Speaking to a captivated audience in the Rockefeller Center, Klein said that in order to restore the system's effectiveness, more attention needs to be paid to the political process's tendency for obstructionism and brinkmanship, rather than to blaming individual politicians for the government's failure to produce policy.
The most significant feature of the American political landscape today is the filibuster, Klein said. More filibusters have taken place in the past few congresses than in the 1950s and 1960s combined, a trend that Klein said illustrated the minority party's new power and incentive to sabotage the work of the other side.
The minority party's new willingness to block policy has provided it with a disproportionate amount of influence, a mindset which Klein compared to the Dr. Doom quote, "I am possessed of power which defies description," eliciting laughter from the audience. In today's Congress, Republican power has immobilized Democrats, and Democrats have had to deal with the consequences of the unpopular measures that result, he said.
Klein called Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., "the most honest man in Washington" for his straightforward statements on his party's motivations. McConnell admits that he refuses to participate in bipartisan legislation because doing so returns responsibility for unpopular bills to congressional Democrats and keeps Republican "fingerprints off the bill," Klein said. McConnell, who has also stated that his party's first priority is to insure that President Barack Obama is a one-term president, has become very influential and effective in blocking the Democrats' intended outcomes, according to Klein.
Klein also criticized the obstructionist mindset that McConnell represents, stating that it could allow political concerns to prevent the passage of very important legislation, such as a raise in the debt ceiling.
"The two parties have figured out how to make politics competitive again," Klein said. "You can't get elected if people like the majority, and the best way to keep people from liking the majority is preventing them from governing."
While the public should, in theory, hold the government accountable by electing new officials, Klein said that the filibuster prevents the fulfillment of this accountability process. The American public is also not well enough informed about its political system to track the congressional process, allowing candidates to run campaigns based on their personal attributes rather than policy, Klein said. He added that being a family man does not generate policy.
"By the end of campaigns, you may not know what anybody thinks about health care or the economy, but you will f---ing know if they are married to someone who is blonde," Klein said.
In an interview with The Dartmouth, Klein added that the print, online and television media's preference for writing about people instead of the political landscape has contributed to an inaccurate perception of the policy-making process. He added that the media has failed to provide the American public with the information required to hold the system accountable.
"The way we do our jobs just isn't very well suited to these types of questions," Klein said. "People don't really know what's in the health care bill, for example, and every time they say that, I think Well, that's a gigantic f---ing failure of ours.'"
The lecture, which was titled "It is the Washington Way: It's the Process," was sponsored by the Rockefeller Center.
