America is "Ungovernable"...Again

American Thinker shows us the "ungovernable" argument seems to come up every time a liberal Democrat is running the country into the ground:

Liberals are at it again. They are worrying that the U.S. is "ungovernable." Political scientist Jay Cost has the details:

Ezra Klein argued that it was time to reform the filibuster because the government cannot function with it intact anymore. Tom Friedman suggested that America's "political instability" was making people abroad nervous. And Michael Cohen of Newsweek blamed"obstructionist Republicans," "spineless Democrats," and an "incoherent public" for the problem.

Liberals were saying exactly the same thing in 1980, thirty years ago, in the darkest days of the Carter administration. The mess of inflation, recession, Iran hostages, and gas lines, they decided, was not a direct result of stupid Carter administration policy. It was a sign that America's best days were behind us, and that there was nothing to do but decline gracefully.

You'll remember that U.S. voters in the fall of 1980 had a different idea. They decided to elect a B-movie actor to the presidency. Yes, that's what liberals called Ronald Reagan back then. Clark Clifford, the "wise man of Washington," hadn't even thought of calling him an "amiable dunce." Not yet.

The Amiable Dunce proceeded to cut tax rates. He strengthened the dollar and cut government spending. It wasn't so much governing as getting government out of the way. The result was a twenty-year boom. And now here we are back where we started, with a nasty economy, a soft dollar, a failed presidency, and another generation of liberals complaining that the U.S. is ungovernable.

America is considered "ungovernable" when liberal Democrats are unable to get their agenda past Republicans who simply refuse to go along. If Democrats want to govern they need to offer ideas that have appeal to both parties and not just to the far left fringe.

The filibuster is a protection for the country from the most extreme ideas on both sides of the political spectrum. Eliminating the filibuster might allow the Dems to briefly enact their wacky left agenda, but it would also be the political death of their party. They'd get summarily tossed out on their ears at the next election and would then have handed the GOP a filibuster-free Senate that could undo everything they did and bring in their own ideas from the right. Ending the filibuster won't make anyone happy in the long term.

America is fully governable when the political leaders from both parties stick to an agenda with widespread support among both parties. That's how a two-party government should work.