Mann Thomas

2012 · réf. 68520 — New York NY: Basic Books 2012. First edition. First printing stated. Hardcover. Good/Good. Ralph Alswang Mann photograph and Peter Holden . Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. xiv 226 p. Illustrations. Notes. Index. Signed by author. DJ flap creased. Inscription signed by Mann. Some page warping noted. Thomas E. Mann born September 10 1944 is the W. Averell Harriman Chair and a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution a non-partisan think tank based in Washington D.C. He primarily studies and speaks on elections in the United States campaign finance reform Senate and filibuster reform Congress redistricting and political polarization. Norman Jay Ornstein born October 14 1948 is an American political scientist and an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute AEI a Washington D.C. conservative think tank. He is the co-author along with Thomas E. Mann of It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism. Foreign Policy named Ornstein along with Thomas E. Mann one of its 2012 Top 100 Global Thinkers "for diagnosing America's political dysfunction". Acrimony and hyperpartisanship have seeped into every part of the political process. Congress is deadlocked and its approval ratings are at record lows. America’s two main political parties have given up their traditions of compromise endangering our very system of constitutional democracy. And one of these parties has taken on the role of insurgent outlier; the Republicans have become ideologically extreme scornful of compromise and ardently opposed to the established social and economic policy regime. In It’s Even Worse Than It Looks congressional scholars Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein identify two overriding problems that have led Congress—and the United States—to the brink of institutional collapse. The first is the serious mismatch between our political parties which have become as vehemently adversarial as parliamentary parties and a governing system that unlike a parliamentary democracy makes it extremely difficult for majorities to act. Second while both parties participate in tribal warfare both sides are not equally culpable. The political system faces what the authors call “asymmetric polarization” with the Republican Party implacably refusing to allow anything that might help the Democrats politically no matter the cost. With dysfunction rooted in long-term political trends a coarsened political culture and a new partisan media the authors conclude that there is no “silver bullet” reform that can solve everything. But they offer a panoply of useful ideas and reforms endorsing some solutions like greater public participation and institutional restructuring of the House and Senate while debunking others like independent or third-party candidates. Above all they call on the media as well as the public at large to focus on the true causes of dysfunction rather than just throwing the bums out every election cycle. Until voters learn to act strategically to reward problem solving and punish obstruction American democracy will remain in serious danger. Derived from a Kirkus review: Two scholars examine how today’s hyperpartisanship has crippled our government. In a country famous for its rough-and-tumble politics are things really worse than they’ve ever been Yes wrote Brookings Institution senior fellow Mann and American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Ornstein. To explain the dynamics of the institutional dysfunction plaguing Congress they begin with a chronicle of the 2011 fight over the debt limit. They trace the governmental breakdown to two sources: 1 the mismatch between our separation-of-powers government and an increasingly parliamentary-style of party politics that features rigid ideologies a prioritizing of political strategies over national welfare and an unwillingness to compromise; and 2 the asymmetric nature of the polarization—i.e. a wildly out-of-the-mainstream Republican Party. The authors offer their own proposals for fixing the parties and reforming our governmental institutions most very lofty—few likely to be adopted. They reject the notion that we’re merely passing through an unfortunate phase and insist that we’re at an unprecedented impasse. They go on to criticize the mainstream media for its false sense of equivalence. The authors who’ve collaborated before style themselves as straight shooters nonpartisan analysts who’ve worked for decades in Washington with members of both parties. Basic Books hardcover