Barring a few exceptions, it seems acceptable for establishment journalists to bemoan the influence of big money over politics. That’s interesting, but it’s important to examine what they’re saying.
CBS Evening News (4/2/14) had veteran anchor and Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer deliver a mini-commentary about the Supreme Court’s McCutcheon decision. As he told anchor Scott Pelley:
Scott, for all practical purposes, this ruling is just one more sign that we no longer have any campaign laws that really matter. More and more, the very rich are taking control of our politics. They don’t control it yet, but their influence just keeps growing, and this ruling will make it easier for them.
Schieffer went on:
Relaxing previous campaign laws has already changed our politics dramatically. Instead of working to form the bipartisan coalitions that once produced the compromises that made Washington work, the emphasis now is almost solely on raising money to run attack ads…. The question is, what are we getting for all this money? Does anyone really believe Washington is working better than it used to? I don’t.
So it’s OK to talk about the corrupting influence of money–though, as Brad Blog (4/4/14) pointed out, much of this money goes back into media companies like CBS in the form of political advertising.
But what’s this about these good old days of “bipartisan coalitions”? It’s hard to know how Schieffer connects that problem to the corrupting influence of big contributors, but nonetheless, this familiar lament of corporate media pundits–that bipartisanship is good and it’s a shame we don’t have more of it now–is one worth challenging.
For some, this is about civility; the fact that Democrats like Tip O’Neill and Republicans like Ronald Reagan were on friendly terms in private is supposedly telling. In reality, though, they continued to harshly criticize each other in public (Guardian, 11/7/13).
Sometimes the gap is expressed in purely political terms: You don’t see Republicans and Democrats voting together much. But it’s important to remember that one version of bipartisanship existed because of the presence of white supremacist Southern Democrats, who could be counted on to vote with Republicans on civil rights issues. And the real problem could be mostly about one of the two major parties; as Harold Meyerson argued, the lesson of the passage of the Affordable Care Act was that the rightward shift of the GOP makes it very difficult to advance even relatively modest legislative ideas (Washington Post, 7/29/09).
As Michael Lind (Salon, 11/24/13) wrote, big legislative victories aren’t often bipartisan in origin:
Major reforms have never emerged from split-the-difference compromises among the major parties. Usually one party pushes through a major reform, over the opposition of the rival party but sometimes with the help of some rival-party politicians. The defeated party rails against the innovation for years or decades, but eventually accepts it.
That said, it’s not hard to think of plenty of policies that exist thanks to cooperation between the two major parties. The Iraq War, many aspects of the drug war, No Child Left Behind, the growth of the surveillance state, the war in Afghanistan…and on and on. Maybe the problem is too much bipartisanship?
Just as telling, though, is when people like Schieffer explain what kind of big bipartisan victories they’re envisioning: cutting Social Security, for instance (FAIR Blog, 2/24/14). Here how he put it in February:
I mean, when the president comes out and says he’s not going to touch entitlement reform, that’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull to the Republicans. I mean, have we given up on trying to get anything done and compromising on anything?
That’s the “good” kind of compromise, then–cutting Social Security and Medicare. Those are ideas that have some bipartisan support; the main reason they’re not happening is because the public overwhelmingly rejects them. Rooting for plutocrats to gain more control over our politics doesn’t make much sense–but neither does calling for bipartisanship for the sake of bipartisanship.
NoDifference
Finally! An analysis of the whole notion of “bipartisanship” that tells the real story about it. It’s code for collusion on bad policy in nearly all cases where it is practiced.
If bipartisanship were such a great idea, then all we would need is one party. And, in fact, I think we already do. I call it the Democratic-Republican Party and it is what has led to all the major bad policies for decades.
It’s time for the Left to stand up for itself and DEMAND, not politely request, that our elected leaders carry out OUR will. For this we must have our own political voice, our own political party. Until then, we will continue to see the destruction of hard-fought-for rights whittled away, and little or no chance of beneficial reforms for the Working classes.
Bruce
That’s BiPetersonship!
Eric
For anywhere outside the G7 bubble, U.S. “bipartisanship” in foreign policy means imperialism: coups, trade deals, military ‘training’, corporate rights, surveillance, strip mining, subversion, cold war, corruption … whatever it takes and whatever the corporations take. For recent examples, see Venezuela, Honduras, Cuba, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, etc.
michael e
Partisen ,Bi partisen is all Bullshit.Vote and make up your mind BEFORE that late night call from the head of your party who tells you how you should vote.When Nancy Pelosi said to her troops that they must vote in something that they could find out what is in it after it is passed…….That was a moment America stopped.A moment frozen in time.I think the Rs are a disgrace when they do it.The Ds seem to think of it as being good little soldiers.Use your fricking brains.Decide for yourself.When Harry Reed or Pelosi or the Rs majority drunken leader call to check your vote…………have your wife tell them your out cutting the lawn.
Joan H. Burroughs
Very worried about current Bi-Partisan Amendment to Voting Rights Act that will supposedly reinforce the weakness incurred by the Supreme Court decision to remove the pre-clearance section. It is not broad enough (doesn’t include the very state that instigated removal of section 4, that is, Alabama). The state that is entrenched pre-civil war politics.
Joan H. Burroughs
Correction: Regarding the comment “The state that is entrenched in pre-civil war politics”. Should be pre-civil war mind-set and post-Reconstruction politics and action.
michael e
Let me tell you about racism.In 1957 a poll was taken in Mississippi.People were asked if they would ever vote for a “colored ” man running for office.A measly 5% in that God forsaken Klan country said yes.How sad,tragic,and vomitous.In 2008 and again in 2012 Black people were asked if they would vote for a white man.Between 94 and 97% said no.How sad,How tragic.How vomitous.It seems some people need the supreme court to designate certain people and states racist.As they ignore racism all about them!