[BostonCard]

First, the politicians on both the left and right essentially refuse to work together for the good of the country, and it's been moving in that direction for a very long time, basically as long as it was clear that entitlements would one day sink the economy.  I'd like to figuratively knock their heads together, same with their respective supporters. The days of Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan compromising are long gone (with a few exceptions, such as prison reform).  As each generation has performed poorly compared to the prior generation, and as it's become clear that entitlements will sink us, politicians have shifted from "compromise" to "blame" and have implemented policies to enforce "blame" as their primary contribution, on both the left and right.  Society and politics has become polemicized.  

This seems very odd given that we have passed four major coronavirus bills in near record time on a bipartisan and nearly unanimous basis in little over two months.  Yeah, you hear partisans sniping, which is as old as Hamilton and Jefferson, but by and large the idea that our politicians cannot work together is not borne out by the facts.


[deleting the examples]



BC

Yes, the five anecdotes you cite make it appear that the two parties cooperate.  In reality, that's not the case. George Washington warned against it, John Adams feared it, and (starting with the 2010 midterms) America has split into two very different parties.  This Atlantic article, "America is Now the Divided Republic that the Framers Feared," published earlier this year and written by Lee Drutman makes the case far better than I could.



In short, for most of the country's existence, the two parties were able to cooperate.  There were different factions and coalitions in each party that would seek common ground.



https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...on/604213/


...

Not to be pedantic, but you stated categorically that our two parties "refuse to work together", and I clearly identified examples where that was not the case.  More importantly, they were relevant examples.  They were examples of the two parties working together to fight this very crisis.  If your original point was a general observation of the two parties becoming more sorted and less likely to work together as a matter of course, I agree with you, and I will cite two books (from opposite ends of the spectrum):

Yuval Levine's A Time to Build: https://www.amazon.com/Time-Build-Commun...261&sr=1-1
Ezra Klein's: Why We are Polarized: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Were-Polarize...225&sr=1-1

So I don't disargee that generally we are more polarized than before.  I imagine that while in the acute phase the two parties will be able to come together to pass legislation, this is a transient stage, and once the worst is passed, and especially after we start rebuilding, that ideological differences between the parties will reassert their prominence, and by 2021, no matter who wins, you will see bipartisanship wane substantially.

But the question prompt that triggered your response was "Is there a response we could be making that wouldn't crater the economy?", citing partisan dysfunction seems a bit odd, since in this very narrowly tailored formulation, partisan dysfunction in congress has more or less been a complete non-issue.  Congressional response to the pandemic has been bipartisan and pretty decisive inasmuch as devoting 20% of GDP to the response is decisive.

So to sum up, I agree there is a problem with polarization generally. But I disagree that it has been an issue to date specifically in terms of the response to COVID-19.  There may be many reasons our economy has cratered, but I don't see evidence that the congressional response is one of them.

BC

[BostonCard]

First, the politicians on both the left and right essentially refuse to work together for the good of the country, and it's been moving in that direction for a very long time, basically as long as it was clear that entitlements would one day sink the economy.  I'd like to figuratively knock their heads together, same with their respective supporters. The days of Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan compromising are long gone (with a few exceptions, such as prison reform).  As each generation has performed poorly compared to the prior generation, and as it's become clear that entitlements will sink us, politicians have shifted from "compromise" to "blame" and have implemented policies to enforce "blame" as their primary contribution, on both the left and right.  Society and politics has become polemicized.  

This seems very odd given that we have passed four major coronavirus bills in near record time on a bipartisan and nearly unanimous basis in little over two months.  Yeah, you hear partisans sniping, which is as old as Hamilton and Jefferson, but by and large the idea that our politicians cannot work together is not borne out by the facts.


[deleting the examples]



BC

Yes, the five anecdotes you cite make it appear that the two parties cooperate.  In reality, that's not the case. George Washington warned against it, John Adams feared it, and (starting with the 2010 midterms) America has split into two very different parties.  This Atlantic article, "America is Now the Divided Republic that the Framers Feared," published earlier this year and written by Lee Drutman makes the case far better than I could.



In short, for most of the country's existence, the two parties were able to cooperate.  There were different factions and coalitions in each party that would seek common ground.



https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...on/604213/


...

Not to be pedantic, but you stated categorically that our two parties "refuse to work together", and I clearly identified examples where that was not the case.  More importantly, they were relevant examples.  They were examples of the two parties working together to fight this very crisis.  If your original point was a general observation of the two parties becoming more sorted and less likely to work together as a matter of course, I agree with you, and I will cite two books (from opposite ends of the spectrum):

Yuval Levine's A Time to Build: https://www.amazon.com/Time-Build-Commun...261&sr=1-1
Ezra Klein's: Why We are Polarized: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Were-Polarize...225&sr=1-1

So I don't disargee that generally we are more polarized than before.  I imagine that while in the acute phase the two parties will be able to come together to pass legislation, this is a transient stage, and once the worst is passed, and especially after we start rebuilding, that ideological differences between the parties will reassert their prominence, and by 2021, no matter who wins, you will see bipartisanship wane substantially.

But the question prompt that triggered your response was "Is there a response we could be making that wouldn't crater the economy?", citing partisan dysfunction seems a bit odd, since in this very narrowly tailored formulation, partisan dysfunction in congress has more or less been a complete non-issue.  Congressional response to the pandemic has been bipartisan and pretty decisive inasmuch as devoting 20% of GDP to the response is decisive.

So to sum up, I agree there is a problem with polarization generally. But I disagree that it has been an issue to date specifically in terms of the response to COVID-19.  There may be many reasons our economy has cratered, but I don't see evidence that the congressional response is one of them.

BC