life is the smartest, most mature thing you can do. It's a lot less disruptive than panicking, calling a doctor, and scheduling a mountain of medical tests because you think you MUST have OHMIGOD TERRIBLE ILLNESS. It's a lot cheaper. It's a lot less likely to result in you somehow screwing up and causing a disaster for yourself.

The American political system has been basically dysfunctional for three and a half years now, which seems like a long time... but it was working pretty much OK for about 220 years before that, under a wide variety of different conditions.

While certainly something is now happening that has paralyzed the government, I see no reason to assume the paralysis is permanent rather than just being temporary. At this moment, there is a large bloc in the American far-right, with effective dominance of one of our two political parties, that is able to compel that party to be obstructionist and opposed to any meaningful action taken by its opponents. And at this moment, that obstructionist party happens to be popular enough that they are (still) able to obstruct things.

But that carries within itself the seeds of an end to the problem: obstructionism is not actually popular on a large scale. While maybe the Republicans can keep spinning things out like this indefinitely, it's at least as likely that they'll look like a bunch of screaming obnoxious chumps to everyone outside their own core membership if they keep this up for another few years.

In some places they'll still win... but that doesn't guarantee them the power to keep screwing up the situation.

Getting rid of fillibusters (and similar abuses of functional protocol) would at least be a step in the right direction, but I'm not convinced it would have very much of the needed impact.

How about you actually see what happens when such a comparatively minor reform is put into play, and then decide it isn't going to be enough.

I really do hate to say it, but I don't think our legislative system has the ability to function as a 21st century governing body - I mean, my god, these assholes can't even keep the country from defaulting on its ludicrous debt. The Constitution allows for governmental reform in order to adapt to a changing society, but I'm not sure how you'd even realistically follow any kind of serious Congressional reform in the current political climate.

Look, the worst conceivable case is that our government is in as bad shape as it was in the 1840s and '50s, when the slave states' lock on one house of Congress allowed them to keep cranking up the slavery issue and prevent any kind of peaceful resolution, until finally that ended in civil war.

Thing is...

1) It's not really that bad. Civil war is not a plausible outcome of the current situation. Stagnation is, but stagnation isn't as big a disaster as you make it out to be.

2) Even if it IS that bad, trying to rearrange the government isn't going to fix things. Think about the slavery issue. If somehow (despite the obvious impossibility) the constitution had been modified to restructure the government and 'make progress on slavery' or whatever... well, that would just have resulted in the slave states rebelling like they did anyway.

When there is a real and profound division within the nation about how to move forward, restructuring the government won't make that division go away. It'll just change the way the division manifests itself, while giving people on the losing side of the divide a reason to undermine your restructuring.

[Ahriman238]

The President is immune to suit except in some cases, including abuse of his office. Hence why Obama never had to appear in court and show his birth certificate.

As for fixing the Senate, how about fixing the congressional districts that have gerrymandered until Congress does not, in any way represent the majority interests of their state. Make it, if not impossible, really, really, difficult to gerrymander further. Fix campaign finance law, restore the filibuster to it's former status where people have to stand up and talk.

And I almost hate to say this, certainly virtually no one in office has earned it, but the easiest reform to enact will be giving congressmen a generous pension, so they aren't clinging to power with all their strength or angling for a private sector job and close relations with business.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Could you not introduce term limits for Congressmen? Would that be of use?

[Ahriman238]

Could you not introduce term limits for Congressmen? Would that be of use?

Yes it would. So would curing cancer, ending all war and either abolishing or universalizing religion among the American electorate. I'm not holding my breath waiting for any of these to happen though.

The hardest part of congressional reform is the proposed reforms have to pass a majority in Congress. That's why no one has fixed the filibuster yet, everyone figures they might need it sometime. So they're unlikely to vote for term limits on themselves, especially given how many are elderly and have been in position a decade or more.

[Elheru Aran]

Members of Congress do get a pension as federal employees, the amount being based upon how long they're in office. Considering that tenures as long as 15-20 years are not uncommon for Senators (Representatives have a higher turnover), plus they get Social Security benefits afterwards, it's comfortable enough living.

Of course it's not terribly necessary as over 50% of Congressmen are millionaires. Issa is worth over 400 million all by himself. The average income for the House is nearly $900 thousand, and the Senate 2.5 million. http://time.com/373/congress-is-now-mos ... ires-club/

And they don't even have to pay for their own health insurance.

