The Democrats are digging in their heels on Social Security, writes the New Republic’s Ryan Lizza, but perhaps another way of looking at it is that this just one more
sign of this administration’s failure in the
once-cherished art of developing bipartisan support via coalition building.
Whether going it largely alone is by choice or due to Democratic resistance, future generations won’t study this crew as being consensus mavens. But, then, perhaps the whole idea of trying to achieve some kind of unity on important issues is one that many politicos feel is passe.
Is bipartisan coalition building a vanishing art in Washington? A bit of Lizza’s piece:
It is getting increasingly difficult to
find any Democrat who backs President Bush’s plan for partially
privatizing Social Security. Private accounts are now officially out of
favor even among New Democrats, the most obvious source of potential
administration support. The Democratic Leadership Council and a new
centrist policy shop called Third Way both recently announced their
opposition. Over in the House, many have been eying Adam Smith, the
leader of the New Democrat Coalition, which has 67 members in the
House. But, in an interview with The New Republic,
Smith for the first time ruled out support for any proposal that
includes private accounts funded through a carve-out of the Social
Security payroll tax. "Social Security is a safety net. That’s what
it’s there for. It’s there to be the safest portion of your portfolio,"
he told me. "It’s a guaranteed benefit for a reason, and, for that
reason, I don’t support private accounts." Smith doesn’t speak for
every moderate Democrat, but, he added, "I think there is broad
consensus among New Democrats that you must not privatize the system."
Yes, partisans can blame it on the Democrats or, as LIzza does further down in his piece, applaud this as the Democrats finally feeling their political cojones and acting like a "real" opposition party.
But, sadly, it reflects also the abandonment of authentic bipartisan coalition building and the inability to build coalitions. The whole White House/Rove modus operendi in recent years is to talk about working with the Democrats but that means working with them if they go along with their ideas, with minimal room for actual compromise. And when push comes to shove, if they have the GOP votes, they shove.
This great power politics nurtures polarization in the U.S. On the other hand, some will (and do) argue that polarization is what’s needed to clarify differences, mobilize political bases of support and get things done. But the bottom line is that whoever wins these polarized battles loses because the other side just can’t wait until the next battle. And another potentially brutal battle is always there around the corner.
Right now it looks like its going to be a tempestuous two years heading up to the Congressional elections, indeed…..
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.