- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
Our political system is afflicted by many, many problems. A lack of bipartisanship hasn't been one of them.
There are systemic problems in the country and in the world that will require good faith efforts to work together with those whom we may disagree. So long as we live in a two-party political culture, those two parties must work together with a measure of civility to solve those problems. As currently practiced in the U.S., partisanship precludes civic discourse.
The problem with our current political structure is that political partisanship in the U.S. is an industry. The two major political parties have become little more than Coke and Pepsi battling over customers with marketing campaigns, spokespeople, and jingles designed solely to sell the product. Perhaps more aptly, partisanship is like a professional sports league with just two teams in it; you root for your team and despise the other. Partisanship is the reason for FOX-News' existence, and the reason for MSNBC's rise; it is the animating purpose behind much of the professional political blogosphere. It is, in short, BIG BIG business. It is also one of the primary reasons the U.S. has been essentially dysfunctional for 40 years. I hope Obama can help change this.
