Word: gridlock
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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These questions will be even harder to resolve because faith in government--already shaken by scandal, gridlock and failed presidencies--is at an all-time low. And harder still because civil discourse has become a quaint affectation for a public too willing to tolerate the same screeching hyperbole in its politics that it relishes on its airwaves...
...what keeps many politicians -- the ones with an "inside the Beltway" mentality -- out of touch with the needs of the citizenry. It is the reason Washington's "media elites" are so clueless as to what's really on America's mind. It is why voters get congressional gridlock when they want action, and congressional action when they want nothing in particular. In a typical indictment, one columnist recently called some piece of Washington policymaking "too secret, too expert, too Beltway...
...smashing success. Some of the information technologies that so pervade Washington life have not only failed to cure our ills but actually seem to have made them worse. Intensely felt public opinion leads to the impulsive passage of dubious laws; and meanwhile, the same force fosters the gridlock that keeps the nation from balancing its budget, among other things, as a host of groups clamor to protect their benefits. In both cases, the problem is that the emerging cyberdemocracy amounts to a kind of "hyperdemocracy": a nation that, contrary to all Beltway-related stereotypes, is thoroughly plugged in to Washington...
This constant canvassing of public sentiment, one of two basic kinds of hyperdemocracy, is a straightforward outgrowth of information technology. The second basic kind -- the one more specifically linked to gridlock and to the budget deficit -- is a bit more subtle and more pernicious. And like the first one, it ultimately gets back to Madison. In addition to his dread of mass "passions," Madison had a second nightmare about "pure democracy": it "can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction...
...Insider-Reformers: After grousing for years about gridlock, the public wants Congress to produce the reform Clinton hasn't. "For once," says former Republican National Committee chairman Rich Bond, who is much in demand as a strategist by almost all the wannabes, "something positive may come from the Hill. If it does, Bob Dole will be credited for much of it." While many of the potential candidates can raise modest amounts of money, Dole is one of the few who can garner the $20 million necessary to take him through the early primaries without mortgaging his house. His failures...