[entee]

I support the Paris Agreement, and I also somewhat agree with this point. I'm sad that the country can't seem to get its act together such that it could actually move this through regular order. Likewise with executive actions. We've gotten to a point where the legislature's navel gazing and strict partisanship makes it impossible to actually get anything done, either conservative or progressive.

As a country we need to be able to have responsible, sober debates and actually vote through policies instead of just working through whoever happens to be in the Oval Office. It's an unstable way to do things.

That said I would argue it's mostly unstable because the Republican party has been hijacked by its extreme right wing. It's astonishing to see that even with control of both houses they can't internally agree on policy enough to get things done. Much less find some sort of bipartisan compromise/consensus. Dems have their problems too, but I think the bulk of the responsibility lies on the very hard right impulses of the likes of the Freedom Caucus and the Ted Cruzes of this world.

[pvnick]

The Republican party seems split between the freedom caucus (less government) and the establishment (not sure what they stand for ... Maybe corporate and military interests?). The Democrats are more-or-less unified around the principle of increasing the size and scope of government, particularly at the federal level.

[dragonwriter]

> The Democrats are more-or-less unified around the principle of increasing the size and scope of government, particularly at the federal level.

No, pretty much zero Democrats see increasing the scope of government as principle. You might plausibly argue that most Democrats agree with the statement that there is at least one area where government needs to expand it's size, role, or influence (though they often wouldn't agree on where or why.)

Then again, most Republicans, even much of the Freedom Caucus, agree with that too, which is why despite small government rhetoric they often vote for expansions in defense, law enforcement, and security spending, staffing, and/or powers.

[comex]

I think there is a difference in principle, but it's not that Democrats have a principle that growing the government is inherently good: it's that they don't have a principle that growing the government is inherently bad, while many Republicans do. Thus, Democrats would consider proposals for spending mostly in terms of their individual benefits and costs, whereas Republicans - at least the consistent ones - would apply those only after starting from a baseline of disfavor. They may still care enough about some spending priorities that they see the good as outweighing the bad: that isn't inherently contradictory, though considering how much we spend on defense, there's certainly room to question whether it's a rational policy overall.