From the filibuster, to the sequester, to the expiration of the Bush tax cuts that created the fiscal cliff, to the debt ceiling itself, the entire agenda of the US government is now being determined by a series of ridiculous legislative gimmicks

THE idea of minting a trillion-dollar platinum coin to avoid hitting the debt ceiling appears to have been tossed on the ash-heap of history before anyone even got a chance to smoke it. I was somewhat more sympathetic to the idea than many others, mainly because one major objection, that the measure was so gimmicky that it would call the credibility of the US government into question and make us look like a banana republic, seemed overblown. Not that the platinum coin itself didn't seem gimmicky; it did. It's just that all of the mechanisms that have led to the succession of ridiculous last-minute showdowns in American governance over the past few years are gimmicks that make America look like a banana republic. From the filibuster, to the sequester, to the expiration of the Bush tax cuts that created the fiscal cliff, to the debt ceiling itself, the entire agenda of the US government is now being determined by a series of ridiculous legislative gimmicks, afterthoughts and unintended consequences, exploited by Republicans willing to drive the legislative machine to the brink of meltdown in search of partisan advantage.

I mean, run down the list. The filibuster was a mistake created in 1806 when Aaron Burr convinced the Senate to eliminate the previous-question rule; 31 years later an enterprising senator discovered you could use the lacunae to tie up debate forever. It became popular in the late 1800s because individual senators found it aggrandised their power, but after the cloture rule was adopted in 1917 it was almost never used, until suddenly in the 1990s Republicans started using it much of the time and then, after a Democrat was elected president in 2008, for everything, turning the Senate into a body requiring a 60-vote supermajority vote.

The sequesters we're about to face if Democrats and Republicans can't agree on $1.6 trillion in deficit reduction were created in 2011 as a gimmick to force the members of a bipartisan deficit-reduction "supercommittee" to come to some sort of agreement. They're an artificial threat Congress created to try to cure itself of its own natural inclinations to partisan paralysis. Like similar efforts at misguided self-therapy by alcoholics, procrastinators, closeted gays and serial bad-check writers (stop me before I do it again!), the sequesters didn't work, and they elicit mirth and disdain from outside observers, or at best a kind of rueful empathy. They are a silly way for mature adults to set a deadline for reaching an agreement.

The "fiscal cliff" was created by the desire of Bush administration officials pushing for the huge tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 to avoid the Byrd Rule, which would have required them to get 60 votes in the Senate since the measures increased the deficit ten years out. Since they didn't have 60 votes, they let the tax cuts sunset after ten years, which created an arbitrary tax hike that would have taken effect while America was just starting to recover from the worst recession since the 1930s. The result was total legislative crisis in 2010 and, after the cuts' expiration was postponed two years, again in 2012.

The debt ceiling itself is yet another silly, profoundly useless bit of legislation whose sudden import is a catastrophe of unintended consequences. The debt limit is a relic of the pre-1917 days when Congress had to specifically authorise each issue of government debt to the pubiic. In a modern economy where governments routinely encounter large deficits that have to be covered by issuing bonds, having Congress vote separately to issue the debt it has already decided to create, by voting to spend more than the government collects in taxes, is a gesture of metaphysical silliness with potentially catastrophic consequences. As Ben Bernanke and virtually every economist agree, America and the world would be better off without it.

None of these legislative gimcracks make any sense to people observing America from abroad. None of them were created deliberately by people who thought they would be a good way to run a country. They are historical errors that have crept into our system's DNA and proven impossible to eradicate. But these weird loopholes have been seized on by Republicans to force the system of government into a succession of endless crises rather than have to compromise with Democrats and actually run the country. American politics at the moment is dominated by a succession of arcane, convoluted and arbitrary ceremonies performed by fakirs and zealots, fervently intoning the catechisms of long-dead sages, apparently unconcerned that they are bringing the real tasks of government to a disastrous standstill. Perhaps "banana republic" isn't the right phrase; "decadent empire" might be better. But either way, a trillion-dollar coin doesn't seem like it would have added much to the indignity.