Seriously, it's pretty goddamn ridiculous.

Term limits would be absolutely divine and a great solution to the problem, but the rot goes down a pretty long way...

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

stuff

Look, I hear what you're saying, and I sympathize. I'm not exactly gung-ho about radical reform here.

But I do not accept the status quo anymore. I cannot. You can call that naive or idealistic or whatever you want, if you like. While obviously civil war or anything like that is silly, I think we probably have different definitions of what constitutes a disaster. Stagnation won't be the end of the world, no, the US will still be here, yes... but I'm a patriot, and I very much prefer the US that's there to be one I'm proud of. I take my citizenship pretty goddamn seriously, and if that's too naive for somebody, then fuck 'em, because I intend to be a citizen of this country whether they like it or not.

Tanking our credit rating, hamstringing every government agency with vacant leadership positions and gutting enforcement laws are not an acceptable state of affairs. Yes, I'm sure it will be "better" when the assholes who subscribe to this particular ideology of "government must be sabotaged at all costs!" fucking die, but people are very long-lived these days and I don't want to be 50 when some generational overturn actually occurs. And it still doesn't fix the system which allows this kind of dysfunctional abortion of a government, it's just that a particular idealogy which abuses it won't be pushing their specific agenda with the flaws in the system.

So you can say it's "mature" to shrug and accept it ("oh darn, things are bad, gee wiz what can little old me do about it. dunno, lol"), but I call that civic inaction. My argument is that the usual regurgitation of "write your representative!" is not effective and does not constitute civic action anymore. Representatives don't represent (ok, yes, there are a few white knights in Congress from this or that district or state who try to do the right thing, but that's similarly ineffectual). The Presidency and SCOTUS, while they have their flaws, are more or less operating as they should. The legislative branch, I contend, is not. You could say that this is nothing new and point to Monica Lewinsky or other abusive games, but that's only further evidence that this legislative system is fundamentally broken.

In short, the balance of power is out of whack, and not in the way John "Cockbag*" Boner contends. There exists no reasonable check on Congress' corruption, malfeasance, and inability to function. SCOTUS eventually emerged as a partial check in (slowly) eliminating or altering laws which violated certain core American principles, but other than that the only real check on Congress is the people, and that mechanism is not functioning correctly anymore - in large part due to Congress' own deliberate efforts to undermine it (surprise!).

*Cockbag, n. literally a bag full of cocks

[Eternal_Freedom]

Is there any way to impose Congressional reform without getting it through Congress?

[Purple]

Is there any way to impose Congressional reform without getting it through Congress?

Revolution?

[Eternal_Freedom]

I meant legal way.

[Elheru Aran]

There are a number of reforms that are direly necessary for Congress to best serve our society both now and in the future. Some of them impinge upon Congress directly, others are separate factors that are still influential.

(in no particular order:)

--Election reform. Eliminate gerrymandering. Eliminate the potential for outright fraud (see the current ongoing case with Scott Walker in Wisconsin). Regulate campaign donations far more strictly than they currently are. Strictly regulate campaign advertising; this one is more tricky with the free-speech thing, but it can be done, pass some law saying that "only the candidate's own campaign can actually produce advertisements" or something.

--Term limits. Something like 10 years House, 12 Senate, or however is best. You want to give Congressmen enough time in the office to have some influence on the governing process and get some experience with how the system works, but not so much time that they get entrenched in their position and attached to the cushy bennies.

--Speaking of which: Eliminate a large portion of their benefits. Give them all a standard minimum of health care coverage; if they want more coverage, they can pay for it themselves (as you saw in my last post, most of them can afford it). For that matter, cut their pay. They're not there for the money, they're there to serve the nation. A minimum of free flights to and from their constituencies, and it's not going to be fucking first class. And another thing:

--Eliminate corporate and private lobbying as much as possible. Private citizens, if they want to advocate a cause, can organize to petition Congress. However, General Electric shelling out for a bunch of Senators to visit their new factory in, I don't know, Aruba? No.

