i'm not gonna reply to all of this, but i am going to make one point. human beings working jobs as baggers and checkers can actually increase business if they build rapport with customers and take care of those customers. those workers can be the difference between customers going to that store or driving to the one down the street. these people can help increase revenue, which is more than what some stupid impersonal computer can do. honestly, why would people go through the trouble of scanning the stuff themselves, trying to figure out how to pay, and then bagging all of that stuff and then putting it back into the cart to move it out to the car? service is completely underrated. if a person can get me through a checkout line fast and be very nice and personable, i am much more willing to shop there than somewhere where the staff are jerks. customer service, provided by people to people, will improve business even if it creates more overhead. there are reams of data to support this. customer service is an art, and people who are good at it do very well, and in turn, their bosses' bottom line improves.
you can laugh at my suggestions all you want, but if you look at the data you will see that creating jobs like this actually would help the economy.
This stuff is funny. Not only do you guys want to have non-recurring, non-generating salaries (point 3), you want us to decrease the use of technology and effeciency so folks can have un-needed jobs. How 'bout folks train themselves for the "new" (funny stuff) economy? Those self-check things where you take the scanner around as you put groceries in your bag in carts are such a time saver. Yes, they mess up from time to time, but 1 employee can service 4 lines. That's how you keep food prices down(for example).
As for point 2 - well, that's a company by company thing. Some companies outsource. Some companies automate. Others have great customer service. I never get a computer when I call Directv or Bose. Always someone from the US. 2 of the best customer service experiences I have. I try not to use companies that automate or outsource. Not because I'm against it philosophically. But, because it ends up being crappy cook book customer service. Most of who's recommendations I've either tried before I called or my 4 year old could figure out. That's why competition is a good thing. If there were alternatives, I wouldn't use these types of companies. But guess what? They seem to exist where either the entire industry does it, or there's little competition. Forcing it by Governmental decree is stupid. If you are a top notch customer service person, I'd imagine Directv and Bose are always looking for good people.
Get eductated in things that have value to the others and the economy, and be willing to go out and get it. We should feel entitled to nothing other than life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
But paying someone to dig a ditch and then someone else to fill it in is not good policy. Infrastructure projects go on every summer. I don't know about where you are, but Minneapolis alone has about 30 projects going on right now. what are you referring to when you say "infrastructure projects? i am referring to repairing our crumbling roads, widening roads, rebuilding bridges and overpasses to make them not only more sound, but more efficient so that gridlock is avoided and less traffic, which would cause less idling of engines and less burning of fossil fuels and less pollution. we are building a bridge across the mississippi river now that has been years in the planning. we are rebuilding overpasses and bridges and we have more roadworkers employed now than at any time in the last 10 years. i am also talking about things like what my city is doing. they have hired a company to come in and trim trees away from powerlines so that the trees do not fall on them and cause massive outages. some cities here are burying the powerlines. it has greated a lot of jobs,
All of the things that people talk about fixing the problem are the reason we are where we are at. NO ONE in government for the last 40 years has given a shit about the value of the dollar. They have expected wages to keep up with inflation but that was never going to be possible. So you start trying with what you know...throw money at it...and then it gets worse. Big surprise. how do we keep inflation down and wages up? i would like to hear it so i can tell my congressman.
When Clinton said the age of big government was over it was a turning point for the country. Bush II made that an after thought with not only unnecessary war spending but also unnecessary program and department creation and Obama has followed suit. we can point fingers and blame bush II and obama untile we are blue in the face. the fact is that shit has happened. how do we go forward and fix it? i am not buying that "job creators need tax incentives" tired argument that has ben going on forever. "job creators" have had 10 years of bush incentives, so where are the jobs??
It is sad for me that people think the government action is the only way out of this problem. It isn't, and it will never be the be all end all. Creating legislation that makes hiring more attractive to the private sector is a good way to get people working. Paying money they don't have so people can fill ditches is not a good idea. It is like the school nurse trying to treat cancer. Sure they might be able to give you some tylenol, maybe even make you feel better for a day...but you are going to die from it eventually. That is where we are going. Something needs to change. So people talk about government solving the problems with programs...how do you pay for those? raise taxes, taking money from people who have earned it, whether you agree with how they earned it is not under review. Tax reform is necessary however. And i think that would help.
I have said it a million times...if we damn near doubled tax revenue today we would still run a deficit. there is something wrong with that... i am convinced that taxes are going to have to be raised if we are going to get out of this. where in history has any government balanced a budget by cutting spending only? it is mathematically impossible, and if we cut all programs immediately it would be such a shock to the system that you are going to have millions of people suddenly cut off from health insurance, millions cut off from welfare, millions of students trying to learn at underfunded schools, and the list goes on. spending can not be cut immediately, but taxes can be raised immediately and it would have an immediate effect on the deficit. if we cut the deficit in half, wouldn't that be a better thing than what we have now? if we cut it by half each year by several years we can get there eventually, but we can not cut all of that spending immediately and expect millions of people not to be affected by it.
At what point does standing on principle mean that you are deliberately trying to sabotage the country? it means that you are trying to sabotage the economy when there are votes that you can make that will spur the economy, but you don't vote for it because it might make the black guy look like he knows what he is doing. it is sabotaging the economy when people refuse to compromise and claim "standing on principle" when those principles were completely ignored, and even abandoned when your guy was in the white house? what the republicans are doing, playing the fiddle while the economy crashes is dickish at best, and treason at worst, because betraying your country to make the president look bad is just as bad as what nero did.
As for what is going on is an absolute joke, I completely agree. But I think we disagree on what the joke part is...I happen to think it is a joke to think the government that put us on this terrible road is going to be able to fix it with the same policies.
what policies that are the "same" are you speaking of? tax increases along with spending cuts is not the same old tactic.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,426
i'm not gonna reply to all of this, but i am going to make one point. human beings working jobs as baggers and checkers can actually increase business if they build rapport with customers and take care of those customers. those workers can be the difference between customers going to that store or driving to the one down the street. these people can help increase revenue, which is more than what some stupid impersonal computer can do. honestly, why would people go through the trouble of scanning the stuff themselves, trying to figure out how to pay, and then bagging all of that stuff and then putting it back into the cart to move it out to the car? service is completely underrated. if a person can get me through a checkout line fast and be very nice and personable, i am much more willing to shop there than somewhere where the staff are jerks. customer service, provided by people to people, will improve business even if it creates more overhead. there are reams of data to support this. customer service is an art, and people who are good at it do very well, and in turn, their bosses' bottom line improves.
you can laugh at my suggestions all you want, but if you look at the data you will see that creating jobs like this actually would help the economy.
