The Anatomy of a Crisis: Deadlock and Dysfunction in American Government

Narratives of crisis and dysfunction in the American political system increasingly dominate our news cycles. The protracted negotiations over the national budget are simply the latest in a string of governmental failures to garner substantial news coverage. Every year, it seems that the United States spends ever more time on the verge of fiscal collapse. As Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne remarked in a February column, “journeys to the fiscal brink [have become] as commonplace as summertime visits to the beach.” The causes of dysfunction in American government run deeper than the ideological divide between the Democratic and Republican Parties to the institutional arrangements that dictate the structure of American politics.
Blame the Messenger?
At least some of the perceived increase in the frequency and severity of crises has come from the changing nature of the media landscape. Shira Toeplitz, acting politics editor for Roll Call, told the HPR that as online news and the twenty-four hour news cycle have become king, “[t]he demand for content has increased … which has in turn fostered a hypercompetitive marketplace” for journalism. She added, “crises make for news that sells papers and gets advertisers.” Harvard Kennedy School professor Matthew Baum notes that since conflict has always been newsworthy, “the crisis frame is often emphasized in the media,” sensationalizing many current events. Moreover, some such as Rutgers University professor David Greenberg feel that there is an “overconsumption of political news” which only intensifies this perception of crisis.
However, Toeplitz contends that there is more to this phenomenon than simply a glut of media coverage: “the makeup of Congress makes this situation not only probable, but…[something] that happens often.” Jonathan Martin, a senior political reporter at Politico, agrees, noting in an interview with the HPR that “Congress never passes annual appropriations bills anymore. The Senate hasn’t passed a budget in years, and the House budget is never taken up.” Our political system is not functioning according to the intentions of our framers.
Deadlock Politics
Nevertheless, something is amiss in the state of American politics. Whether because of governmental crisis, partisan gridlock, or systemic dysfunction, the often fractious but usually functional cogs of American government have ground nearly to a standstill. The sequester negotiations mark the fourth major budgetary crisis the United States has faced in the past two years. With impending negotiations in May over the debt ceiling, there is no end in sight. The congressional approval rating, which peaked slightly after the inauguration of the 113th Congress, has recently dropped to 13 percent.
The American political system is no stranger to disagreement. Both the Bush and Clinton administrations operated with split houses of Congress and differing party affiliations between the House majority and the presidency. Nor are failed budget negotiations unique to the Obama presidency; during Clinton’s second term, the failure of budget negotiations led to a 40-day government shutdown. However, in previous administrations, even the most intractable disagreements were typically resolved in months. The current stalemate is entering its third year, with little hope of resolution in sight.
Polarization and Crisis
Pundits have warned of the increasing polarization of American politics for years. Some have claimed that the 112th Congress was the most polarized since Reconstruction, and a 2012 report from the Pew Research Center found that the American electorate is at its most polarized in a quarter century.
Indeed, Baum argues, “there has been a pretty steady trend in the last couple of decades towards partisan polarization, disproportionately coming from the right.” The rise of the Tea Party in the 2010 and 2012 elections has shifted the core of the Republican Party further right, while the Democratic Party has not experienced a similar ideological shift. The protracted economic downturn seems only to have exacerbated the problem. Baum remarked, “when the pie is expanding, politics is less zero-sum than when the pie appears to be shrinking.” Economic volatility is often the impetus for partisan rancor.
Redistricting and Electoral Risk
The widening gap between the left and the right, however, is insufficient to fully explain Washington’s inaction. While genuine polarization of opinion may be on the rise, the effects are amplified by the gerrymandering of Congressional districts. Many have focused on the historic gains of Tea Party-backed Republicans at the national level in 2010, but Toeplitz explained that “they also made [gains] in the state houses and in the governor’s mansions.” Since state legislatures control the redrawing of Congressional districts in most states, conservatives gained considerable leverage in the latest round of redistricting. But Democrats are guilty of the same strategies. Indeed, according to the spatial analysis firm Azavea, the dubious honor of most-gerrymandered state belongs to Democratic-controlled Maryland.
As politically motivated redistricting practices have put fewer districts “in play” each election cycle, the cost of alienating moderate constituencies has decreased substantially. Instead, electoral gains are made increasingly on the extreme ends of the political spectrum, particularly as moderate Republicans contend with the possibility of primary challenges from Tea Party conservatives. Former Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) fell to a Tea Party challenger in the 2012 election cycle. During the most recent round of budget negotiations, rumors abounded that even such Republican stalwarts as Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) might face primary challenges in 2014, should they prove too willing to compromise with Senate Democrats. Chambliss has since announced his intention to retire after this term.
The Tea Party’s ascendance, fueled by this nexus of polarization and gerrymandering, has wrought striking changes in American politics. Baum observes that “a world in which the Congress, especially the House, is increasingly gerrymandered and districts are purged of ideological heterogeneity” gave the Tea Party an astonishing degree of influence over the entire Republican Party. Meanwhile, faced with an influx of out-of-state money from ideologically-oriented political action committees, the centrists and moderates on both sides of the aisle, who might once have been counted upon to broker compromises, are now being pushed out in favor of more orthodox candidates.
Our Disheartened Politics
Despite the increasingly severe consequences of self-imposed spending cuts, the response to the deadlock has been largely muted. While the debt ceiling debate of 2011 and resulting credit rating downgrade sparked some outrage, the sequester budget cuts that went into effect on March 1 have provoked little response, save for resignation. The dampened reaction can be attributed in part to the fact that the sequester is taking effect gradually. These cuts, consisting of unrenewed defense contracts and partially defunded social services, will draw little public attention until the cuts begin to have a tangible impact.
Beyond a general sense of apathy, ultimately, is a sense that the narrative of crisis that has so dominated public discourse is beginning to become ingrained in our psyche. Toeplitz suggests that the American public is beginning to suffer from “crisis fatigue,” as each new crisis prompts a smaller reaction than its predecessor. Institutional reform, according to Martin and Greenberg, appears increasingly unlikely in this environment, and a resolution to the crisis cycle may unfortunately require a truly cataclysmic political event for Americans to demand political change.