US Politics Analysis: America Boldly Moves Ahead with "Parliamentary" Gridlock

EA's US Politics correspondent Lee Haddigan writes:

During the next Congress, which begins in January, we will witness a new politics. There is a change in the way business is done in Washington, brought about by the modern communications revolution.

The traditional role of backroom compromise and negotiation, which epitomised the American two-party system of government, is over. By accident rather than design, the US is setting out on a road that will end in the nation developing a parliamentary-style government, where the party in the minority oppose the policies of the majority administration almost automatically. For the foreseeable future, the US will be characterised by divisive and acrimonious politics on a scale never before seen. 

In the British Parliament, the leader of the largest party not in government has a constitutional role to be the Leader of the Opposition. The principle is that they oppose the government even when it is pursuing a policy with which they may agree. This is jusually not a major problem for the party in power. They are able to  pass legislation by controlling the majority of the vote in the House of Commons, overcoming through procedural rules even steadfast opposition in the House of Lords. The British system has its faults, for example, the excessive power of the executive in a supposed democracy, but it functions effectively.

In America, however, when one branch of the government is in the hands of the minority party and it is committed to opposing any policy of the majority party as a matter of principle, gridlock ensues. And today we no longer have the period for reflection, which the Founding Fathers envisaged, in which cooler heads would defuse the rhetoric of their hot-tempered colleagues and force a compromise.

The inbuilt role of compromise in the American Constitution has been usurped by a new national media and a new national politics dominated by grassroots organizations and outside groups that wield their influence in all 50 states simultaneously. Movements like the tea party, committed in theory to the principle of state rights, are helping end the original American concept of a federal government designed to protect state sovereignty while providing for a common solution to national problems. The Tea Party, and parallel organizations on the left, are making all politics national, putting those concerns above an individual state’s priorities when voters go the ballot box.

Consider the last elections. These mid-terms, more than any other such election in history, were a national referendum on the policies of President Obama and his administration. The sandbagging of Mike Castle in Delaware and Lisa Murkowski in Alaska by Tea Party candidates in Republican primaries illustrate how a national organization, well-financed and empowered by the enthusiasm of its grassroots supporters, can make any state election a national issue.

Eventually, Delaware and Alaska rejected these "insurgent" candidates with their national agenda, but the trend has begun where all state elections will become US campaigns, with the winners expected to adhere to policies advocated by a national leadership, be that the policy of the party or the organizations that helped elect it. The paradox is that the Tea Party movement, while championing state rights, will never see any inherent contradiction in their concentration on politics on the national scale.

The Internet, with the partisan media and political organizations that have used the medium most effectively, has riven this revolutionary change. When the Tea Party Express sent out its e-mails requesting donations for Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Joe Miller in Alaska, the respondent with a $20 donation from Hawaii or Idaho or New York, was not concerned with which candidate represented the interests of those states; their contribution was to advance the ideological agenda of a national movement.

And if these new political organisations are leading the charge to make all politics national, it is the media that is stoking the fires of partisanship in Washington. They are making compromise and deliberation impossible in the federal government because any sign of backsliding from the party ideological line, as defined by them, is immediately posted across the blogosphere and news sites. Financial matters like earmark reform are no longer debated with deliberation but become headline battles, with any deviation from a politician from the position of a website or media outlet denounced as "treachery".

National groups with an ideological agenda, on both sides, are trying to terrorise politicians into abandoning the middle ground of American politics and hoisting instead the standards handed to them by these groups as Congress descends into partisan brawling.

On 3 November, the day after the elections, Erick Erickson at RedState was already warning Republican senators up for re-election in 2012 they were "Potential Tea Party Targets" if they did not follow the conservative party line. What the voters of the states thought of senators who represented them was not the primary concern of Erickson; his concern was only how malleable they would prove to the national Tea Party agenda in this next Congress. Now moderate Republicans across the country, like Mike Castle in Delaware this year, face the same threat of a challenge from the Tea Party if they do not abandon the wishes of the moderate voters who elected them.

This is not just an issue on the "right". For their temerity in opposing the campaign of Nancy Pelosi to remain as Democratic leader in the House, some centrist Democrats have been warned by the liberal grassroots organization Progressive Change Campaign Committee that activists will "definitely be looking to replace some Blue Dogs next cycle with people who will not be captive to corporate funders and instead will embrace the economic populist agenda their constituents are demanding". The implicit threat was that these more moderate Democrats would face challenges in their next primaries, similar to the one Senator Blanche Lincoln faced in Arkansas from the progressive Bill Halter in June.

After the elections, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and the Heritage Foundation have all issued declarations calling for an immediate defunding of healthcare reform, prior to the eventual repeal of the legislation. However, what happens when Republicans, despite their majority in the House of Representatives, fail to overcome the Democrat majority in the Senate or a Presidential veto? We have a gridlock where neither side is prepared to compromise; to do so will result in their being labelled traitors to the respective ideological causes. Never mind that a majority of the electorate might agree with the compromise. 

It is highly unlikely that the next Congress will see debates where members will boo and hiss each other like their contemporaries in the British House of Commons. But the partisanship generated in the new politics by national organizations and the media is not going to disappearship; indeed, it is only going to increase.

The American system of government is not designed to function with the realities of this new politics. Without the backroom deals and compromises that have allowed governments to get things done in the past, the future of the process is unclear.  

As a result, I can see radical changes in the US political system lies ahead. I predict that, within 30 years, we will see a return to the democracy of Ancient Greece where the people vote as a collective on the legislation that rules them, taking part in a nationwide referendum on any matter of substance that affects them.

For those who scoff at the idea, consider this poll released by Rasmussen on Thursday. Discussing the proposals made for reducing the deficit by a bi-partisan group, a “national telephone survey [found[ that 58% of Adults believe voters should be given the chance to vote on the commission's recommendations rather than Congress. Just 24% disagree and feel Congress should have the final vote instead. Eighteen percent are not sure who should make the final decision.”

Perhaps my prediction will fall by the wayside, as the Atari of this new technological and communication era in politics. But what will be the new Microsoft that  the changes to get America past gridlock?