In many of my posts here and in my Cagle column I’ve noted that our politics has now evolved into a kind of ideological professional wrestling, where policies have become in a way secondary to each side seeing their political sports team win, defeating the other side, giving high fives. But it wasn’t always this way and CNN’s John Avlon has a must-read column on the issue.
It’s our political Quote of the Day but here are extensive quotes with some comments (but be sure to read it in full).
Two months after playing partisan chicken with the debt-ceiling limit and leading directly to a U.S. downgrade, our dysfunctional divided Congress was at it again — carelessly bringing the country to the brink of a government shutdown.
This time the debate was over disaster-relief spending. Republicans wanted to ensure that any extra money needed for FEMA in the wake of Hurricane Irene would be matched by cuts in spending elsewhere. The Democrat-controlled Senate rejected the House bill as a form of extortion and so the stalemate continued through the weekend, bringing FEMA within days of being insolvent. Ultimately, the two parties came to an agreement that funded FEMA but simply kicked the prospect of a government shutdown to right before Thanksgiving.
It used to be that at least a disaster could unite Congress to think beyond party politics. But we are living in a time where extreme measures are used every day. The threat of a government shutdown is seen as negotiating leverage. Threat of filibuster has gone from a rare event to a routine parliamentary procedure.
There is no question why Washington is broken. The two parties have become so polarized they seem unable to reason together. Special interests threaten to eclipse the national interest.
Hyper-partisanship is hurting our country because it is stopping us from being able to solve the serious problems we face.
And, really, anyone who listens to talk radio, watches ideological cable shows, or surfs the Internet will conclude that solving problems seems to have become almost secondary to “winning.”
And the “winning” partisans are getting is often equally as impressive and convincing as when Charlie Sheen declared he was “winning” when many Americans concluded he was anything but the epitome of a winner.
This latest flirtation with a government shutdown just shows how tone-deaf Congress has become. House Republicans played politics with disaster relief and felt that they would be rewarded by their base if they do so. Their all-or-nothing mindset leads them to the logic that Democrats will be to blame for a shutdown if they simply refuse to do what Republicans demand.
What’s doubly dumb about this particular battle is that it is over relatively small change — some $2.5 billion in disaster relief at a time when a bipartisan joint super committee is struggling to find a minimum of $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction. President Obama and Speaker John Boehner and 35 senators have encouraged the super-committee to go bigger — to $4 trillion in deficit and debt reduction — the amount almost achieved by so-called grand bargain that failed to materialize in August. Bipartisan committees like Bowles-Simpson and the Gang of Six — as well as a plan proposed by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan — also set out different paths to a $4 trillion savings, bringing us to a more sound fiscal footing.
But it doesn’t matter whether it’s small change or not; the juices are triggered by the political partisan or ideological combat. And you see how pervasive the approach is you have to ask: if America is this way in the early 21st century exactly where you project we will be in 10 or 20 years?
Avlon looks how things used to work, once upon a time…
For most of the 20th century, congressional voting patterns were clustered toward the center — the presence of conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans allowed for creative across-the-aisle coalitions. But in the past two decades, as the parties have become more ideologically and geographically stratified, the capacity for coalition building has decreased. The rigged system of redistricting and closed partisan primaries have helped further polarize the process as centrists are pushed out of both parties.
Likewise, in the past divided government has not meant dysfunction. America accomplished the Marshall Plan and the National Highway System under divided government during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. The achievements of the Reagan era came with liberal Democrat Tip O’Neill at the helm of the House of Representatives. The two men disagreed deeply on political philosophy, but they had the capacity to disagree agreeably, sit together and tell stories at the end of the day. (And not incidentally, Reagan and O’Neill were able to form a bipartisan commission to help fix social security in the 1980s by requiring both parties to jump in together). Even Bill Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich found ways to work together despite intense personal dislike, achieving welfare reform and turning deficits into a surplus.
Good points. But many partisans will merely ignore them. Facts such as the ones Avlon outline (and facts take WORK and RESEARCH which is not as easy as vomiting up the views of a favorite talk show host) are not generally acknowledged, unless they are cherry picked or distorted to fit an ideological argument. AND:
But now, politics is increasingly seen as ideological blood sport and a zero-sum game. The parties are willing to politicize disaster relief and bring our nation to the brink of default. They oppose even bipartisan plans for fear that the other side might gain politically. Trust is eroded and replaced with the demonization of disagreement. This approach is fundamentally incompatible with the facts of divided government, which requires some degree of compromise based on defining common ground and then building on it.
Some hyper-partisans in Washington are simply looking to the next election to solve these problems. But the problem of extreme partisanship is bigger than one election. During this cancer in our body politic will require a cultural change. It will require actively supporting responsible voices in both parties. It will require pushing for policies like redistricting reform and open primaries. There need to be procedural reforms in congress as well — for example, ending the special interest weapon of “secret holds” and requiring that filibusters be conducted in person.
And, indeed, I’ve often argued that for starters America would be better off politically when all of the Baby Boomers (except me, of course) have passed from the scene.
In a larger sense, we need to rediscover some forgotten wisdom from the founding fathers. As Thomas Jefferson said in his first inaugural address, after a bitterly hard-fought campaign, “every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.” We need to remember what President Lyndon Johnson used to say: “I am an American, a Texan, and a Democrat — in that order.”
There are some in both parties who not only might not like that quote but would argue that some members of each of the parties that they do not belong to are not “real” Americans.
We have been through much tougher times as a nation before and emerged stronger. The danger today is that this crisis is self-inflicted and self-indulgent. The parties need to remember that they are not the purpose of our politics — and even though they might be polarized, the vast majority of the American people are not.
And there’s the key point:
IS THERE a great, silent majority in America who aren’t partisan or ideological blowfishes?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.