Senate pushes America closer to the abyss

April 6, 2017, is likely to be featured on future timelines of key moments in the demise of Congress as a functioning institution. Senate Republicans’ decision Thursday to break with tradition and force the end of a filibuster blocking the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch with a simple majority vote likely presages the end of the filibuster in general. Getting 60 votes on contentious issues, which normally requires some degree of bipartisanship, will no longer be a necessity.

There is no point in rehashing the precipitous decisions by past Senate majorities of both parties that brought us to this point — nor the hypocrisy that’s been on display for decades after Senate control changes hands and Republicans and Democrats blatantly do 180-degree flips on the sanctity/stupidity of filibusters. There’s also no grounds to mythologize the filibuster. Contrary to lore, it was not conceived of by the Founding Fathers so as to make the Senate more a place of careful contemplation. Instead, George Washington University professor Sarah Binder makes a persuasive case that the filibuster was created by mistake in 1805.

But America is now more than two decades into an era in which Republicans have become more conservative and Democrats have become more liberal. Technology makes it easier and easier for everyone to live in echo chambers in which the moral superiority of their political views — and the awfulness of those with other views — gets endless affirmation. The resulting polarization affects far more than our politics. A 2014 study found Democrats and Republicans were far more likely to think — absent any evidence — that those with different views were bad people. They were far more likely to want to hire and to help those with similar views.

So when one of our political system’s few strong fundamental incentives to bipartisan compromise dies, that is a cause to mourn. Given how many thorny issues face America — issues that in many cases can only be addressed by such compromises — our nation feels closer to the abyss.

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