Form Versus Substance

Matthew Yglesias castigates Democratic and Progressive politicians for not riding roughshod over their opponents when they have the chance. As is his wont, Yglesias commends the manly men of the Republican party for their disdain for substantive democracy. As he often does, he commends them for refusing to engage in debate and compromise while extolling their use of procedure to get, or sort of get, what they want.  In this case, his thinks that the ACA, which is now a law, was badly handled because the currently dead-on-arrival Ryan plan passed with little or no debate, compromise, and etc.


David Weigel engages in the same sort of silliness when he derides Liberals for not engaging in the antics similar to the Tea Party Patriots on the grounds that their sober rejection of the Republicans anti-human agenda because there was

there was no reaction worthy of YouTube, nothing for cable news.(via)

Meanwhile in New Jersey, manly man and deeply-committed Republican governor Chris Christie threatens to go all Bismark on the New Jersey Supreme Court. Can the the Yglesias/Weigle wing, i.e., bright young things more enamored of the surface than the substance of things, of the commentariat's adulation be far behind? After all, like Paul Ryan, he's serous and taking on issues, the destruction of his state's constitutional order, in the service of solving as problem by attacking the least among us.