Stuck: A History of Political Gridlock [rebroadcast]

BackStory

History, Education

4.5 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2016

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

While Senate Republicans refuse to consider President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, the History Guys review the history of gridlock in American politics. In this episode, Peter, Ed and Brian will look at other moments when our system of checks and balances devolved into open warfare between political factions. They’ll discuss how the Missouri Compromise failed to resolve the political battle over the expansion of slavery. They’ll also look at the war within the Democratic party over Prohibition in the l920’s, and how Southern Democrats used the filibuster to block civil rights bills in the l950’s and 60’s.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is backstory. I'm Ed Ayers.
0:02.8	The partisan stalemate over President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merit Garland,
0:07.6	shows no sign of breaking.
0:09.6	And if a Democrat wins the White House in November, Senate Republicans could fill a
0:13.6	buster the next president's pick to fill the Supreme Court vacancy too.
0:17.9	The filibuster has become the favorite weapon in partisan battles over judicial
0:22.7	nominations and pretty much everything else.
0:25.6	By now, it's really difficult to actually count because
0:28.8	it's a line goes and it's like handing us beating tickets at the ND500.
0:33.6	It's striking that this obstructionism is the last thing people expected 50 years ago.
0:39.7	As a matter of fact, a lot of people thought that the filibuster was
0:43.6	largely disappear. Instead, the use of the filibuster
0:48.4	greatly mushroomed.
0:50.3	Today on backstory, a history of gridlock.
0:59.6	Major funding for backstory is provided by the Shia Khan Foundation,
1:04.2	the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial
1:08.4	Foundation, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.
1:13.5	From the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, this is backstory with the American History Guide.
1:23.8	Welcome to the show. I'm Brian Ballot and I'm here with Peter Rona.
1:27.3	Hey there, Brian.
1:28.3	And it airs us with us.
1:29.6	Hey, Brian.
	...

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