On Wednesday’s The View, co-host Joy Behar had a meltdown about America’s “democracy” being under threat because there was no longer any “checks and balances” for Donald Trump as President since Republicans were in the majority in both houses of Congress. Behar called the situation “sad and upsetting,” apparently not realizing this type of scenario has happened dozens of times before.
During a discussion on Chelsea Manning’s pardon and Wikileaks, Bila called for both parties to be consistent in their stance on Wikileaks and leaked documents. Seemingly out of the blue, Behar brought up how upset she was at Republicans winning control of the Senate, the House and the Presidency, wondering if this would change the country forever:
BEHAR: You know what I find sad and upsetting? In an overall note is that, I have lived many years and I have never seen an administration where every single house is represented by one party. We don't have checks and balances. We have a Congress, a Senate and a House of Representatives and the executive branch and probably now the Supreme Court that will be completely Republican. Where are the checks and balances? This is killing me. This is killing me. I’ve been here a long time. This is a democracy. What happened to this country?
What Behar apparently didn’t realize was this scenario not only has historical precedent, but it’s not even that of an uncommon situation. In fact, this exact scenario, where one party has a majority in both houses and wins the presidency has occurred 34 other times since 1901.
She didn’t even have to go that far back into history to see another example of when this happened. The past three presidents all had years where their party was in control. President Obama started his first term with control of both houses of Congress. George W. Bush also had four years with a party majority in Congress and Bill Clinton had two.
