Thomas e. Mann & Norman J. Ornstein - It's Even Worse than it Looks

Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein

It’s Even Worse Than It Looks

This book is an expose on the partisan divide in the country today.  We’ve had partisan divides many times before in our history.  The authors say this one is different, running deeper and because of new factors like mass media, will not heal itself.  Hence, the current political situation in this country is worse than it looks.  It’s very scary.

The authors note a study which concludes that the United States is not a government which lends itself to parliamentary/ideological/adversarial  parties in the fashion of a parliamentary democracy like Britain or Canada.  These type of parties in our company lead to disaster.  Exactly right.  P. xiii-xiv

One of the two parties in the US has become an outlier, ideologically extreme, impervious to compromise, hostile to science and facts, and dismissive of the legitimacy of the other party.  This makes it impossible for the parties to cooperate to solve the country’s problems.  P. xiv

The next debt ceiling crisis may be worse than the last one in 2011, and the next crisis is coming up.  P. 4

The fact is that the partisan divide is strictly the fault of the current Republican Party, which has narrowed itself into a cohesive, parliamentary, no-compromise, bigoted political party which impervious to doing the right thing for the country.  For the Republicans it’s party before country.  It’s the richest 1% before the 99%.  It’s a party willing to take the country to the brink of financial disaster to achieve its partisan purposes---protecting wealth and privilege.  The Republicans will do anything not to help Barack Obama get reelected.  A party acting like this is a disaster for the country.  Anything Obama is for, the Republicans are against.

Our political/constitutional system provides for divided government.  It should allow for dysfunctional government.

These authors trace the beginning of the current situation back to Newt Gingrich with his willingness to risk the country for partisan purposes---the politics of hostage taking.

The authors present some solutions, but none of them will work.  The most intriguing is the idea of mandatory voting---voting would be required by law subject to penalty for not voting.    This would militate against parties courting minority constituencies.  Too bad it will never happen.

This is a profoundly depressing book.  The system will not heal itself.  I do not know what can be done.  The economic crisis of 2008 only emboldened the Republicans.  This country is in trouble.