Absolutely correct. Customer service is a huge part of why my wife (with my help and others) has been able to keep her bookstore open in a time when most have closed. People like us because we're friendly and helpful. Besides, it's very difficult to create a sense of community with machines.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
But, regarding the self-checkout lanes, I've pretty much abandoned all stores that have that shit, instead going to my local meat shop, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Wegmans & Costco for the most part. I don't think it's a coincidence that these big supermarket companies like Safeway & Albertson's are struggling. (Safeway acquired a local Phila supermarket chain called Genuardi's about 10 years ago and practically destroyed the name, finally selling it off after closing over half of the stores.) Their cost cutting strategies are not working. Most people don't want to check themselves out - they want to talk to a real person and perhaps have somebody bag their groceries, and maybe run through a dummy store card if they forget theirs. This self checkout thing is another symptom of corporate America's stupid short-term thinking, along with outsourcing and computer customer service.
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i'm not gonna reply to all of this, but i am going to make one point. human beings working jobs as baggers and checkers can actually increase business if they build rapport with customers and take care of those customers. those workers can be the difference between customers going to that store or driving to the one down the street. these people can help increase revenue, which is more than what some stupid impersonal computer can do. honestly, why would people go through the trouble of scanning the stuff themselves, trying to figure out how to pay, and then bagging all of that stuff and then putting it back into the cart to move it out to the car? service is completely underrated. if a person can get me through a checkout line fast and be very nice and personable, i am much more willing to shop there than somewhere where the staff are jerks. customer service, provided by people to people, will improve business even if it creates more overhead. there are reams of data to support this. customer service is an art, and people who are good at it do very well, and in turn, their bosses' bottom line improves.
you can laugh at my suggestions all you want, but if you look at the data you will see that creating jobs like this actually would help the economy.
I would agree with you to a point. Yes, this CAN happen. But, being blunt here, the salary you are paying those folks, you are not getting ENOUGH that it will make the difference you are talking about. This has already been decided, as most small, local grocers are out of business. Sure, the personal attention was nice. But, ultimately, price and convenience wins out. Those stores had to charge more for various reasons (not the least of which was keeping the "greeters" on the payroll and inventory issues - price, selection and quantity.).
Figure out how to pay? I think I can either slide my own card through the credit/debit machine or slip bills into the slot. Sure, the first time or 2 it was a bit trying, but now, it is so easy to have all my groceries bagged the way I like it, so I can unload easily at home. The extra time it takes to scan in the aisle myself is more than saved watching someone try to figure out how to put more than 1 thing in each bag. And if my 8 or 10 year old son is with me, they know how to use the scanner. If you need them, let me know. They are for hire.... If someone is too stupid to figure out the scan/bag/pay process, the stores have left the other lines open for them. I don't come to the store to socialize. I want out of there as quickly as possible. My time is money. I don't need to watch a high school kid (which is who takes most of those jobs anyway) scan and bag my groceries.
Sorry. The world doesn't work the way you tell it to.
But, regarding the self-checkout lanes, I've pretty much abandoned all stores that have that shit, instead going to my local meat shop, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Wegmans & Costco for the most part. I don't think it's a coincidence that these big supermarket companies like Safeway & Albertson's are struggling. (Safeway acquired a local Phila supermarket chain called Genuardi's about 10 years ago and practically destroyed the name, finally selling it off after closing over half of the stores.) Their cost cutting strategies are not working. Most people don't want to check themselves out - they want to talk to a real person and perhaps have somebody bag their groceries, and maybe run through a dummy store card if they forget theirs. This self checkout thing is another symptom of corporate America's stupid short-term thinking, along with outsourcing and computer customer service.
Trader Joe's and Costco! :thumbup:
Sorry. The world doesn't work the way you tell it to.
i'm not gonna reply to all of this, but i am going to make one point. human beings working jobs as baggers and checkers can actually increase business if they build rapport with customers and take care of those customers. those workers can be the difference between customers going to that store or driving to the one down the street. these people can help increase revenue, which is more than what some stupid impersonal computer can do. honestly, why would people go through the trouble of scanning the stuff themselves, trying to figure out how to pay, and then bagging all of that stuff and then putting it back into the cart to move it out to the car? service is completely underrated. if a person can get me through a checkout line fast and be very nice and personable, i am much more willing to shop there than somewhere where the staff are jerks. customer service, provided by people to people, will improve business even if it creates more overhead. there are reams of data to support this. customer service is an art, and people who are good at it do very well, and in turn, their bosses' bottom line improves.
you can laugh at my suggestions all you want, but if you look at the data you will see that creating jobs like this actually would help the economy.
I would agree with you to a point. Yes, this CAN happen. But, being blunt here, the salary you are paying those folks, you are not getting ENOUGH that it will make the difference you are talking about. This has already been decided, as most small, local grocers are out of business. Sure, the personal attention was nice. But, ultimately, price and convenience wins out. Those stores had to charge more for various reasons (not the least of which was keeping the "greeters" on the payroll and inventory issues - price, selection and quantity.).
Figure out how to pay? I think I can either slide my own card through the credit/debit machine or slip bills into the slot. Sure, the first time or 2 it was a bit trying, but now, it is so easy to have all my groceries bagged the way I like it, so I can unload easily at home. The extra time it takes to scan in the aisle myself is more than saved watching someone try to figure out how to put more than 1 thing in each bag. And if my 8 or 10 year old son is with me, they know how to use the scanner. If you need them, let me know. They are for hire.... If someone is too stupid to figure out the scan/bag/pay process, the stores have left the other lines open for them. I don't come to the store to socialize. I want out of there as quickly as possible. My time is money. I don't need to watch a high school kid (which is who takes most of those jobs anyway) scan and bag my groceries.
i disagree.
people on the right bitch about there being no jobs for high school kids, yet when presented with opportunity to provide them, they refuse.
just another symptom of sabotaging the economy. when romney wins all of this is going to "magically" change...
