Here we go again

With yet another fabricated fiscal crisis on the horizon, here is a look back at Lexington's review of It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With The New Politics of Extremism (2012):

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".  ...

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".