On October 6, 2018, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh was confirmedto the Supreme Court by one of the slimmest margins in American history.Senators voted 50 – 48, almost exclusively along party lines, to confirmKavanaugh to the Supreme Court after an extraordinarily partisan and bitterconfirmation process. Republican Senator John Cornyn called the nominationprocess “a cruel and reckless and indecent episode”. Democratic Senator CharlesSchumer said, “the road that led us here has been bitter, angry and partisan –steeped in hypocrisy and hyperbole and resentment and outrage.” (1)Thatfact that Kavanaugh’s nomination and confirmation were only made possible whenSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnel refused to even hold hearings onPresident Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, and eliminated the filibuster toensure the confirmation of President Trump’s first nominee Neil Gorsuch onlyadded to the partisan furor. (2)Thisis the same chamber that in 1981 confirmed Justice Sandra Day O’Connor by avote of 99 – 0; ChiefJustice John Roberts by a vote of 78 – 22 in 2005; Justice Sonia Sotomayor by avote of 68 – 31 in 2009, and Justice Elena Kagen by a vote of 63 – 37 in 2010. (3) The polarization in the Senate has only been surpassed in the House, where any piece of major legislation, if it’s even brought to a vote, passes along strictly partisan lines. The Affordable Care Act, based on ideas put forth by the conservative Heritage Foundation and modeled after a similar Massachusetts plan signed into law by Republican Governor Mitt Romney in 2006, was passed the House in 2010 without a single Republican vote. Since the bill passed, House Republicans have held numerous, fruitless votes to repeal the bill. Anarticle in the Washington Post by Political Scientists Christopher Hare, Keith T. Poole, andHoward Rosenthalin 2013 found that “polarization inCongress had reached a new record high; and absent heightened electoral pressuresor some form of partisan realignment, the trajectoryof congressional polarization is unlikely toreverse course anytime soon”. It has not reversed course. This paper will examine the history ofCongressional polarization, the reasons for current Congressional polarization,both within the institution and the electorate, and what, if anything can bedone to reverse it.  Congressionalpolarization is not new. Using DW-NOMINATE scores, which measure legislators’ liberal-conservative positions using their rollcall voting records, Rosenthalexamined Congressional polarization from 1879 through 2013. While polarizationwas very high following the Civil War there was a long period of depolarization through World War II and much of the mid-20thcentury. But beginning in the 1970s, the parties started to become moreideologically distant. Rosenthal found this to be true in both the House andSenate, although he found that polarization has progressed at a faster rate inthe House. According to Rosenthal, Congress is now more polarized than at anytime since the end of Reconstruction. He also found a dramatic shift to theright by the Republican Party and the disappearance of ideological moderates inboth parties. (4)The currentpolarization we see in Congress had its roots in the 1960s. As Kenneth Shepsle pointsout in “The Changing Textbook Congress”, several factors came together to bringabout a re-alignment of the parties. The “Electoral Shock” of the 1958 and 1964elections brought large a number of northern liberal Democrats to Congress; andthese new members, frustrated by Southern Democrat Committee Chairs holding upCivil Rights legislation brought about rule changes that weakened CommitteeChairs, increased the power of sub-committees and strengthened centralizedparty institutions, giving party leaders more control over their members. (5)Conservative SouthernDemocrats moved to the Republican Party, setting up the beginning of stronggeographical and social differences in the parties. For example, thecombined House delegation of the six New England states went from 15Democrats and 10 Republicans in 1973-74 to 20 Democrats andtwo Republicans in 2011-12. In the South, the combined Housedelegation went from 91 Democrats and 42 Republicans in 1973-74 to 107Republicans and 47 Democrats in 2011-12. (6)Southern whites, particularlyconservatives, have grown increasingly Republican, and conservative southernDemocrats have disappeared from Congress, leaving behind a more uniformlyliberal Democratic caucus. And Republicans, virtually nonexistent in the Southin the 1950s, now hold a majority of southern congressional seats. SouthernRepublicans tend to be even more conservative than their non-southerncounterparts and have also constituted most of the very-conservative GOPleadership in recent years. (7)This re-alignment began in themid-1950s and accelerated in the 1960s, whenDemocrats were able to pass landmark legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the “Great Society” social welfareprograms championed by President Lyndon Johnson. It was the beginning of a 40-yearrun of Democratic majorities in Congress. Democrats held the majority in theHouse for 40 years – from the 84th Congress in 1955 through the 103rdCongress in 1995. (8) During that same time-period, Democrats held themajority in the Senate for all but three election cycles (the 97th,98th, and 99th Congress). (9)The Republican“correction” to this Democratic dominance would be the begging of the extreme polarizationwe now see in Congress. In 1978, Newt Gingrich, the man who would lead theRepublican comeback, was elected to Congress with the belief that “Republicansaren’t nasty enough.” (10) AsPolitical Scientists Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein state in “Let’s Just SayIt – The Republicans Are The Problem”, “from theday he entered Congress in 1979, Gingrich had a strategy to create a Republicanmajority in the House: convincing voters that the institution was so corruptthat anyone would be better than the incumbents, especially those in theDemocratic majority. It took him 16 years, but by bringing ethics chargesagainst Democratic leaders; provoking them into overreactions that enragedRepublicans and united them to vote against Democratic initiatives; exploitingscandals to create even more public disgust with politicians; and thenrecruiting GOP candidates around the country to run against Washington,Democrats and Congress, Gingrich accomplished his goal”.Gingrich laidthe groundwork for politics as a “zero-sum game” in Congress, where the focuswas on winning, not just elections, but every Congressional action. Congress asan institution, and the political parties themselves, became laser-focused onwinning, leading to the adoption of formal and informal rules that limiteddebate, the chance for compromise, and the chance for the passage of anymeaningful, important legislation.Thepolitical environment in Congress has become a place where legislative leadersare extremely skilled at agenda-control and issue-suppression. This protectsthem from having to cast tough votes that could be used against them in a re-electioncampaign.  