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
"Eductated". Freudian slip, my friend? (Sorry- couldn't resist.)
I notice you didn't address my point about creating jobs that are useful and good for the planet as well. Does that not make at least some sense?
Nor should you. I blame the teachers....
But, yes - I agree. I'm not a climate change person. I believe the earth has been warming/cooling for Billions of years and our impact is minimal.
However, that being said - the more we can do to clean it up, the better off we are. And, if we can create jobs that are useful and does the planet good, that's awesome. But, we have to be smart in balancing that vs. the all out assault on industry. Clearly, there's stuff we have to stop (waste dumping, etc), while others we need to be vigiant (We need more oil drilling and how can that be done intelligently). We also have to realize this all costs money, so we as individuals have to be willing to pay more for that purpose. I'm fine with that, and try to do my part where it makes sense. But, I'm also not putting solar panels on my house when it will take me 20 years to make my invetsment back and make it look ugly in the process. (but I'm also not pretending to do my part by paying others to do my Gory part).
Sorry. The world doesn't work the way you tell it to.
people on the right bitch about there being no jobs for high school kids, yet when presented with opportunity to provide them, they refuse.
just another symptom of sabotaging the economy. when romney wins all of this is going to "magically" change...
Please don't paint me with a right or left. Quite frankly, HS kids having jobs is the least of our issues. We need to create jobs for folks ready to enter the job market (and if that's where HS kids end up, then great, but they have to realize the limitations of that choice).
I don't get the sabotaging thing. That seems to be political speak.
We need to create lasting jobs that "recycle" money. Public works jobs (which we do need) don't do that. Mainly private sector jobs do that. Public jobs just eat tax money. Building a road does not create anything. We need the roads, so I'm not suggesting doing away with it. But, creating public works projects will not save the economy. We need real jobs that only the private sector can create. How do we do that? Obama thinks the private sector is fine relative to the public sector. To that, I say :? .
I have no idea if Romney is the proper person. Quite honestly, he's far from my choice. But, at this point, he's the only choice. Because I KNOW Obama is clueless. Anyone clinging to him is clearly doing it for either purely political right/left, liberal/conservative reasons or racial reasons (what would happen if 90% of whites voted for a particular President? Think the media would be up in arms wondering why whites are racists? Why doesn't it work the other way?) It's the economy, stupid. And this guy is wrong. Is Romney right? I have no idea. But, I've got nothing to lose (and there's no other realistic option this fall).
Even if you follow your supposition that Congress is stone walling Obama (and isn't it possible that he's wrong, and they're right?), what purpose does it serve giving him another 4 years? Wouldn't your logic carry you into a further abyss? Especially since the last mid-terms showed folks voted AGAINST Obama. Wouldn't the next mid terms just further entrench that (again, just following your logic)?
Sorry. The world doesn't work the way you tell it to.
Absolutely correct. Customer service is a huge part of why my wife (with my help and others) has been able to keep her bookstore open in a time when most have closed. People like us because we're friendly and helpful. Besides, it's very difficult to create a sense of community with machines.
I agree with you here as well. For a book store, I seek out local ones b/c they generally have more knowledgable folks. Just like I go to local record stores. (This is not to say I have not gone to the big guys in either instance).
To me these are clearly places where the personal touch helps. Sure, when I'm picking up my new Steven King book or PJ album, I don't need help, but I appreciate the personal touch. So, I still seek out the locals when possible. I also like the physical touch of these things, so while I have bought a book or 2 on my iPad, I still go buy physical books b/c to me, there's no replacement for that. Different purposes.
Grocery store - no thanks. I do go to my local fruit market for the same rationale as above (And fresher cut stuff). But, for general groceries (Even weekly bananas, for example) - no, thanks. I can scan and bag the stuff myself.
EDIT: Sorry, forgot to make the point. The point being - those places/jobs serve purposes (At least as I as a consumer see value). If someday, I get outnumbered the other way, some folks will unfortunately need to find new ways to make a living. It may be sad, but we shouldn't FORCE it. Personal choice means just that.
Sorry. The world doesn't work the way you tell it to.
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brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,426
"Eductated". Freudian slip, my friend? (Sorry- couldn't resist.)
I notice you didn't address my point about creating jobs that are useful and good for the planet as well. Does that not make at least some sense?
Nor should you. I blame the teachers....
But, yes - I agree. I'm not a climate change person. I believe the earth has been warming/cooling for Billions of years and our impact is minimal.
However, that being said - the more we can do to clean it up, the better off we are. And, if we can create jobs that are useful and does the planet good, that's awesome. But, we have to be smart in balancing that vs. the all out assault on industry. Clearly, there's stuff we have to stop (waste dumping, etc), while others we need to be vigiant (We need more oil drilling and how can that be done intelligently). We also have to realize this all costs money, so we as individuals have to be willing to pay more for that purpose. I'm fine with that, and try to do my part where it makes sense. But, I'm also not putting solar panels on my house when it will take me 20 years to make my invetsment back and make it look ugly in the process. (but I'm also not pretending to do my part by paying others to do my Gory part).
We're definitely at a stale mate on climate change. Time will prove one of us right and one of us wrong there and I'd LOVE IT if you are right.
I'm not sure what you mean by "assault on industry"... but then I'm a US citizen and we don't have much in the way of industry anymore- most of that goes on in developing and third world countries where the assault is what industry is doing to the planet we live on. I'm also concerned that our worrying about saving money in the short time will cost us our ability to go on living in the long term. As I've said before, there will be no economic and social issues if the world is inhospitable to our species. If you can afford solar panels, for example, why not do so? There are alternative to putting them on you roof (solar canopies for example) and they aren't as ugly as they used to be and in the long run you will save money which is one of your stated concerns. And even more importantly, everything we do to lessen our impact on the environment will increase the chance of your kids having a decent life.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
We're definitely at a stale mate on climate change. Time will prove one of us right and one of us wrong there and I'd LOVE IT if you are right.
