đ° What Happened to Consensus? The Death of the Supermajority
Once upon a time, we governed by consensus. We didnât pass sweeping laws or remake the Republic unless a broad swath of the country was on board. Not just because it was nobleâbut because it was wise. When you impose big changes with thin margins, they donât feel like lawsâthey feel like victories. And victories fade.
That era is gone.
We Donât Persuade AnymoreâWe Win
Americaâs system was built to slow things down. Some decisions still require a true supermajorityâimpeachments, constitutional amendments, treaty ratifications. Those protections remain in place.
But the real story is what used to functionally require consensus: major legislation, long-term spending programs, and lifetime judicial appointments. These werenât bound by law to need 60 or 67 votesâbut they usually did. Because until recently, there was an understanding: if it affects the whole country, you shouldnât pass it with half.
That understanding is gone.
Today, we govern on a coin flip. One party wins the presidency by 40,000 votes across a few states and declares a mandate. The House swings by a handful of gerrymandered districts, and suddenly it's revolution time. We pass trillion-dollar bills with 50 votes and call it progress.
We mistake legislative passage for public buy-in, and when the benefits prove murky or delayed, the party in power reaps not gratitude, but resentment.
Weâve Been Here Before
Take Obamacare. Whatever you think of the policy, the process was a warning shot: not one Republican voted for it. It reformed one-sixth of the economy by sheer force of numbers, not persuasion. Millions gained coverageâbut millions more resented it, misunderstood it, and voted accordingly. Democrats paid the price for a decade.
The irony? The law stuckâbut so did the blame.
And thatâs the pattern: the Bush tax cuts, the Trump tax cuts, the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Actâall passed with razor-thin support, all sold as "transformational," and all now battered by public confusion and partisan whiplash. These arenât laws. Theyâre legacy projects with fragile foundations.
The cruel irony is that partisan reforms are often impossible to fully unwindâbut the party that passes them doesnât get the credit. It gets the blame.
Good intentions donât guarantee durability. Even the right policy, passed the wrong way, becomes a source of division rather than a foundation for reform.
Weâre There AgainâOnly Worse
The current administration won with a razor-thin marginâand in raw vote totals, it mightâve lost badly if more people in deep-blue states like California and New York had actually turned out. Congress and the Senate are nearly deadlocked. There is no sweeping national mandate. And yet, weâve passed a massive, âone big boastful billâ and started dismantling major parts of the federal governmentâwithout anything close to consensus from the American people.
Weâre back at it with insane tariffsâblunt instruments masquerading as strategy. They wonât bring jobs back. Theyâll just make the rest of the world hate us, retaliate against us, and quietly move on without us.
These tariffs arenât paid by China or Europeâtheyâre paid by working Americans, in the form of higher prices on everything from sneakers to stoves. Itâs a tax on the poor, dressed up as patriotism. And while the working class foots the bill, the ultra-rich glide right past it, becoming even more ultra.
This isnât economic strategy. Itâs political cosplayâwith real costs for the people already paying the highest price.
The Court with No Consent
Itâs not just laws being passed without consensusâitâs the one branch of government we canât vote out. Through a mix of luck, manipulation, and raw political will, the Supreme Court has been stacked for a generation toward views that at least half the country does not share.
Nobody cared about nominating judges the country might broadly respect. They just wanted to win. Moderate candidates were tossed aside. Confirmation norms were shredded. Merrick Garland didnât even get a hearing. Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed in the final days before an election. The goal wasnât justiceâit was control.
Now, the one unaccountable branch of government appears deeply compromised to millions of Americans. Justices accept lavish gifts from billionaires and rule on issues that benefit their ideological patrons. They do this with lifetime tenure, no binding ethics code, and no public consent.
The Court was meant to be above politicsâa stabilizer. Today, it is a force multiplier for division. And as the country grows younger, more diverse, and more disillusioned, the distance between the bench and the people will only grow.
We didnât build a court that speaks for the people. We built one that wins for a factionâand loses the country.
A court without consensus cannot hold the center. It can only widen the cracks.
The Real Moral Failure
We arrive again at my constant theme: bad things happen when we abandon the Golden Rule.
Consensus dies when we stop asking, âWould I want this done to me?ââwhen victory becomes more important than legitimacy.
Its omission is not a mistake. The Golden Rule is absent from our civic life because it refuses to exclude anyone. It does not declare America a Christian nation. It doesnât elevate one tribe, party, or theology. It demands empathy, not dominance. And thatâs why it scares the loudest voices in politics today.
We hang the Ten Commandments in courthouses to make a point about power. But we leave out the one moral law that could actually rebuild consensus: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Every faith teaches it. Atheists live by it. But our politics avoids itâbecause itâs too fair, too humble, too universal.
Forget the Commandments. Post the Golden Rule. Itâs the one idea that makes consensus possible. Because if we governed by that, we wouldnât need supermajorities. Weâd already have them.
Authorâs note: You can govern by supermajorityâor by sledgehammer. But only one of those builds something that lasts.