It should come as no shock that research is showing our national political system to be more partisan and less effective than ever. And within that partisan divide, there is further imbalance: Republicans are ideologically entrenched far beyond their Democratic brethren. I’m not making this up. Thomas Mann, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank, has evidence aplenty proving it. He writes about the trend in The Atlantic:
The result, as Mann depressingly points out, is that government does not get much done — at least at the national level. And the media does a weak job pointing out just how bad things are. “Yet many political scientists, like most mainstream journalists and political reformers, refuse to even acknowledge or take seriously the case for asymmetric polarization. It makes us uncomfortable because some people will characterize the idea as partisan, even if it accurately captures reality. We do the public a disservice to say less than we believe to be true and avoid research directions that might produce ‘unbalanced’ results. Insisting on false equivalence in the media or the academy is no virtue,” Mann wrote. He’s right.
Even we opinionistas make an effort to find the good on the bad side of things — at least sometimes. So here goes: While our national political system may be frayed to the point of near snapping, our local politics lack the division. Sure there are the occasional ideologically infused debates — bag bans, riverside park management, and comprehensive planning come to mind — but by and large, our systems at the city of Durango and in La Plata County government seem to circumvent entrenchment. While county commissioners are identified by their party, it is not always the foremost consideration for voters. Durango city councilors are elected, on paper at least, absent any party affiliation.
Mann argues that a one-party system could be one of a set of tools deployed to fix what ails us. He could be on to something, but perhaps a no-party strategy is one to consider. It is not perfect in these parts, but it works — something Washington D.C. politicians cannot say with straight faces.