I'm not sure what you mean by "assault on industry"... but then I'm a US citizen and we don't have much in the way of industry anymore- most of that goes on in developing and third world countries where the assault is what industry is doing to the planet we live on. I'm also concerned that our worrying about saving money in the short time will cost us our ability to go on living in the long term. As I've said before, there will be no economic and social issues if the world is inhospitable to our species. If you can afford solar panels, for example, why not do so? There are alternative to putting them on you roof (solar canopies for example) and they aren't as ugly as they used to be and in the long run you will save money which is one of your stated concerns. And even more importantly, everything we do to lessen our impact on the environment will increase the chance of your kids having a decent life.
Well, I didn't mean industry literally. But, that's my bad wording. I just meant the general over regulation that at times is not only unnecessary is counter productive (And costly) to the very economy we're claiming to save.
As for your last part - I guess the easy answer is - I'm a jerk. I only care about myself. But, to tell you the truth, the $20K for solar panels is now an inground pool for me and my family to enjoy. Not much enjoyment out of solar panels, and I'll sink more money into the pool as opposed to waiting 20 years to get my money back. See? I'm a jerk! (And I'm putting that nicely).
I don't mean to be flip about it, but it does highlight the conundrum. That's also why I said - I help when I can. Maybe, can is the wrong word. When I desire. I'm still a jerk either way. But, my pool did help save a job. I built it over the winter when the pool company is usually without business. And now, of course, I have to build the landscape. So, I've got my own little public works project going on. I'm doing my part.... And those folks that i've hired will spend the money they've earned (And pay taxes). If I had even higher taxes, maybe I don't do all that. And then the Gov't could misuse my extra taxes and those folks I hired have fewer jobs to work on. That's what Conservatives mean when talking about not raising taxes. I use my disposable income to generate future economic impact. Taxes don't.
Sorry. The world doesn't work the way you tell it to.
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,426
We're definitely at a stale mate on climate change. Time will prove one of us right and one of us wrong there and I'd LOVE IT if you are right.
I'm not sure what you mean by "assault on industry"... but then I'm a US citizen and we don't have much in the way of industry anymore- most of that goes on in developing and third world countries where the assault is what industry is doing to the planet we live on. I'm also concerned that our worrying about saving money in the short time will cost us our ability to go on living in the long term. As I've said before, there will be no economic and social issues if the world is inhospitable to our species. If you can afford solar panels, for example, why not do so? There are alternative to putting them on you roof (solar canopies for example) and they aren't as ugly as they used to be and in the long run you will save money which is one of your stated concerns. And even more importantly, everything we do to lessen our impact on the environment will increase the chance of your kids having a decent life.
Well, I didn't mean industry literally. But, that's my bad wording. I just meant the general over regulation that at times is not only unnecessary is counter productive (And costly) to the very economy we're claiming to save.
As for your last part - I guess the easy answer is - I'm a jerk. I only care about myself. But, to tell you the truth, the $20K for solar panels is now an inground pool for me and my family to enjoy. Not much enjoyment out of solar panels, and I'll sink more money into the pool as opposed to waiting 20 years to get my money back. See? I'm a jerk! (And I'm putting that nicely).
I don't mean to be flip about it, but it does highlight the conundrum. That's also why I said - I help when I can. Maybe, can is the wrong word. When I desire. I'm still a jerk either way. But, my pool did help save a job. I built it over the winter when the pool company is usually without business. And now, of course, I have to build the landscape. So, I've got my own little public works project going on. I'm doing my part.... And those folks that i've hired will spend the money they've earned (And pay taxes). If I had even higher taxes, maybe I don't do all that. And then the Gov't could misuse my extra taxes and those folks I hired have fewer jobs to work on. That's what Conservatives mean when talking about not raising taxes. I use my disposable income to generate future economic impact. Taxes don't.
To at least some degree we're all at least a little bit selfish and only care about ourselves, right? As as to you being "a jerk"- sorry, pal, I have to disagree with with you on that one.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
To at least some degree we're all at least a little bit selfish and only care about ourselves, right? As as to you being "a jerk"- sorry, pal, I have to disagree with with you on that one.
Thanks. You're too kind. That kind of talk has no place on AMT. Though, I guess you did have to disagree with me to get there.
Sorry. The world doesn't work the way you tell it to.
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,426
To at least some degree we're all at least a little bit selfish and only care about ourselves, right? As as to you being "a jerk"- sorry, pal, I have to disagree with with you on that one.
Thanks. You're too kind. That kind of talk has no place on AMT. Though, I guess you did have to disagree with me to get there.
We'll duel later but today's Friday so it's off to the lounge.
Cheers!
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently captured on video asserting that there are “78 to 81” Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party. Of course, it’s not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from either side of the aisle to say something outrageous. What made West’s comment — right out of the McCarthyite playbook of the 1950s — so striking was the almost complete lack of condemnation from Republican congressional leaders or other major party figures, including the remaining presidential candidates.
It’s not that the GOP leadership agrees with West; it is that such extreme remarks and views are now taken for granted.
We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.
The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.
When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.
“Both sides do it” or “There is plenty of blame to go around” are the traditional refuges for an American news media intent on proving its lack of bias, while political scientists prefer generality and neutrality when discussing partisan polarization. Many self-styled bipartisan groups, in their search for common ground, propose solutions that move both sides to the center, a strategy that is simply untenable when one side is so far out of reach.
It is clear that the center of gravity in the Republican Party has shifted sharply to the right. Its once-legendary moderate and center-right legislators in the House and the Senate — think Bob Michel, Mickey Edwards, John Danforth, Chuck Hagel — are virtually extinct.
The post-McGovern Democratic Party, by contrast, while losing the bulk of its conservative Dixiecrat contingent in the decades after the civil rights revolution, has retained a more diverse base. Since the Clinton presidency, it has hewed to the center-left on issues from welfare reform to fiscal policy. While the Democrats may have moved from their 40-yard line to their 25, the Republicans have gone from their 40 to somewhere behind their goal post.
What happened? Of course, there were larger forces at work beyond the realignment of the South. They included the mobilization of social conservatives after the 1973Roe v. Wade decision, the anti-tax movement launched in 1978 by California’s Proposition 13, the rise of conservative talk radio after a congressional pay raise in 1989, and the emergence of Fox News and right-wing blogs. But the real move to the bedrock right starts with two names: Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist.
