Writing at Balkinization, University of Texas law professor Sandy Levinson writes:
Put to one side that it represents, as Joe Nocera aptly argues in today's NYTimes, the submission basically to terrorist threats by a remarkably feckless President. And put to one side that it almost guarantees the worsening of the American (and therefore the world) economy, though it may brighten the prospects of a Republican victory over the feckless President, apparently the only thing that Mitch McConnell is really committed to as he winds up his long and decidedly non-illustrious career in the Senate.
Levinson wants this disaster viewed as regime change.
But even more telling with regard to regime change is the further diminution of Conress as a serious law-making or deliberative body. (Nothing new here; Carl Schmitt would certainly understand how and why that has happened.) We are to be effectively governed in the next several months by the new super-duper committee of six Republicans and six Democrats who will be able to propose fast-track budget cuts (or, in theory but not in fact, tax increases) that Congress must vote up or down on, with no possibility for amendment. Lest one compare this to other fast-track procedures, such as the base-closing commissions and the like, note that the failure of Congress to acquiesce to the wishes of their new masters will lead to killing the hostages, in this case automatic budget cuts in defense and in programs involvng the vulnerable.
As I wrote yesterday, this literally makes no sense IF one believes that our current defense budget makes sense (and, of course, if one is a bleeding heart who believes that the suffering should receive help instead of being left to their own prospects in a Darwinian free market). This is not the way a serious Republican Form of Government operates. It is the way a "constitutional dictatorship" takes further (and suitably complext) form. In any event, political terrorism will have been "normalized."
As Nocera writes:
For now, the Tea Party Republicans can put aside their suicide vests. But rest assured: They’ll have them on again soon enough. After all, they’ve gotten so much encouragement.
They are, effectively, in charge.