GOP At Root OF Dysfunction, Congressional Scholars Say

GOP At Root OF Dysfunction, Congressional Scholars SayExtremism In Congress: 'Even Worse Than It Looks'?

By NPR Staff | April 30, 2012

Excerpts:

“Congressional scholars Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein are no strangers to D.C. politics. The two of them have been in Washington for more than 40 years - and they're renowned for their carefully nonpartisan positions.

But now, they say, Congress is more dysfunctional than it has been since the Civil War, and they aren't hesitating to point a finger at who they think is to blame.

"One of the two major parties, the Republican Party, has become an insurgent outlier - ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition," they write in their new book, “It's Even Worse Than It Looks.”

Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, join Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep to talk about the book, which comes out this week.

Mann and Ornstein posit that democracy in America is being endangered by extreme politics. From the first day of the Obama administration, Ornstein says, our constitutional system hasn't been allowed to work.

"When we did get action, half the political process viewed it as illegitimate, tried to undermine its implementation and moved to repeal it," Ornstein says

"We didn't come to this conclusion lightly," he says. He points out that he and Mann have been highly critical of both parties in previous works. For example, they called the Democrats "arrogant, condescending and complacent" after Democrats had been in the majority for 40 consecutive years up to 1994.

"But for Republicans currently inside Congress, you have a new set of litmus tests and a new outlook that leads them in directions where you can't say that there is such a thing as climate change, you take positions on things like immigration that are simply off the rails, and if you compromise, you are basically defiling what the party stands for," Ornstein says.

"We're not exactly neutral or balanced, are we?" says Mann. But a central message of their book, he says, is that norms of nonpartisanship in the media and elsewhere sometimes do "a disservice to the reality."

"It disarms the electorate in a democracy when you really need an ideological outlier to be reined in by an active, informed public," Mann says.

Last year, Ornstein wrote a piece for Foreign Policy magazine about the 112th Congress titled "Worst. Congress. Ever." He says a lot of people wrote to him and said, "Oh, come on, what about the period right before the Civil War?"

"And I said, 'I'll grant you that. Do you really want to be compared to the period right before the Civil War?' You know, maybe we are better than we were in the period leading up to the Civil War, but that left us with a virtual fracture in our society. We don't want to see that happen," Ornstein says.

Some might argue, however, that a politics of extremes is necessary at times. Solutions are not necessarily to be found in the middle - sometimes we may have to go to the edges to solve our problems.

I think that's a reasonable argument," Mann says. "I don't believe in a golden mean; I don't believe you find policy wisdom between two polar points. I don't dismiss that possibility, but I look at the platform that's so ideologically based, that's so dismissive of facts, of evidence, of science, and it's frankly hard to take seriously."

Ornstein adds: "We're not against conservatives. Some of our heroes are very, very strong conservatives here. We're not against strong liberals, either. ... The problem is not one that is resolved by just turning it over to one side to do simplistic solutions that are based on more wishful thinking than reality. It's finding that hard reality."

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/30/151522725/even-worse-than-it-looks-extremism-in-congress
.......

An excellent article on their new book, telling it like it is, not what the pundits say it is, or simplistic nominees for president say it is...only the mentally damaged can take the republican party, as it is today, in any serious manner.

The republicans have offered no concrete solutions to our post-Bush doldrums, only high school jabs, insults, and lies to try to skew the conversation away from their flagrant ineptitude. Their antics in Congress would have been treasonous in any other time in American history, but they care little about history, the course that America will take in the coming years, or the wellbeing of the average American.

The republicans in Congress have been the scourge of America, defiling its very name, and using destructive angles to deliberately scuttle bills, actions that would bring this recession to a close and move on to a greater stability and prosperity for our country.

Everyone knows that the unpopularity of Congress reverberates from the House, which has a republican majority, to the Senate where many republicans reside only to scuttle important bills that would bring jobs to the millions still unemployed. To actively work against such a needed bill, is actual high treason to all unemployed Americans.

When in history has there been a black president whose very inauguration had republicans secretly planning to have him a one-term president? I believe that this signifies a cold, callous mentality that sniffs of a major conspiracy that should be dragged out to see the light of day before the elections, so that we can readily see what each elected official really stands for.

The media also must be touted as biased and keeping valuable information from the public, and keeping the populace informed of every single pulse beat of the extremists that permeate the very halls of our Congress nowadays.

 

interesting, it used to be that just one senator could hold the whole senate up with a filibuster, then slowly but surely they began to raise the bar to make it impossible for the minority to speak up. I know its hard to believe but the inherent difficulty in passing laws was and still is the intention of the constitution, it should be difficult to pass laws, how many more laws does America need before it is successful in the eyes of the democrats? This is more telling about the democrats who think through the force of law you make a great nation, and the republicans who think through freedom you make a great nation.

I do not advocate anarchy in anyway, but how many laws are there in America? Congress passes tens of thousands of laws each year but it is never enough, they always need more, maybe a little less law making, and a little more finding out way their constituents really want might make a better place.

Sometimes I think the federal government wants to make everyone a law breaker!

 

excellent

thank you for reposting this opinion piece. I was saddend when the same exact piece that you linked to on the Huffington Post worked it's way off of page 1 here. By linking to the same exact opinion piece, but this time on the NPR site, it makes it available for all those who did not previously have a chance to bask in the omniscience of these 2 liberal authors.

As this thread finds its way down the page please find the same exact article on another site and post it here. This wisdom deserves to be shared by all.

 

I though that article was familiar. Isnt the other thread nothing but people pointing out how Partisan the two people in the article are including one being a CFR member?

Sad that agent is now desperate enough to repost spam. I guess Huffpost is having a slow day.