From the day he entered Congress in 1979, Gingrich had a strategy to create a Republican majority in the House: convincing voters that the institution was so corrupt that anyone would be better than the incumbents, especially those in the Democratic majority. It took him 16 years, but by bringing ethics charges against Democratic leaders; provoking them into overreactions that enraged Republicans and united them to vote against Democratic initiatives; exploiting scandals to create even more public disgust with politicians; and then recruiting GOP candidates around the country to run against Washington, Democrats and Congress, Gingrich accomplished his goal.
Ironically, after becoming speaker, Gingrich wanted to enhance Congress’s reputation and was content to compromise with President Bill Clinton when it served his interests. But the forces Gingrich unleashed destroyed whatever comity existed across party lines, activated an extreme and virulently anti-Washington base — most recently represented by tea party activists — and helped drive moderate Republicans out of Congress. (Some of his progeny, elected in the early 1990s, moved to the Senate and polarized its culture in the same way.)
Norquist, meanwhile, founded Americans for Tax Reform in 1985 and rolled out his Taxpayer Protection Pledge the following year. The pledge, which binds its signers to never support a tax increase (that includes closing tax loopholes), had been signed as of last year by 238 of the 242 House Republicans and 41 of the 47 GOP senators, according to ATR. The Norquist tax pledge has led to other pledges, on issues such as climate change, that create additional litmus tests that box in moderates and make cross-party coalitions nearly impossible. For Republicans concerned about a primary challenge from the right, the failure to sign such pledges is simply too risky.
Today, thanks to the GOP, compromise has gone out the window in Washington. In the first two years of the Obama administration, nearly every presidential initiative met with vehement, rancorous and unanimous Republican opposition in the House and the Senate, followed by efforts to delegitimize the results and repeal the policies. The filibuster, once relegated to a handful of major national issues in a given Congress, became a routine weapon of obstruction, applied even to widely supported bills or presidential nominations. And Republicans in the Senate have abused the confirmation process to block any and every nominee to posts such as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, solely to keep laws that were legitimately enacted from being implemented.
In the third and now fourth years of the Obama presidency, divided government has produced something closer to complete gridlock than we have ever seen in our time in Washington, with partisan divides even leading last year to America’s first credit downgrade.
On financial stabilization and economic recovery, on deficits and debt, on climate change and health-care reform, Republicans have been the force behind the widening ideological gaps and the strategic use of partisanship. In the presidential campaign and in Congress, GOP leaders have embraced fanciful policies on taxes and spending, kowtowing to their party’s
Republicans often dismiss nonpartisan analyses of the nature of problems and the impact of policies when those assessments don’t fit their ideology. In the face of the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression, the party’s leaders and their outside acolytes insisted on obeisance to a supply-side view of economic growth — thus fulfilling Norquist’s pledge — while ignoring contrary considerations.
The results can border on the absurd: In early 2009, several of the eight Republican co-sponsors of a bipartisan health-care reform plan dropped their support; by early 2010, the others had turned on their own proposal so that there would be zero GOP backing for any bill that came within a mile of Obama’s reform initiative. As one co-sponsor, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), told The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein: “I liked it because it was bipartisan. I wouldn’t have voted for it.”
And seven Republican co-sponsors of a Senate resolution to create a debt-reduction panel voted in January 2010 against their own resolution, solely to keep it from getting to the 60-vote threshold Republicans demanded and thus denying the president a seeming victory.
This attitude filters down far deeper than the party leadership. Rank-and-file GOP voters endorse the strategy that the party’s elites have adopted, eschewing compromise to solve problems and insisting on principle, even if it leads to gridlock. Democratic voters, by contrast, along with self-identified independents, are more likely to favor deal-making over deadlock.
Democrats are hardly blameless, and they have their own extreme wing and their own predilection for hardball politics. But these tendencies do not routinely veer outside the normal bounds of robust politics. If anything, under the presidencies of Clinton and Obama, the Democrats have become more of a status-quo party. They are centrist protectors of government, reluctantly willing to revamp programs and trim retirement and health benefits to maintain its central commitments in the face of fiscal pressures.
No doubt, Democrats were not exactly warm and fuzzy toward George W. Bush during his presidency. But recall that they worked hand in glove with the Republican president on the No Child Left Behind Act, provided crucial votes in the Senate for his tax cuts, joined with Republicans for all the steps taken after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and supplied the key votes for the Bush administration’s financial bailout at the height of the economic crisis in 2008. The difference is striking.
The GOP’s evolution has become too much for some longtime Republicans. Former senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraskacalled his party “irresponsible” in an interview with the Financial Times in August, at the height of the debt-ceiling battle. “I think the Republican Party is captive to political movements that are very ideological, that are very narrow,” he said. “I’ve never seen so much intolerance as I see today in American politics.”
And Mike Lofgren, a veteran Republican congressional staffer, wrote an anguished diatribe last year about why he was ending his career on the Hill after nearly three decades. “The Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe,” he wrote on the Truthout Web site.
Shortly before Rep. West went off the rails with his accusations of communism in the Democratic Party, political scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal, who have long tracked historical trends in political polarization, said their studies of congressional votes found that Republicans are now more conservative than they have been in more than a century. Their data show a dramatic uptick in polarization, mostly caused by the sharp rightward move of the GOP.
If our democracy is to regain its health and vitality, the culture and ideological center of the Republican Party must change. In the short run, without a massive (and unlikely) across-the-board rejection of the GOP at the polls, that will not happen. If anything, Washington’s ideological divide will probably grow after the 2012 elections.
In the House, some of the remaining centrist and conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats have been targeted for extinction by redistricting, while even ardent tea party Republicans, such as freshman Rep. Alan Nunnelee (Miss.), have faced primary challenges from the right for being too accommodationist. And Mitt Romney’s rhetoric and positions offer no indication that he would govern differently if his party captures the White House and both chambers of Congress.
We understand the values of mainstream journalists, including the effort to report both sides of a story. But a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon distorts reality. If the political dynamics of Washington are unlikely to change anytime soon, at least we should change the way that reality is portrayed to the public.
