There is a remarkable op-ed in today’s Washington Post, with the even more remarkable title: Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem. You might want to stop and just mark the day you read that from one of the bastions of beltway common wisdom.
Even better, go read this great piece written by both sides — Thomas Mann from Brookings and Norm Ornstein from AEI.
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.
Those names were legendary deal-makers too — understanding that while you may have your own ideas, the business of governing was more important than some teenager-style dumb stubbornness just for the sake of the dumb stubbornness.
And this:
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?
And the Press is one of the keys, right? A Fourth Estate interested in accountability and information (which is different than narrative) would certainly make it harder for the Allen Wests of the world to claim that there are 70 or 80 communists in the Congress. The persistent laundering of the most extreme statements and views of the current GOP pretty much makes the press an enabler of this stuff — constantly mainstreaming the worst of the worst.