--Mandate that all bills have to be, oh, less than 500 words long and cover ONE subject. No add-ons. No pork barrel. No tacking amendments on to the end. And they have to be brought up, voted on, and pass/rejected within two weeks. No debating endlessly until nothing happens. All bills have to be pass/rejected by the end of the Congressional term. No leaving bills hanging in the air until they're conveniently forgotten the next term.

--The most controversial thing: Have an option to shut down Congress and mandate elections. If Congress fails to function in some fashion (say, passing a certain number of bills in a set timespan, defaulting on the budget, etc), the President can invoke this with Supreme Court approval. Somewhat like the British system where the head of state can dissolve Parliament and order elections. While open to abuse, it allows the current President to stir the pot and see if things change. This one would require an amendment to the Constitution, though, I think...

EF: Nope. There are only two ways: Congress reforms itself, or an amendment to the Constitution itself is made, which requires a national referendum. The last time they pulled that off was in the 70s when they lowered the voting age to 18. None have succeeded since then, because not enough voters give a shit.

[Eternal_Freedom]

That seems like a major failing on the part of the writers of the Constitution, leaving only one (feasible) way for the legislature to be reformed.

[Elheru Aran]

That seems like a major failing on the part of the writers of the Constitution, leaving only one (feasible) way for the legislature to be reformed.

Call it a bit of shortsightedness. They didn't expect that a.) Members would hold office as long as they tend to have, b.) that they would give themselves as much power as they have, and c.) that they've been a bunch of greedy bastards that see no reason to give up what they've given themselves.

They were avoiding the Parliamentary system where the head of state tends to have final say over what goes to some degree by writing in the whole checks-and-balances system. However there's been something of an end-run around that by Congress in modern years. If the President tries to interfere with Congress, they scream impeachment or obstruct legislation as much as possible. Basically, they've given themselves permission to be a huge pain in the ass to the President whenever they want, rather than working with him for the betterment of the nation.

Is it any wonder, really, that in recent years Presidents have turned to just cranking out an executive order whenever they want something to happen? Nothing like Lyndon Johnson's manipulation of Congress is possible anymore.

[Elheru Aran]

To add to the above: Frankly, Johnson may have been *too* good at getting Congress to do what he wanted. He cajoled (some might say straight-up bullied) the various Senators and Representatives into voting the way he wanted, pulled strings without compunction, and used every bit of influence he had from his past twenty years' experience in Congress. As such, I suspect that after he left office, everybody there took a collective sigh of relief and then resolved to never allow the President to run rough-shod over them like that again.

The ordeal that ensued after that with Richard Nixon and all certainly didn't help, either, because that gave Congress a massive boost in public prestige versus the President. They were seen as the seekers of justice against a corrupt executive branch. Since then they've held on to that image in some fashion, and the executive and legislative branches have drifted farther apart over the past, oh, thirty or forty years.

It's notable that since Johnson's administration we've not seen any kind of over-arching, massive legislation to make improvements to society in the US. Oh, there have been changes here and there, but there's been resolute resistance to almost all of them for the most part. Until the Affordable Care Act was passed, I think the Great Society and various other pieces of Johnson-era legislation were the last serious social-improvement laws passed in Congress. And the Republicans have tried to repeal the ACA, what, over forty times now? You get the idea.

Really, the biggest problem, past all the mechanical things that need to be changed, is that the two parties absolutely cannot see eye-to-eye in any meaningful fashion. Compromise is a thing of the past now.

[Iroscato]

Forgive my profound ignorance of US political history (I'm working on improving it), but HOW did things get this bad between Democrats and Republicans? It's literally like the US government is grinding to a halt, with two opposing equals refusing to give the other side an inch.
How did things get this ineffectual?

[Block]

Forgive my profound ignorance of US political history (I'm working on improving it), but HOW did things get this bad between Democrats and Republicans? It's literally like the US government is grinding to a halt, with two opposing equals refusing to give the other side an inch.
How did things get this ineffectual?

Clinton got a blowjob and the Republicans who can't get one have been taking it out on everyone ever since. It's about gerrymandering and money basically. There's a lot of Congressmen who are in districts where they're only going to lose their seat if they comprise and they don't want to do that because they'd lose the campaign donations and outright bribes.

[Crossroads Inc.]

The Long answer is, well, very very long and complicated...