Our advice to the press: Don’t seek professional safety through the even-handed, unfiltered presentation of opposing views. Which politician is telling the truth? Who is taking hostages, at what risks and to what ends?
Also, stop lending legitimacy to Senate filibusters by treating a 60-vote hurdle as routine. The framers certainly didn’t intend it to be. Report individual senators’ abusive use of holds and identify every time the minority party uses a filibuster to kill a bill or nomination with majority support.
Look ahead to the likely consequences of voters’ choices in the November elections. How would the candidates govern? What could they accomplish? What differences can people expect from a unified Republican or Democratic government, or one divided between the parties?
In the end, while the press can make certain political choices understandable, it is up to voters to decide. If they can punish ideological extremism at the polls and look skeptically upon candidates who profess to reject all dialogue and bargaining with opponents, then an insurgent outlier party will have some impetus to return to the center. Otherwise, our politics will get worse before it gets better.
<!-- e --><a href="mailto:tmann@brookings.edu">tmann@brookings.edu</a><!-- e -->
<!-- e --><a href="mailto:nornstein@aei.org">nornstein@aei.org</a><!-- e -->
Thomas E. Mann is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. This essay is adapted from their book “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism,” which will be available Tuesday.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Comments
you can laugh at my suggestions all you want, but if you look at the data you will see that creating jobs like this actually would help the economy.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
what policies that are the "same" are you speaking of? tax increases along with spending cuts is not the same old tactic.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Absolutely correct. Customer service is a huge part of why my wife (with my help and others) has been able to keep her bookstore open in a time when most have closed. People like us because we're friendly and helpful. Besides, it's very difficult to create a sense of community with machines.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
But, regarding the self-checkout lanes, I've pretty much abandoned all stores that have that shit, instead going to my local meat shop, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Wegmans & Costco for the most part. I don't think it's a coincidence that these big supermarket companies like Safeway & Albertson's are struggling. (Safeway acquired a local Phila supermarket chain called Genuardi's about 10 years ago and practically destroyed the name, finally selling it off after closing over half of the stores.) Their cost cutting strategies are not working. Most people don't want to check themselves out - they want to talk to a real person and perhaps have somebody bag their groceries, and maybe run through a dummy store card if they forget theirs. This self checkout thing is another symptom of corporate America's stupid short-term thinking, along with outsourcing and computer customer service.
Phila, PA 4/28/16; Phila, PA 4/29/16; Fenway Park 8/7/16; Fenway Park 9/2/18; Asbury Park 9/18/21; Camden 9/14/22;
Las Vegas 5/16/24; Las Vegas 5/18/24; Phila, PA 9/7/24; Phila, PA 9/9/24; Baltimore Arena 9/12/24
Tres Mtns - TLA 3/23/11; EV - Tower Theatre 6/25/11; Temple of the Dog - Tower Theatre 11/5/16
I would agree with you to a point. Yes, this CAN happen. But, being blunt here, the salary you are paying those folks, you are not getting ENOUGH that it will make the difference you are talking about. This has already been decided, as most small, local grocers are out of business. Sure, the personal attention was nice. But, ultimately, price and convenience wins out. Those stores had to charge more for various reasons (not the least of which was keeping the "greeters" on the payroll and inventory issues - price, selection and quantity.).
Figure out how to pay? I think I can either slide my own card through the credit/debit machine or slip bills into the slot. Sure, the first time or 2 it was a bit trying, but now, it is so easy to have all my groceries bagged the way I like it, so I can unload easily at home. The extra time it takes to scan in the aisle myself is more than saved watching someone try to figure out how to put more than 1 thing in each bag. And if my 8 or 10 year old son is with me, they know how to use the scanner. If you need them, let me know. They are for hire.... If someone is too stupid to figure out the scan/bag/pay process, the stores have left the other lines open for them. I don't come to the store to socialize. I want out of there as quickly as possible. My time is money. I don't need to watch a high school kid (which is who takes most of those jobs anyway) scan and bag my groceries.
Trader Joe's and Costco! :thumbup:
people on the right bitch about there being no jobs for high school kids, yet when presented with opportunity to provide them, they refuse.
just another symptom of sabotaging the economy. when romney wins all of this is going to "magically" change...
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
But, yes - I agree. I'm not a climate change person. I believe the earth has been warming/cooling for Billions of years and our impact is minimal.
However, that being said - the more we can do to clean it up, the better off we are. And, if we can create jobs that are useful and does the planet good, that's awesome. But, we have to be smart in balancing that vs. the all out assault on industry. Clearly, there's stuff we have to stop (waste dumping, etc), while others we need to be vigiant (We need more oil drilling and how can that be done intelligently). We also have to realize this all costs money, so we as individuals have to be willing to pay more for that purpose. I'm fine with that, and try to do my part where it makes sense. But, I'm also not putting solar panels on my house when it will take me 20 years to make my invetsment back and make it look ugly in the process. (but I'm also not pretending to do my part by paying others to do my Gory part).
Please don't paint me with a right or left. Quite frankly, HS kids having jobs is the least of our issues. We need to create jobs for folks ready to enter the job market (and if that's where HS kids end up, then great, but they have to realize the limitations of that choice).
I don't get the sabotaging thing. That seems to be political speak.
We need to create lasting jobs that "recycle" money. Public works jobs (which we do need) don't do that. Mainly private sector jobs do that. Public jobs just eat tax money. Building a road does not create anything. We need the roads, so I'm not suggesting doing away with it. But, creating public works projects will not save the economy. We need real jobs that only the private sector can create. How do we do that? Obama thinks the private sector is fine relative to the public sector. To that, I say :? .
I have no idea if Romney is the proper person. Quite honestly, he's far from my choice. But, at this point, he's the only choice. Because I KNOW Obama is clueless. Anyone clinging to him is clearly doing it for either purely political right/left, liberal/conservative reasons or racial reasons (what would happen if 90% of whites voted for a particular President? Think the media would be up in arms wondering why whites are racists? Why doesn't it work the other way?) It's the economy, stupid. And this guy is wrong. Is Romney right? I have no idea. But, I've got nothing to lose (and there's no other realistic option this fall).
