Why bipartisanship is dead

[phantom power]

...It's hard to understand why the issue of disappearing bipartisanship is so baffling for most people. There are many structural reasons for it including increased transparency, coordination of interest groups, communications technology that allows for more effective and aggressive lobbying, and an ever-increasing influence of money in politics.

But by far the biggest is that the bipartisanship of the mid-20th century was a special artifact of the uneasy alliance between traditional urban liberal tribes and religious Dixiecratic populists in the South and Midwest. As I've written before, FDR was quite able to aggressively take on the financial and corporate interests of his time with a broad coalition. But he couldn't pass an anti-lynching law without destroying his support base, and he was all too willing to institute the Japanese internment camps. In other words, FDR could take on the power of big money with ease, but he couldn't take on the power of Big Racism.

The result of this dynamic was an uneasy bipartisanship between otherwise competing interests. Men like Strom Thurmond would vote for "socialist" policies as long as only whites got the benefits.

The advent of the Civil Rights movement marked the beginning of the end of bipartisanship. As tax dollars were increasingly seen as going toward non-whites, Dixiecrats became Republicans and allies of big business interests. Similar dynamics occurred with anti-Hispanic sentiment in the West. All the religious fervor that had been reserved for progressive social justice issues by the "Progressive" movement in the late 19th century (which included, by the way, quite conservative ideas like the prohibition of alcohol: late 19th century progressives would have strongly opposed modern liberals on issues like marijuana legalization alone...) flipped to socially conservative issues. The women's equality movement only added further fuel to the socially conservative patriarchal fire.

At this point it was easy and natural for the racist culture warriors to align completely with the corporatists. The need for uneasy alliances disappeared. The rationale for men like Strom Thurmond to support New Deal policies and chat about them at cozy cocktail parties disappeared. The battle lines were set. The competing interest groups became neatly and sharply aligned, with only Ron Paul style libertarians having issues that cross party lines. If there's any hope for bipartisan coalitions, it lies in Ron Paul voters. But there's frankly not enough of them, and their ideas make the Washington cocktail crowd deeply uncomfortable.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/why-bipartisanship-is-dead-by.html

[AnotherMcIntosh]

1. How can anyone say that bipartisanship is dead? Regardless of party lines, both Obama and Rmoney

support the next "free-trade" agreement being negotiated by the Administration.

From Huffpo

Trans-Pacific negotiations have been taking place throughout the Obama presidency. The deal is strongly supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the top lobbying group for American corporations. Obama's Republican opponent in the 2012 presidential elections, Mitt Romney, has urged the U.S. to finalize the deal as soon as possible.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/13/obama-trade-document-leak_n_1592593.html

[msongs]

2. the only person being bipartisan in DC the past 3 years is you know who from hawaii lol nt

[RobertEarl]

3. From 2000 on at least

The democrats were biparting half of what Bush was feeding them.

If there is any less bipartisanship it is because the Dems have finally been telling the republicans to frik off.