 

nah, this is such a well written opinion piece that if you try hard enough you can convince yourself that it's factual. Just because it appeared on Huffington Post and was linked here by the same OP does not mean that it should not be linked to again and again and again as it appears on other sites.

 

Although I've never known the GOP to actually believe in freedom at all (unless you are a large corporate donor) I agree that we have far too many laws and that they are not doing much good other than filling up jail space. I happen to like gridlock.

 

It's called politics. If some congressmen or political pundit doesn't like it, they can get out of the game. it's hardball, not softball. No excuses; that's for democrats.

 

Yes Mann who worked for two Dems in Hart and O'Hara is definetely "bi-partisan".

And Ornstein is part of the CFR..... Another piece of Globalist trash errr i meant "bi-partisan"

http://www.cfr.org/search/?Ntt=Norman+J.+Ornstein&submit.x=0&submit.y=0.

Oh and we cant forget this gem....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6TXcQpgC9Q

 

An NPR scholar, pathetic, could you be any more biased...

 

^^^^ THREAD WIN!!!!



Agent_SPAM has just dropped a recycled Huffington Post spam piece on this forum.... YET AGAIN.

Thanks for exposing it SEC... for that... you win this thread by HB Surfer decree!

Someday the mods may put a stop to Agent Spam.

 

Now you are just repeating yourself.

You posted this same topic a few days ago.

 

Commies Must Go !!!

 

THANK YOU , ALL for insulting sources, authors, and poster all in a few replies....but it shows how scared you are.....

You cannot dispute anything that was written, so you resort to your insults, innuendoes, and attempt at source. author, and poster assassination. Not very elegant of you, but that is public political forums for you.....

C'mon put on your thinking caps for once and try to come up with some kind of acceptable replies, hopefully about the article presented for debate.

It gets so boring when you pile in after your leader, HBSurfer, with kindergarten playground insults, chatter, completely oblivious that this is a debating forum......

 

When your article cant even make it past the second sentence without lying your article is going to get attacked. Its that simple. Stop posting trash. Give people something to actually debate!

 

(PSSSSSSSST!! Everyone already knows that you are recycling Huffblows articles off of the NPR site. We're not all easily-duped Leftlemmings, unfortunately for you...)

The GOP offered a economic package that featured REAL CUTS in government largesse, which the "Super Committee" Leftninnies then aptly gutted.

Spare us your nonsense, please....

Yeah, those two are "known for their 'non-partisanship' "...to the American Communist Party, maybe...

 

HEY I gave you reps for having posted twice this same opinion piece. Once was linked from HuffPo and now this tme from NPR. The way i see it is that if you are so in agreement with the authors of the opinion piece that you created 2 threads about it, you deserve reps

 

Partisan nonsense. There's no major differences between the Republicrats and Demopublicans.

 

......
1) Wrong! Congressmen are duly elected officials and are not elected on the superfluous notion that politics is a "game" or "hardball". They are elected to do the job of the people; to run the country wisely, and honorably. Extremist republicans do neither, and do not have the will of the people either. The officials need to "get out of the game" before they get kicked out.

2) Dems do not need "excuses," republicans do! Dems don't have a Speaker that cannot lead his flock effectively, and cries often and long, as he whines about the unpopularity of the House and the republican portion of the Senate.

All he can do is promote a similar bill in the House which has already been passed by the Senate and present it as his own bill with the republican agenda added. The guy is a gigantic fraud.

It is a foregone conclusion that the republicans need to get their mojo back and kick out the fascist bag party that has infiltrated their formerly respectable party...and their vicious infighting is what is gonna sell them down the river of no return....only people with severely limited perception do not realize this fact.

 

The GOP has lost all sense and is dragging millions of voters and the country with it in its madness.

Just look what it does to its own nominees, once trough the "vetting" process they are hollow shells of what they once were.

 

I know. Hilary and Obama did nothing but smile at each other and buy each other ice cream during the last nomination....

 

We're not interested in running the country according to your morality and belief system. We'll obstruct, and make Congress dysfunctional clear up until the day you import enough left wing socialists from Central America to ensure Democrat Single Party rule in America. Once that happens, there will be war because Single Party Rule is tyranny.

 

I agree that Republicans are holding things up. But lets not forget how Democrats ruled the roost when Obama got elected. They had control of the Presidency, House and Senate and they tried to rule with an iron fist. Even shut the Republicans out on Obama care. Is it any wonder the Republicans are going to return the favor as much as possible with only the House under their control?

Look how the Democrats have tried to say Republicans don't like women, Blacks, and Hispanics. How can we expect the two sides to work together when we can't get either side on this board to agree on anything? Neither side will admit their side is wrong about anything , can we expect anything different from our representatives?

 

So your objective is to destroy the country? Thanks for saying so.

 

.....

1) By listening to the threatening radicals, 'birthers,' and racists, the republican party has driven itself into the far-right radical corner and are now stuck there for the election....

2) You can thank Mitt Romney's secret superPac's attack ads that went after each candidate as they became popular, demonizing them until they dropped out of favor....leaving Mitt center stage....after he bought off the primary with his secret attack ads. So now they are left with "the Mitt" the strangest conservative this nation will ever meet.

But Americans will never be 'strapped to the top of his car' enough to get him elected to the presidency.

 

You mean the plan they opposed before even knowing what it was?

You mean the plan obama tried reforming to please republicans but they wouldt even talk about uit?

You mean the republicans who held meetings before obama was even president on how to make sure he was a 1 term president?

They arent returingin anything, they just continue the policy they have held since the last term of clinton.

You mean after republicans called everything a war against they started by liberals? You meana after republicans said dozens of democrats are "commies trying to detsroy the USA"
...

Democrats are polite by republican standard.

One side is completly deaf and blame everyhting including there own mstakes on the other, how ca anyone work with a party like that?