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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   25687 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 1, 2025

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In what way does Pelosi's comment have any bearing on that?

The mandate is the consequence for elections.

Isn't the consequence of every individual seat's election a mandate for that elected congressperson? No individual congressperson is bound by a presidential mandate. They are responsible to the constituents below them, not to a president above them.

I repeat my position that Republicans in congress have zero obligation to be acquiescent to the will of a Democratic president, and Demicrats in congress have zero obligation to be acquiescent to the will of a Republican president. Mandates, if they exist at all, do not work like that.

In theory, yes.

In practice, look at how many votes are strictly on party lines. The US is better than most in this regard for avoiding these but it still happens; there are some countries whose systems only ever vote party line, which means who you actually voted for is completely irrelevant.

Sure - I'm an Australian, party discipline is much stronger here, and in practice we all know that we're not really voting for our local MP, but rather for the party that MP represents. Even so, in this system I do believe that MPs of the party in Opposition are democratically justified in opposing the Government's policies. Labor's crushing election victory this year does not obligate the remaining Coalition MPs to cooperate with whatever Labor wants to do; neither did the Coalition's decisive 2013 win obligate Labor to refrain from acting against the Coalition Government. That would go against the whole point of having an Opposition.

The point I'm trying, perhaps clumsily, to make is that I think it's bad faith to use a presidential 'mandate' as a reason for why members of congress should not oppose that president's policies, if they and their party think it necessary to do so.

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