Paul Krugman's newfound hostility to democracy and the system of checks and balances

The Only Obstacle is Democracy and the Rule of Law

By Daniel Greenfield
Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Yesterday Paul Krugman penned an article for the New York Times, which in summary argued that America was lost because the Senate had too many procedures that could allow Republicans to block Obama, Reid and Pelosi’s idea of what is good for America. Lest you think this was mere hyperbole on Krugman’s part, he compared the United States of 2010 to 18th century Poland, to 18th century Poland, which in Krugman’s assessment was destroyed because of excessive democracy.

While Krugman’s article is as cartoonish as one might expect from the beloved Nobel Prize winning Enron adviser, whose only solution is to demand that Obama spend even more money to create even bigger deficits—this newfound hostility to democracy and the system of checks and balances has been coming from a lot of liberal quarters lately.

Of course the liberal affinity for democracy tends to be a very selective one, even under the best of circumstances. The same people who wailed that Florida had been unfairly stolen because of archaic institutions such as the Supreme Court and the Electoral College 2000, cheerfully defended refusing to seat half of Florida’s delegates in the 2008 Presidential primaries (a decision that illegally made Obama the party candidate). Because of course “proceduresâ€