Gridlock vs. Bipartisanship

…and the troublesome nature of both.

As the Republican party hands over the keys to the White House, both political parties brace for an incoming era of gridlock. Republicans prepare to battle the Biden administration at every turn, and Democrats prepare to blame their own failures on the Republicans as soon as they take office.

As I’ve already discussed, periods of governmental ineptitude only serve the interests of those who would seize the levers of power. The gridlock of the Obama era cultivated the ground in which Trumpism was grown.

We’re about to spend years hearing from people across the political spectrum about the evils of gridlock, and nostalgic lamentation about the great minds of yesteryear. These people will be recognizing and stressing a fundamental point: Governing has to happen, and it cannot happen effectively in the presence of gridlock.

The most honest of these voices will acknowledge that we need to overcome gridlock and pick a direction. Liberal centrism, conservative constraint, libertarian laissez faire, progressive social democracy…the experiment that is democracy cannot continue if it cannot be conducted.

It is not enough to overcome gridlock, however. There is another side to that disastrous coin, and its name is bipartisanship. A liberal Democrat administration is coming, and with it, promises of a coalition cabinet, reconciliation between the parties, and the hunt for the fabled Common Ground™.

Many issues close to the suffering of Americans are gridlocked: education spending, healthcare costs, housing crises, and the destruction of the environment, to name only a few. Legislation can be introduced on a monthly basis to alleviate these pains, and much of it will immediately die. What bills can we expect to survive?

The previous 12 years offer potential insight into what “bipartisan” victories will be claimed in the coming 4 by the Biden administration. Continued surrender of war powers to the presidency, expanded spying power, increased funding for state auxiliaries that cage children, continued apologism for institutions that kill Americans without consequence, and bailouts for the upper class that do little to aid those at the bottom.

These, when they occur, are not bipartisan victories. They are the means by which the American state maintains its power. Power over global interests, power over domestic dissidents, power over immigrant, colored, and impoverished communities. We have to recognize the ways in which bipartisan compromise often extends the power of the state at the expense of the people.

If we want Trumpism again, we can repeat the Obama years under Biden. Biden himself seems determined to do exactly that. This is a death spiral in democracies though…in which both Republicans and Democrats are complicit. Extremist (read: fascist) appeals are the most powerful when democracies are at their most dysfunctional.

The troubles we face were created through decades of intransigent gridlock and malevolent bipartisanship. The task before Biden’s administration is not simply to “right the ship,” but also to steer it out of these perilous waters.

Our job is to hold them to it.