I just wanted to quickly share something with you all. As most of you know, my major is Sociology, since I am passionate about this subject; I usually examine the structure of society and our institutions. This helps me make sense of social problems within our society and why these social problems occur.
According to Structural-functionalism (often paraphrased “Functionalism”), society is an organism, a system of parts, all of which serve a function together for the overall effectiveness and efficiency of society.
Structural-functionalism is a consensus theory; a theory that sees society as built upon order, interrelation, and balance among parts as a means of maintaining the smooth functioning of the whole. Structural-Functionalism views shared norms and values as the basis of society, focuses on social order based on tacit agreements between groups and organizations, and views social change as occurring in a slow and orderly fashion. Functionalists acknowledge that change is sometimes necessary to correct social dysfunctions (the opposite of functions), but that it must occur slowly so that people and institutions can adapt without rapid disorder.
So according to this theory, social problems are caused by the breakdown in social institutions and the breakdown of one institution will lead to the breakdown in other social institution.
The point of all of this is to explain how the United States Senate is a broken institution, and therefore will lead to breakdown of other institutions such as the institution of education and economy.
Rachel Maddow recently tried to explain to them how Republicans have managed to break the US Senate by abusing the filibuster. Maddow said, “Since they lost the Senate they have turned it into a stronghold for their own party by using power the senate minority is usually entrusted not to abuse. They’ve used that power to break the institution.”
The reason why was soon evident as Maddow discussed Republican abuse of the filibuster, “This is 1919 to just before Republicans in the senate went into the minority in 2006. This is how the Senate worked from 1919 until before republicans became the minority. Then the last time republicans became the minority, what happened? Boing. Look at that. What you’re looking at there is the breaking of the United States Senate as an institution. What these are is filibusters. This is when the Senate decides to take the extraordinary measure of making something take 60 votes to pass instead of 50 votes. And that’s impossible. Supermajorities are impossible. You cannot actually pass things with supermajorities in an ongoing way. This is not the way that legislatures function. It is never the way that America’s legislature has functioned. If you’re going to require a supermajority it means that effectively this body has ceased to function, it has ceased to function as a normal majority rules legislature. This is how Republicans broke the Senate.”
The next time you hear someone complain about everything that Obama hasn’t done please take a moment to remind them that most of Obama’s agenda is currently languishing in the US Senate. The Senate has never approved funding for the relocation of detainees and the closure of GITMO. The Senate has stalled every clean energy bill. The Senate has been sitting on DADT. It was the Senate that killed the public option during the healthcare debate. And what about the Dream Act? Pick the issue, and you will almost certainly find a bill that the House passed which is collecting dust in the Senate.
It is easy to blame Obama, but Obama isn’t the problem here. Barack Obama hasn’t betrayed you and let you down. The problem is the United States Senate. It was once a proud example of some of the best elements of representative democracy has become a black hole that has killed the momentum of an entire nation. This could easily be fixed, but it won’t be, because the American people in their misguided anger are blaming the wrong branch of government. Until people realize where the true problem lies, Obama will continue to take the blame while the United States Senate rots from within.
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