Keller @ Large: What's Wrong With Our Politics?
BOSTON (CBS) - We live in unpredictable times. But if there's one prediction I feel confident of as the Trump era in Washington begins, it's that Republicans and Democrats will work together and find bi-partisan compromise just as effectively as they did during the Obama years.
In other words, hardly at all.
Any remote chance of meaningful cooperation was diminished during an insult-filled transition. And since Inauguration Day (Can you believe it was only 12 days ago?) It has vanished completely.
Want proof?
Here's gentlemanly Senator Orrin Hatch, a conservative Republican who has always championed bi-partisan civility, after Democrats on his committee boycotted a confirmation hearing Tuesday.
"Well they are idiots. Anybody who would do something like that. It's just a complete breach of decorum. It's a complete breach of committee rules. It's a complete breach of just getting along around here," he said.
When Donald Trump calls his adversaries names, it's expected. When Orrin Hatch does it, it's a sign that the war is on, as or more intensely than ever before. If you hoped your vote last Fall would help break the cycle of bitter partisan DC gridlock, sorry, you are out of luck.
What's wrong with our politics?
The symptoms are the same as ever, and so are the causes.
Both parties are dominated by angry bases in no mood to hear about tricky compromises. And trash-talking politics just enjoyed it's most successful election cycle
ever. No wonder they're at each other's throats down there.
That's what we're telling them to do.