The Short answer?
It stems from a self growing feedback loop I'd say that started in the late 1950's.
After the split over civil rights, when many southern "Democrats" broke ranks and joined the republican party in protest over the passing of cvili rights, the GOP started what it called "The Southern Strategy" basically they gave up for the most part on winning "liberal" states in the north, and focused on locking up votes in the South among white Christina voters. In order to do this, and ensure loyalty, they began a slow process of stocking fear of, well, anything and everything that was not Christian or White.

Fast forward 60 years, and the feedback of having to feed more fear, more hysteria, more lies and more hypocrisy over and over and over into their base has led to a base that is so insular, so isolated and so separated from realty, that we have the current state of affairs.

There is a GREAT DEAL more to it than that of course, but that's a short summary.

[Elheru Aran]

Forgive my profound ignorance of US political history (I'm working on improving it), but HOW did things get this bad between Democrats and Republicans? It's literally like the US government is grinding to a halt, with two opposing equals refusing to give the other side an inch.
How did things get this ineffectual?

Long story short: It pretty much dates all the way back to the Civil War and before it, and it largely involves slavery and civil rights.

Bear in mind that the current Democrat=Left, Republican=Right thing is fairly modern (dates to ca. 50s, 60s). Back in the 1850s the fledging Republican party was the liberal party, with abolition being their primary platform. Democrats were the state's rights people supporting slavery. Then the Civil War ensues, and for a couple decades or so after that Republicans dominated American politics. However, a strong Progressive movement started popping up in the 18...70s? or so. The more radical Socialist elements were largely discredited after the assassination of William McKinley and various purges, but Theodore Roosevelt was a reformer President and got a lot of things changed.

Fast forward to roughly the... I think 1910's? Taft, Roosevelt, and Wilson are running for President. Roosevelt manages to split the Republican Party into two; the Progressives and almost modern Republicans. Wilson won that election, but Roosevelt came in second (and as a third party candidate, mind you). Wilson was an infamous racist jerk, which gives you some idea of what the Democrats were like.

The table really gets flipped, though, when FDR gets elected. He's a Democrat, but inspired by Teddy, he sets forth on a broad program of social and economic reform. This brings the Progressives into the Democratic Party and basically establishes the modern Democratic Party.

The two parties weren't *terribly* different, though. Look at Dwight Eisenhower, and you'd see someone modern Republicans would smear as a RINO. Kennedy and Johnson carried on the Democratic flag of social reform, which is when the Republican Party largely switched banners to being the conservative party; you saw a hell of a lot of Southern whites up and deciding they were Republicans after the various passages of Civil Rights legislation in the 50s and 60s.

The re-branding of the Republican Party has a hell of a lot to do with Richard Nixon and his Southern Strategy, though. Nixon has a lot to do with how modern politics are conducted, as well. He was a criminal, pure and simple, in a nice suit with a smile you wouldn't buy a used car from. He wasn't an idiot, though-- he came up with what we call "code words", for example. You don't say "black people", you say "inner city"... etc. Honestly the scale of what he pulled off to be elected and re-elected is ridiculous and I'm not sure the full extent of it has been rooted out yet. We are talking moves like publishing fake letters, ripping off lawyers' offices, paying people to badmouth opposition candidates, and so forth...

So of course he took the stance of being the conservative defender of social values. The irony was extremely powerful in that one. He didn't have a lick of shame in him.

Regrettably, although Gerald Ford was basically a place-holder and the left wing was briefly resurgent politically with Jimmy Carter, the right squashed it back down right fast with Reagan and Bush Sr.

Enter Clinton from stage left. Clinton did a fine job as President, but by then the conservatives were out in strength, and took full advantage of the changes in global communication to smear him to high heaven. Mind you, Clinton had a lot of skeletons in his closet-- a possible history of sexual harassment being the main thing-- but he was a decent enough President. The conservatives hated his guts and there were a number of PR disasters under his administration such as the Waco siege, the abortive deployment of Marines to Somalia, and of course Blowjob-Gate, that damaged his credibility to an incredible degree.

With all that it's a wonder Gore did as well as he did in the 2000 elections, but we had a case of straight-up election fraud happen there in Florida that gave Bush Jr. the lead. And that was all she wrote as far as bringing the two parties back together.

TL;DR version: Civil War, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Tricky Dick, Slick Willy, W. And never shall the twain meet again...