Even worse

By Lexington

THE title and subtitle seem to say it all: "It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism" (Basic Books). But the anger that courses through this latest analysis of America's broken politics comes as a surprise. Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and Thomas Mann of Brookings are highly respected analysts. Their earlier book on Congress ("The Broken Branch") became something of a classic. Now they seem to be close to despair. Coming from them, the claim that the American system is even worse than it looks deserves to be taken with the utmost seriousness.

The book's thesis is not unusual. In brief, they argue that America's political parties have become as vehemently adversarial as the parties in a parliamentary system. But whereas a parliamentary system allows the majority to rule while the minority bides its time, America's separation of powers seldom gives one party the power to rule unconstrained. So the emergence of parliamentary-style parties in America is a formula for “willful obstruction” and gridlock.

So far, so much conventional wisdom. But Mann and Ornstein provide one of the most careful, forensic accounts so far of how Congress has worked in these conditions. They are also astonishingly frank about what they think of the Republican Party -- and about the media. They say the GOP has become "an insurgent outlier -- ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition".

The media come in for a tongue-lashing as well: "We have been struck by the failure of the media, including editors, reporters, and many 'expert' commentators, to capture the real drivers of these disturbing developments". The mainstream media strives for balance, trying to present both sides of the story. But Mann and Ornstein say that a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon is a distortion of reality. "Both sides in politics are no more necessarily equally responsible than a hit-and-run driver and a victim; reporters don't treat them as equivalent, and neither should they reflexively treat the parties that way."

I have a problem with this argument. I argue in my print column this week that Mann and Ornstein are in danger of committing the very sin they decry in the Republicans. That is, they deny the legitimacy of a party with whose policies they vehemently disagree. It is plainly true that today's GOP has veered away from a (very rough) bipartisan consensus on the size and role of the state that has prevailed for many decades. But if it really does want to lead a revolution against big government or the whole legacy of the New Deal, it has every right to do so.

Where the authors are on stronger ground, and what makes their book essential reading, is the part that has to do with the Republicans' methods rather than their aims. From filibusters to "holds" to the "hostage taking" over the budget and the debt ceiling, the Republicans in the Senate and House have stretched the rules and conventions of Congress to breaking-point. Their brinkmanship over the debt ceiling was highly irresponsible, and led as feared to a downgrading of America's credit rating. But were the mainstream media supine over this? That's not my recollection: the GOP's behaviour was widely denounced.

To their great credit, Mann and Ornstein have also devoted a good deal of thought to ways the system can be rescued and improved. They have a list of "bromides to avoid", which include the hope that a third party or independent presidential candidate can ride to the rescue like a white knight on a horse. They make mincemeat of the case for a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. Though they favour it, they explain why redistricting reform is not the cure-all many suppose. They are keen to help more people to vote, by making regsitration easier and moving elections from Tuesday to Saturday and Sunday. They praise Australia's system of mandatory attendance at the polls but acknowledge that this entails "a modest loss of freedom".

The book offers plenty of other constructive ideas. But there is no mistaking the authors' pessimism. They fear that the coming election will neither affirm the existing order nor accomplish sweeping change "in a way that will recreate a functional and legitimate political process". If President Obama is elected he may still be hobbled by a divided Congress, or one in which the Republicans have a majority in both chambers. Even if the Democrats recapture the House and hold the Senate, the Republican minority could continue to use filibusters and other measures to block the majority's business. And even if the Republicans captured the White House and both chambers and embarked on sweeping change, the changes "would come to a country that is deeply divided politically, and more than half of whose citizens would likely strongly oppose these moves." Depressing stuff.