Even if you follow your supposition that Congress is stone walling Obama (and isn't it possible that he's wrong, and they're right?), what purpose does it serve giving him another 4 years? Wouldn't your logic carry you into a further abyss? Especially since the last mid-terms showed folks voted AGAINST Obama. Wouldn't the next mid terms just further entrench that (again, just following your logic)?
I agree with you here as well. For a book store, I seek out local ones b/c they generally have more knowledgable folks. Just like I go to local record stores. (This is not to say I have not gone to the big guys in either instance).
To me these are clearly places where the personal touch helps. Sure, when I'm picking up my new Steven King book or PJ album, I don't need help, but I appreciate the personal touch. So, I still seek out the locals when possible. I also like the physical touch of these things, so while I have bought a book or 2 on my iPad, I still go buy physical books b/c to me, there's no replacement for that. Different purposes.
Grocery store - no thanks. I do go to my local fruit market for the same rationale as above (And fresher cut stuff). But, for general groceries (Even weekly bananas, for example) - no, thanks. I can scan and bag the stuff myself.
EDIT: Sorry, forgot to make the point. The point being - those places/jobs serve purposes (At least as I as a consumer see value). If someday, I get outnumbered the other way, some folks will unfortunately need to find new ways to make a living. It may be sad, but we shouldn't FORCE it. Personal choice means just that.
We're definitely at a stale mate on climate change. Time will prove one of us right and one of us wrong there and I'd LOVE IT if you are right.
I'm not sure what you mean by "assault on industry"... but then I'm a US citizen and we don't have much in the way of industry anymore- most of that goes on in developing and third world countries where the assault is what industry is doing to the planet we live on. I'm also concerned that our worrying about saving money in the short time will cost us our ability to go on living in the long term. As I've said before, there will be no economic and social issues if the world is inhospitable to our species. If you can afford solar panels, for example, why not do so? There are alternative to putting them on you roof (solar canopies for example) and they aren't as ugly as they used to be and in the long run you will save money which is one of your stated concerns. And even more importantly, everything we do to lessen our impact on the environment will increase the chance of your kids having a decent life.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Well, I didn't mean industry literally. But, that's my bad wording. I just meant the general over regulation that at times is not only unnecessary is counter productive (And costly) to the very economy we're claiming to save.
As for your last part - I guess the easy answer is - I'm a jerk. I only care about myself. But, to tell you the truth, the $20K for solar panels is now an inground pool for me and my family to enjoy. Not much enjoyment out of solar panels, and I'll sink more money into the pool as opposed to waiting 20 years to get my money back. See? I'm a jerk! (And I'm putting that nicely).
I don't mean to be flip about it, but it does highlight the conundrum. That's also why I said - I help when I can. Maybe, can is the wrong word. When I desire. I'm still a jerk either way. But, my pool did help save a job. I built it over the winter when the pool company is usually without business. And now, of course, I have to build the landscape. So, I've got my own little public works project going on. I'm doing my part.... And those folks that i've hired will spend the money they've earned (And pay taxes). If I had even higher taxes, maybe I don't do all that. And then the Gov't could misuse my extra taxes and those folks I hired have fewer jobs to work on. That's what Conservatives mean when talking about not raising taxes. I use my disposable income to generate future economic impact. Taxes don't.
To at least some degree we're all at least a little bit selfish and only care about ourselves, right? As as to you being "a jerk"- sorry, pal, I have to disagree with with you on that one.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
We'll duel later but today's Friday so it's off to the lounge.
Cheers!
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... story.html
Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently captured on video asserting that there are “78 to 81” Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party. Of course, it’s not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from either side of the aisle to say something outrageous. What made West’s comment — right out of the McCarthyite playbook of the 1950s — so striking was the almost complete lack of condemnation from Republican congressional leaders or other major party figures, including the remaining presidential candidates.
It’s not that the GOP leadership agrees with West; it is that such extreme remarks and views are now taken for granted.
We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.
The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.
When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.
“Both sides do it” or “There is plenty of blame to go around” are the traditional refuges for an American news media intent on proving its lack of bias, while political scientists prefer generality and neutrality when discussing partisan polarization. Many self-styled bipartisan groups, in their search for common ground, propose solutions that move both sides to the center, a strategy that is simply untenable when one side is so far out of reach.
It is clear that the center of gravity in the Republican Party has shifted sharply to the right. Its once-legendary moderate and center-right legislators in the House and the Senate — think Bob Michel, Mickey Edwards, John Danforth, Chuck Hagel — are virtually extinct.
The post-McGovern Democratic Party, by contrast, while losing the bulk of its conservative Dixiecrat contingent in the decades after the civil rights revolution, has retained a more diverse base. Since the Clinton presidency, it has hewed to the center-left on issues from welfare reform to fiscal policy. While the Democrats may have moved from their 40-yard line to their 25, the Republicans have gone from their 40 to somewhere behind their goal post.
What happened? Of course, there were larger forces at work beyond the realignment of the South. They included the mobilization of social conservatives after the 1973Roe v. Wade decision, the anti-tax movement launched in 1978 by California’s Proposition 13, the rise of conservative talk radio after a congressional pay raise in 1989, and the emergence of Fox News and right-wing blogs. But the real move to the bedrock right starts with two names: Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist.
From the day he entered Congress in 1979, Gingrich had a strategy to create a Republican majority in the House: convincing voters that the institution was so corrupt that anyone would be better than the incumbents, especially those in the Democratic majority. It took him 16 years, but by bringing ethics charges against Democratic leaders; provoking them into overreactions that enraged Republicans and united them to vote against Democratic initiatives; exploiting scandals to create even more public disgust with politicians; and then recruiting GOP candidates around the country to run against Washington, Democrats and Congress, Gingrich accomplished his goal.
Ironically, after becoming speaker, Gingrich wanted to enhance Congress’s reputation and was content to compromise with President Bill Clinton when it served his interests. But the forces Gingrich unleashed destroyed whatever comity existed across party lines, activated an extreme and virulently anti-Washington base — most recently represented by tea party activists — and helped drive moderate Republicans out of Congress. (Some of his progeny, elected in the early 1990s, moved to the Senate and polarized its culture in the same way.)
