Sabotage and Polarization

The clinical sabotage of our government at the hands of Newt Gingrich, and later continued by the likes of John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell, will leave an indelible stain on our country’s history. The surgical precision with which Gingrich was able to destroy the institution of Congress, evidenced in Mann and Ornstein (2016), should appall each and every one of us, regardless of party loyalty. As Lee (2015) notes, “governing any democracy without compromise is impossible” (262). Barber and McCarty (2015) assert that “polarization has fundamentally altered legislators’ incentives to negotiate” (45) despite negotiation and cooperation a vital necessity for a functioning government. Lee (2015) continues to warn us that “there is no guarantee that the constitutional system will remain workable under current conditions” (276) and fears this contemporary impasse of polarization will not be sustainable.

Gingrich’s chosen method of sabotage was to “unite his Republicans in refusing to cooperate with Democrats in committee and on the floor, which publicly attacking them as a permanent majority presiding over and benefiting from a thoroughly corrupt institution” (Mann and Ornstein, 2016, 33). By intentionally commanding Republicans in Congress to refuse to cooperate with Democrats, Gingrich delegitimized Congress, ruining its reputation among voters, and thus establishing the Republican Party as programmatically against the very government that Members of Congress take an oath to defend (Mann and Ornstein, 2016)!

This is what it means when we say that politics is polarized. Polarization denotes “the division into two sharply contrasting groups,” (Lee, 2015, 263); in the case of Gingrich, it’s the Republicans “saving the government” from the anti-flag, pathetic, lying, and cheating Democrats (Mann and Ornstein, 2016, 39). By attacking his adversaries with overheated, hyperbolic rhetoric about Republicans’ “mortal enemies” (43), polarization-induced gridlock occurs, resulting in public, social, and fiscal policy that “does not adjust to changing economic and demographic circumstances” (Barber and McCarty, 2015, 40), nor does such policy adjust to public opinions and calls for reform. For example, as McConnell has deployed Gingrich’s methods of sabotage in the Senate, several Democratic priorities that passed the House have stalled in the Senate at the behest of McConnell alone, who openly boasts about his refusal to cooperate with Democrats. One such priority is anti-corruption, which “75% of 2018 voters in battleground House districts said cracking down on Washington corruption was their top priority” (Nilsen, 2019). Thus, the House passed H.R.1, For the People Act, 234–193 (Congress.gov). This bill addresses “voter access, election integrity, election security, political spending, and ethics for the three branches of government” (Congress.gov); in the face of the public’s wishes, this bill has been left to die on the desk of McConnell.

Governance requires its Members of Congress to adjust and adapt as its constituencies. Governance requires competency and cooperation to “ enact policies both in response to social problems and in accordance with the preferences of democratic majorities” (Lee, 2015, 262). Governance requires “the ability to carry out routine functions such as budgeting, appropriations, and appointments to the executive branch and judiciary” (Lee, 2015, 262). When a single person can derail governance as Gingrich has, and more recently, McConnell, Democrats and Republicans are forced further apart and party members’ preferences (to maintain and sustain fundraising and nominations), become more distinctly bimodal (Lee, 2015).

References
Congress.gov. H.R.1 For the People Act of 2019. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1 Accessed online 6/26/20

Ella Nilsen. 2019. “New polling shows voters — including independents — want Congress to pass an anti-corruption bill.” Vox. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/3/18148633/hr1-voters-independents-anti-corruption-bill-poll Accessed online 6/26/20

Frances Lee. 2015 “How Polarization Affects Governance.” Annual Review of Political Science. 18: 261–282

Michael Barber and Nolan McCarty. 2015. “The Causes and Consequences of Polarization.” In Political Negotiation: A Handbook.” Jane Mansbridge and Cathie Jo Martin eds.

Thomas Mann & Norman Ornstein. 2016. It’s Even Worse Than it Was. Chapter 2