It's Worse Than It Looks:
How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism
by
Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein
Per Amazon:
Acrimony and hyperpartisanship have seeped into every part of
the political process. Congress is deadlocked and its approval ratings
are at record lows. America’s two main political parties have given up
their traditions of compromise, endangering our very system of
constitutional democracy. And one of these parties has taken on the role
of insurgent outlier; the Republicans have become ideologically
extreme, scornful of compromise, and ardently opposed to the established
social and economic policy regime.
In It’s Even Worse Than It Looks,
congressional scholars Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein identify two
overriding problems that have led Congress—and the United States—to
the brink of institutional collapse. The first is the serious mismatch
between our political parties, which have become as vehemently
adversarial as parliamentary parties, and a governing system that,
unlike a parliamentary democracy, makes it extremely difficult for
majorities to act. Second, while both parties participate in tribal
warfare, both sides are not equally culpable. The political system faces
what the authors call “asymmetric polarization,” with the Republican
Party implacably refusing to allow anything that might help the
Democrats politically, no matter the cost.
With
dysfunction rooted in long-term political trends, a coarsened political
culture and a new partisan media, the authors conclude that there is no
“silver bullet” reform that can solve everything. But they offer a
panoply of useful ideas and reforms, endorsing some solutions, like
greater public participation and institutional restructuring of the
House and Senate, while debunking others, like independent or
third-party candidates. Above all, they call on the media as well as the
public at large to focus on the true causes of dysfunction rather than
just throwing the bums out every election cycle. Until voters learn to
act strategically to reward problem solving and punish obstruction,
American democracy will remain in serious danger.
