Government and politicians seem incapable of achieving consensus.

By Amber Phillips (TWP)
with Caroline Anders

We hear almost every day from readers who are frustrated, agitated and downright angry at government. They feel democracy isn’t working for them.

Today, I bring you some validating — if depressing — news: You’re not wrong, writes Dan Balz, The Washington Post’s chief political correspondent, and Post data reporter Clara Ence Morse.

As part of a new series assessing the state of American democracy, they explain: “Faced with big and challenging problems — climate, immigration, inequality, guns, debt and deficits — government and politicians seem incapable of achieving consensus. On each of those issues, the public is split, often bitterly. But on each, there are also areas of agreement. What’s broken is the will of those in power to see past the divisions enough to reach compromise.”

So, why are things so broken? Balz and Morse go in depth about major institutional challenges facing us. You should read their report. I will attempt to sum it up here: Basically, the Constitution was not set up to deal with such intense polarization. It risks breaking under all this pressure without major changes.
Minority rule has become the law of the land

And that has clearly favored one party of late: Republicans. Some examples:

The presidency: It’s getting more common for a minority of the population to elect the president, because of the electoral college system. The last time Republicans won the presidency with the popular vote was in 2004, when George W. Bush defeated John Kerry. In 2000 and 2016, they lost the popular vote but won the White House by winning in the right states to secure an electoral college victory.

Congress: Republicans hold more congressional seats in less populated states, meaning they represent fewer people. So 50 Republican senators represent about 43.5 percent of voters. Despite that, Republicans have a good shot of taking back the majority in next year’s Senate election by winning in red states such as Montana, West Virginia and Ohio.

The Supreme Court: Four of the nine justices — including three nominated by President Donald Trump — were confirmed by senators representing a minority of the population, Balz and Morse found out. That’s led to rulings that lean heavily against public opinion, such as ending the constitutional right to abortion, allowing more guns to be carried in public and weakening anti-discrimination laws for LGBTQ+ people.

State legislatures: It’s getting easier to pass sometimes extreme legislation, because state legislatures have increasingly become mostly red or mostly blue. Right now there are only two legislatures split with Republicans controlling one chamber and Democrats controlling another: Virginia and Pennsylvania. In the rest, one party controls it all.



Abortion demonstrators face off outside the Supreme Court in June 2022 the day after Roe v. Wade was overturned. (Astrid Riecken for The Washington Post)

The solution feels far away

To address many of these issues, Balz and Morse write, we would need to amend the Constitution. But because the country is so polarized, that could be nearly impossible.
 
“The danger,” historian Jill Lepore, who directs the Amendments Project at Harvard University, told Balz and Morse, “is that it becomes brittle and fixed — and then the only way to change your system of government or to reform a part of it is through an insurrection.”

(Politicians are increasingly talking about achieving their agendas through violent means. There was the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, of course. And a Republican legislator in Michigan recently warned of a “civil war.”)