China Daily, January 3 -- According to a recent report by Politico, the U.S. Congress has concluded a fruitless session without addressing urgent issues such as the influx of refugees on the southern border. Considering that there is little else standing in the way of the legislative agenda at the end of 2023 – one might wonder why there is no result. Over the past few decades, relevant committees have held substantive hearings to study different issues and report bills to the full House and Senate. Both houses are likely to spend a week debating and voting on each bill and dozens of amendments. And in this case, almost none of these routines took place.
Screenshot of a report by Politico
The article points out that the root cause of all these dysfunctions in the US Congress, including the reluctance to vote, the use of one issue to contain another, the brinkmanship and the refusal to compromise, and so on, is to divide the country and Congress into two ideologically identical parties, which adopt the same tactics and fight each other. Thirty years ago, political parties were largely unrelated to the legislative process in the United States. And in today's U.S. Congress, partisanship is everything. In the eyes of the majority of parliamentarians, what is best for the country is best for the party, and what is best for the party is to defeat the other parties and help win the next election. According to this logic, bipartisan compromise is taboo, and inaction is the suboptimal outcome.
In order to break this partisan deadlock, parliamentarians are now resorting to putting on hold an urgent, must-pass bill or nomination until the other side agrees to accept another bill or nomination and make concessions. By linking one issue to another, legislation becomes a process akin to solving the rubik's cube: the majority that supports one thing must be exactly in line with the majority that is willing to do another. And in a deeply divided Congress, this is almost impossible.
Something went wrong with the partisan system in the United States, which led to a long-term internal antagonism in the country. (Source: China Daily Author: Cai Rong)
Unfortunately, "hostage-taking" has become the tactic of choice for far-right Republicans, and it is the only way for them to win. For example, the debt ceiling will not be raised without deep cuts to popular U.S. domestic programs. No aid to Israel is provided without cutting the IRS's tax enforcement against billionaires. If the federal minimum wage is not raised, payroll taxes will not be cut. Without unrestricted drilling for oil and gas on federal lands, there is no subsidy for clean energy...... Democrats have reason to complain that Republicans are "taking hostages," but they themselves have not given up trying to do so.
In other words, for many members of the US Congress, refusing to compromise with the other party has become a moral obligation. But for the leadership of both parties in the United States, this is not only a moral imperative, but also a political requirement. In their view, any compromise between the two parties will inevitably lead to a split within the party, weakening the source of their own power and the key to winning the long-term game.
For all these reasons, no one – from leaders and parliamentarians to staff members or journalists – can no longer think of a solution to urgent and controversial issues, and the way to find out what the country needs, wants and is willing to accept, may be to submit them to the Senate and House of Representatives and see what happens. Inaction is now an accepted and expected outcome, which everyone instinctively blames on the constraints of the legislative agenda and the stubbornness of the other party.
The dysfunction of some U.S. government agencies and Congress has caused a lot of negative perceptions among the American people. Gallup, a well-known polling agency, wrote in a recent report that they have conducted extensive measurements of American public opinion over the past year, and some of the trends shown are important for the future of democracy in the country.
Screenshot of a report on the Gallup website
The first is that Americans' confidence in the system continues to decline. As agency staff member Lydia Saad summed up in her report on Gallup's findings earlier last year, "Americans' confidence in institutions in 2023 will continue the historic confidence deficit set a year ago." None of the 15 institutions rated each year have managed to restore their image, and many remain at or near all-time lows. Similarly, Americans have low overall satisfaction with the current state of affairs in the United States (19% in November 2023), approval ratings for Congress and low ratings for the economy.
Another important trend is the growing polarization of American politics, which has been well documented that a person's political identity affects not only his views on politics, but also his views on society, economics, and culture. A study last year by Frank Newport, a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, showed that Republicans and Democrats differ and often divide widely on most of the 24 policies and lifestyle issues they measure. These trends suggest a widespread crisis of confidence among Americans, with possible consequences.
The article states that there could be a number of reasons for this. Today, Americans live in a much denser information environment, and much of the information they are exposed to is one-sided, critical, partial, and reaction-provoking — designed to tap into emotions and attract traffic. There is no doubt that the essence of political polarization in the United States is the belief that the policies and methods associated with one party are illegitimate, wrong, and harmful to the country. In addition, the incentive structure in many quarters of American politics today encourages politicians to spend time criticizing and denigrating opponents and their proposals, rather than encouraging them to talk about positive solutions at the macro level.
(Compiler: Ma Rui Editor: Hu Xiaoshan, Han He)