How polarized is America today? Not all that polarized by historical standards. In 1856, a South Carolina Congressman beat a Massachusetts Senator half to death with his cane in the Senate chamber ”” and received dozens of new canes from appreciative fans. In 1905, Idaho miners bombed the house of a former governor who had tried to break their union. In 1965, an anti”“Vietnam War activist stationed himself outside the office of the Secretary of Defense and, holding his year-old daughter in his arms, set himself on fire. (She lived; he did not.) By that measure, a Rush Limbaugh rant isn’t particularly divisive. Americans may yell at one another about politics, but we mostly leave our guns and bombs at home, which is an improvement….
What really defines our political era, as Ronald Brownstein notes in his book The Second Civil War, is not the polarization of Americans but the polarization of American government. In the country at large, the disputes are real but manageable. But in Washington, crossing party lines to resolve them has become excruciatingly rare.
The result, unsurprisingly, is that Americans don’t like Washington very much. According to a CNN poll conducted in mid-February, 62% of Americans say most members of Congress do not deserve re-election, up 10 points from 2006. Public skepticism about the Federal Government and its ability to solve problems is nothing new, but the discontent is greater today than it has been in at least a decade and a half. Witness the growth of the Tea Party movement, a diffuse conglomeration of forces that have coalesced around nothing so much as a shared hostility toward Washington. Or the Feb. 15 announcement by Indiana Senator Evan Bayh ”” a man who almost made it onto three presidential tickets ”” that he would not stand for re-election because “Congress is not operating as it should” and “even in a time of enormous challenge, the people’s business is not getting done.”
“[W]ith metronomic regularity, we go through these moments in Washington where we complain about the government being broken. These moments have one thing in common: The Left is having trouble enacting its agenda.â€
George Will
Note Time Magazine’s spin on why the Tea Party folks are so angry and active.
“In the country at large, the disputes are real but manageable. But in Washington, crossing party lines to resolve them has become excruciatingly rare.
The result, unsurprisingly, is that Americans don’t like Washington very much.”
Of course, “crossing party lines to resolve” differences is not why Americans are so mad. They’re incensed at the priorities, beliefs, and ideology that are driving decisions in the Federal government.
Thus, Washington is not broken. Washington is just wrong in what its legislators are trying to do.
There needs to be *more* polarization, not less. We just need more on the right side. ; > )
And George Will is so right.
And of course the liberals are in great favor of inaction (and the filibuster) when they are in the minority.
No, the liberals are not “in great favor of inaction (and the filibuster) when they are in the minority–not by the Republican standard. These Republicans have used the filibuster more than all previous administrations ADDED TOGETHER. Whereas in the early years of our republic, the filibuster was used approximately once every 10 years, and prior to this current gang of Republicans, it was used once or twice a year, they use it on virtually every proposal, every confirmation, every nomination, every bill.