I have to commend Ezra Klein for push, push, pushing everyone to understand the place of the presidency in the US political system. As he says, that system “is centered around Congress rather than the White House,” and he’s been doing terrific and incredibly valuable work explaining to people what this means in terms of the limits of what presidents can do. I do hope everyone reads his latest essay on the topic, from his Wonkblog on Friday.
That said, I continue to dissent from what Klein, Rick Hasen, and others say about polarization. Oh, there’s no question about the levels of partisan polarization: we all agree about that. The key points are well documented; it’s been the case for over a decade that the most liberal Republicans in the House and in the Senate are more conservative than the most conservative Democrats. Or at least that’s how they vote in Congress, which is basically the same thing. And I think there’s general consensus that polarization is probably pretty stable at these levels. Other than the emergence of some new and so far unexpected new ue area of public policy which cuts in a totally different way than current issues, there’s really no reason to expect significant change.