The dysfunction that lies at the very heart of American politics

Nearly three years ago, on a night of great history, a slender 47-year-old black man who had just been elected to the nation's highest political office offered the American people an optimistic vision for the country's future. Quoting Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama spoke of national unity: "We are not enemies, but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection."

That night, Obama offered the American people a clear sense of his overriding priority as president – it wasn't just to fix the ailing US economy, provide healthcare for all or end the war in Iraq. But rather, after eight years of political turmoil and disunity, through the force of his personality and political temperament, Obama would, as Lincoln said, "bind up the nation's wounds".

Things have not quite worked out as Obama planned. Even with poll results suggesting that Americans prize compromise and are tired of overt partisanship, the level of division and acrimony in Washington has grown exponentially since Obama took office. The recent debt limit debate is the apogee of Washington's dysfunction: and indicative of a political system that is seemingly incapable of dealing with national challenges. Indeed, whatever one may think of Standard & Poor's recent downgrade of US debt, the ratings agency view that "the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policy-making and political institutions have weakened" seems almost self-evident.

How has America been reduced to one party holding a gun to the US economy and the other trading away its political principles to stop the trigger from being pulled? The problem is that the US today has one party intent on utilising government resources as a force for social good and another that rejects any significant role for the public sector. Compounding this collision of ideologies is a populace so indifferent to the workings of their own government that they are unable to choose which model they prefer.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/aug/07/michael-cohen-us-political-dysfunction

NOT GOOD.

few weeks of one party threatening to plunge the nation into economic catastrophe is not some rare event – it's the new norm in American politics. And perhaps the most glaring indication that Barack Obama's vision of new post-partisan America will be a dream perhaps permanently deferred."

"The answer lies in the apathy of the American people toward their own government. The ultimate check on Republican nihilism would be voter revolt. But in the last congressional election, voters rewarded unprecedented Republican obstructionism with control of the House of Representatives."

In short, we are watching a capitalistic system falter wherein the wealth has been cleverly migrated to the few, and the masses will descend into serfdom. And to be expected when those holding most of the money and power in a capitalistic system decide to buy the government for their own selfish and greedy benefit, and the hell with the country and the people. The new American does not need people, people are in the way.

of the night Obama was elected. I was in tears after about 5 minutes.

And now we've got the Theocrats pretending it's 1930s Germany all over again. And a US Constitution undone in the post-9/11 years. What's that line about history repeating itself?

dems had everything, and it was absolutely squandered. It's the most amazing self-defeat I've seen in politics. And my additional fear is it's going to get worse, and who knows what 2012 will bring, but I'm waiting for them to start dressing in uniforms.