Any political scientist will tell you that political parties provide
a critical role in the development of public policy in a democracy. But
when you have political parties you inherently have partisanship. I
have frequently heard, and have even moaned, about the extreme
partisanship that now plagues Washington, D.C. But these complaints are
just like complaints about the weather. Unless you can honestly cite a
genuine change in the climate, complaints about the weather
and hyper-partisanship need only wait awhile. Extreme partisanship has
cycled through Washington, D.C, for over 200 years. The early
Congresses were obsessed with Democratic/Republican vs. Federalists or
Democra...

Any political scientist will tell you that political parties provide
a critical role in the development of public policy in a democracy. But
when you have political parties you inherently have partisanship. I
have frequently heard, and have even moaned, about the extreme
partisanship that now plagues Washington, D.C. But these complaints are
just like complaints about the weather. Unless you can honestly cite a
genuine change in the climate, complaints about the weather
and hyper-partisanship need only wait awhile. Extreme partisanship has
cycled through Washington, D.C, for over 200 years. The early
Congresses were obsessed with Democratic/Republican vs. Federalists or
Democrat vs. Whig or Republican vs. Democrat. Early Presidential
campaigns would make cable TV viewers blush today. Things have always
been intensely partisan, and at times the intensity became red hot. An
entire section of the country seceded from the Union because a
Republican won the 1860 election. (No, I am not exaggerating too much).

Partisanship ebbs and flows along with one factor - the margin of the majority. In the early part of the 20th
century, Republicans frequently ruled with large majorities in Congress
(and usually the White House), and partisanship was less intense then.
In the 60s, the Democrats ruled with large majorities, and partisanship
was also less a factor. When the parties start alternating or battling
precinct by precinct in the states. That is when extreme partisanship
really began to heat up. People who yearn for the good old days of
bi-partisanship are really just yearning for a time of a large single
party majority.