In Thomas Friedman’s column he talks with Francis Fukuyama, most famous for The End of History and the Last Man. Their talk revolves around vetocracy:
a system designed to prevent anyone in government from amassing too much power to a system in which no one can aggregate enough power to make any important decisions at all
Through Friedman and Fukuyama forget to mention Americas penchant for going to war and killing things, is there a point in this vetocracy?
For starters, we’ve added more checks and balances to make decision-making even more difficult — such as senatorial holds now being used to block any appointments by the executive branch or the Senate filibuster rule, effectively requiring a 60-vote majority to pass any major piece of legislation, rather than 51 votes. Also, our political divisions have become more venomous than ever. As Russ Feingold, the former Democratic senator, once remarked to me: At the rate that polarization is proceeding, partisans will soon be demanding that consumer products reflect their politics: “We’re going to have Republican and Democrat toothpaste.”