Lee HamiltonIt’s conventional wisdom these days to say that Congress is hopelessly divided, maybe more so than ever, and that partisanship is making it impossible for the institution to do its job. But a closer look suggests that’s not the case. Data from the Polarization Research Lab, a partnership of Dartmouth College, Stanford University, and the University of Pennsylvania, shows that many members of Congress are doing the work they were elected to do.
I think that’s exactly right, and I’m pleased to see Congress getting some credit for its performance. In my columns, I often try to highlight the important role of Congress and to explain how it carries out its responsibilities. It’s an essential part of our government, coequal to the executive and judicial branches.
Unlike the other branches, however, Congress reflects the diversity of the American people, with our varied and often conflicting views of how government should operate. Congress is where we turn to ensure our priorities are represented in Washington, D.C. It’s natural and even healthy that those views sometimes clash. Politics is how we settle our differences. In our two-party system, a certain amount of partisanship is a feature, not a bug.
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While Congress may often seem dysfunctional, it continues to show that it can get things done. It has passed bipartisan legislation to counter climate change, boost infrastructure and technology spending, and help communities recover from COVID-19. Despite considerable debate, Republicans and Democrats have supported generous aid for Ukraine and Israel.
It’s true that some members of Congress spend too much time on insults and name-calling. Conflict gets people noticed, and as Polarization Research Lab director Sean Westwood says, it often seems that “firebrands are absorbing all the media attention.” The rise of social media and the growth of partisan TV and radio news programming has fed the trend.
But that kind of behavior isn’t as pervasive as it often seems, as the Partisanship Research Lab shows. Using an online tracking tool driven by artificial intelligence, it finds that 12 percent of members of Congress haven’t insulted anyone during the current session, and another 65 percent have done so in less than 1 percent of their statements, including on social media. In other words, more than three-fourths of members are never or rarely hurling insults. Most are far more likely to engage in policy discussions and constructive debate.
A key finding of the research is that Americans think their political adversaries are more extreme than they are. For example, almost no one, Democrat or Republican, says it’s acceptable to engage in political violence. But more than half think members of the opposite party would support violence to achieve their goals. There are similar gaps in perception on whether opponents support voter suppression and media censorship.
But it’s reassuring that most members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, are doing what they are supposed to do. They deserve credit for going to work every day, engaging in constructive debate and representing their constituents. Our nation would be better off if they — not the firebrands — received more attention.
Lee Hamilton, 93, is a senior advisor for the Indiana University (IU) Center on Representative Government, distinguished scholar at the IU Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, and professor of practice at the IU O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Hamilton, a Democrat, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years (1965-1999), representing a district in south-central Indiana.