Norquist, meanwhile, founded Americans for Tax Reform in 1985 and rolled out his Taxpayer Protection Pledge the following year. The pledge, which binds its signers to never support a tax increase (that includes closing tax loopholes), had been signed as of last year by 238 of the 242 House Republicans and 41 of the 47 GOP senators, according to ATR. The Norquist tax pledge has led to other pledges, on issues such as climate change, that create additional litmus tests that box in moderates and make cross-party coalitions nearly impossible. For Republicans concerned about a primary challenge from the right, the failure to sign such pledges is simply too risky.
Today, thanks to the GOP, compromise has gone out the window in Washington. In the first two years of the Obama administration, nearly every presidential initiative met with vehement, rancorous and unanimous Republican opposition in the House and the Senate, followed by efforts to delegitimize the results and repeal the policies. The filibuster, once relegated to a handful of major national issues in a given Congress, became a routine weapon of obstruction, applied even to widely supported bills or presidential nominations. And Republicans in the Senate have abused the confirmation process to block any and every nominee to posts such as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, solely to keep laws that were legitimately enacted from being implemented.
In the third and now fourth years of the Obama presidency, divided government has produced something closer to complete gridlock than we have ever seen in our time in Washington, with partisan divides even leading last year to America’s first credit downgrade.
On financial stabilization and economic recovery, on deficits and debt, on climate change and health-care reform, Republicans have been the force behind the widening ideological gaps and the strategic use of partisanship. In the presidential campaign and in Congress, GOP leaders have embraced fanciful policies on taxes and spending, kowtowing to their party’s
Republicans often dismiss nonpartisan analyses of the nature of problems and the impact of policies when those assessments don’t fit their ideology. In the face of the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression, the party’s leaders and their outside acolytes insisted on obeisance to a supply-side view of economic growth — thus fulfilling Norquist’s pledge — while ignoring contrary considerations.
The results can border on the absurd: In early 2009, several of the eight Republican co-sponsors of a bipartisan health-care reform plan dropped their support; by early 2010, the others had turned on their own proposal so that there would be zero GOP backing for any bill that came within a mile of Obama’s reform initiative. As one co-sponsor, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), told The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein: “I liked it because it was bipartisan. I wouldn’t have voted for it.”
And seven Republican co-sponsors of a Senate resolution to create a debt-reduction panel voted in January 2010 against their own resolution, solely to keep it from getting to the 60-vote threshold Republicans demanded and thus denying the president a seeming victory.
This attitude filters down far deeper than the party leadership. Rank-and-file GOP voters endorse the strategy that the party’s elites have adopted, eschewing compromise to solve problems and insisting on principle, even if it leads to gridlock. Democratic voters, by contrast, along with self-identified independents, are more likely to favor deal-making over deadlock.
Democrats are hardly blameless, and they have their own extreme wing and their own predilection for hardball politics. But these tendencies do not routinely veer outside the normal bounds of robust politics. If anything, under the presidencies of Clinton and Obama, the Democrats have become more of a status-quo party. They are centrist protectors of government, reluctantly willing to revamp programs and trim retirement and health benefits to maintain its central commitments in the face of fiscal pressures.
No doubt, Democrats were not exactly warm and fuzzy toward George W. Bush during his presidency. But recall that they worked hand in glove with the Republican president on the No Child Left Behind Act, provided crucial votes in the Senate for his tax cuts, joined with Republicans for all the steps taken after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and supplied the key votes for the Bush administration’s financial bailout at the height of the economic crisis in 2008. The difference is striking.
The GOP’s evolution has become too much for some longtime Republicans. Former senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraskacalled his party “irresponsible” in an interview with the Financial Times in August, at the height of the debt-ceiling battle. “I think the Republican Party is captive to political movements that are very ideological, that are very narrow,” he said. “I’ve never seen so much intolerance as I see today in American politics.”
And Mike Lofgren, a veteran Republican congressional staffer, wrote an anguished diatribe last year about why he was ending his career on the Hill after nearly three decades. “The Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe,” he wrote on the Truthout Web site.
Shortly before Rep. West went off the rails with his accusations of communism in the Democratic Party, political scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal, who have long tracked historical trends in political polarization, said their studies of congressional votes found that Republicans are now more conservative than they have been in more than a century. Their data show a dramatic uptick in polarization, mostly caused by the sharp rightward move of the GOP.
If our democracy is to regain its health and vitality, the culture and ideological center of the Republican Party must change. In the short run, without a massive (and unlikely) across-the-board rejection of the GOP at the polls, that will not happen. If anything, Washington’s ideological divide will probably grow after the 2012 elections.
In the House, some of the remaining centrist and conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats have been targeted for extinction by redistricting, while even ardent tea party Republicans, such as freshman Rep. Alan Nunnelee (Miss.), have faced primary challenges from the right for being too accommodationist. And Mitt Romney’s rhetoric and positions offer no indication that he would govern differently if his party captures the White House and both chambers of Congress.
We understand the values of mainstream journalists, including the effort to report both sides of a story. But a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon distorts reality. If the political dynamics of Washington are unlikely to change anytime soon, at least we should change the way that reality is portrayed to the public.
Our advice to the press: Don’t seek professional safety through the even-handed, unfiltered presentation of opposing views. Which politician is telling the truth? Who is taking hostages, at what risks and to what ends?
Also, stop lending legitimacy to Senate filibusters by treating a 60-vote hurdle as routine. The framers certainly didn’t intend it to be. Report individual senators’ abusive use of holds and identify every time the minority party uses a filibuster to kill a bill or nomination with majority support.
Look ahead to the likely consequences of voters’ choices in the November elections. How would the candidates govern? What could they accomplish? What differences can people expect from a unified Republican or Democratic government, or one divided between the parties?
In the end, while the press can make certain political choices understandable, it is up to voters to decide. If they can punish ideological extremism at the polls and look skeptically upon candidates who profess to reject all dialogue and bargaining with opponents, then an insurgent outlier party will have some impetus to return to the center. Otherwise, our politics will get worse before it gets better.
<!-- e --><a href="mailto:tmann@brookings.edu">tmann@brookings.edu</a><!-- e -->
<!-- e --><a href="mailto:nornstein@aei.org">nornstein@aei.org</a><!-- e -->
Thomas E. Mann is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. This essay is adapted from their book “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism,” which will be available Tuesday.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."