And as David Mayhew states in“The Electoral Connection and Congress” UnitedStates congressmen are interested in getting reelected – indeed, in their rolehere as abstractions, interested in nothing else” is a member’s primarymotivation. (11)The Speaker ofthe House and Senate Majority Leader will not even bring a piece of importantlegislation to the floor unless it is assured of passage. In the House, the informalHastert Rule, which requires a piece of legislation to have the support of themajority of the majority party, enables a minority in the majority party tohold up important legislation. House Speakers, dependent on the members oftheir party for their job, ignore the rule at their own peril. For example,former Speaker John Boehner was unwilling to allow a vote on a comprehensiveimmigration bill that passed out of the Senate with overwhelming bipartisansupport in 2013 because of opposition by the far-right House Freedom caucus inhis own party. (12) “Regular Order”, where a piece oflegislation starts in Committee and proceeds to floor debate, votes, andConference Committee before final votes in each Chamber may still be followedfor non-controversial legislation, but is all but dead for any important orcontroversial legislation, according to a 2018 study by The Washington Post andProPublica, which looked at roll call votes and the use of “Closed Rules” tolimit legislative debate. The problem is seen in both Chambers of Congress. (13)The study found that Junior Senators have fewer opportunities to work onlegislation because Senate Leaders limit the number of votes on amendments. Infact, the number of these votes has shrunk to an all-time low under McConnellto less than 20 percent of all roll calls, down from 67 percent 12 years ago. The studyalso found that over the past two years, House SpeakerPaul Ryan has issued more “Closed Rules”, than any other Speaker in history,severely curtailing the chance for rank-and-file amendments on any importantlegislation. The study found that Ryan actually closes off discussion fourtimes as often as former Speaker Newt Gingrich did 20 years ago. It also found that the number of Committee meetings held to consider legislation hasdropped dramatically. According to the study, “in 2005 and 2006, Housecommittees met 449 times to consider actual legislation, and Senate committeesmet 252 times. By 2015 and 2016, those numbers plummeted to 254 and 69 times,respectively. (12)Even the Filibuster, a rule integralto the Senate’s claim of being “the world’s greatest deliberative body”, has fallenvictim to polarization. Frustrated by Republican delays in consideringPresident Obama’s Judicial nominees, in 2013, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reidended the 60-vote Filibuster hurdle for all presidential nominees except forthe Supreme Court. In 2017 Majority Leader Mitch McConnel retaliated. Facedwith Democratic opposition to President Trump’s first Supreme Court nomineeNeil Gorsuch, McConnell changed the rules again, ending the Filibuster for SupremeCourt nominations. Polarization inCongress even exists within the parties themselves, especially within theRepublican Party. Almost as soon as he became House Speakerin 2011, John Boehner faced an internal revolt from ultra-conservatives withinhis party opposed any deals with President Obama. His tumultuous relationshipwith members of his own party came to a head in 2015, when Representative MarkMeadows, Chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, filed a motion to eject him asSpeaker, only the second time that has been done in the history of the House. Meadowstook a procedure originally intended as a way to oust a corrupt Speaker andused it for political gain. Two months later, rather than put the House througha vote, Boehner quit. (13) As would beexpected, Congressional polarization mirrors polarization in the electorate. In2014, according to the largest study of U.S. politicalattitudes ever undertaken by the Pew Research Center, “Political Polarizationin the American Public,” the overall share of Americans who expressconsistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions doubled over thepast 20 years jumped from 10 to 21 percent. In addition, ideological outlooksof the two parties have become more extreme, with 92 percent of Republicans fallingto the right of the median Democrat, and 94 percent of Democrats are to theleft of the median Republican. Moreover, according to the study, “on measureafter measure – whether primary voting, writing letters to officials, volunteeringfor or donating to a campaign –themost politically polarized are more actively involved in politics, amplifyingthe voices that are the least willing to see the parties meet each otherhalfway.” And it is these voices that politicians from both parties mustaddress when running for office, particularly in the primaries. (14)And while voters of opposing partiesmay have always disliked one another, these feelings have deepeneddramatically, where many voters of opposing parties hold each other in contempt.As the Pew study points out, even in 1994, in the middle of the Gingrich’s“nasty Republican” antics, “a majority of Republicans had unfavorableimpressions of the Democratic Party, but just 17 percent had very unfavorable opinions. Similarly, while mostDemocrats viewed the GOP unfavorably, just 16% had very unfavorable views. Since then, highlynegative views have more than doubled: 43 percent of Republicans and 38 percentof Democrats now view the opposite party in strongly negative terms.” Americans have divided into twopartisan tribes, and negative stereotyping of members of the opposite partyhave increased 50 percent between 1960 and 2010, according to research cited byLilliana Mason in her book “Uncivil Agreement”. Mason, an assistant Professorof Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, cites a2016 Pew study that found that for the first time in more than 20 years,majorities of Democrats and Republicans hold very unfavorable views of their political opponents. She alsoquotes a 2014 Pew poll that said, “most partisans say that when it comes to howDemocrats and Republicans should address the most important issues facing thecountry, their party should get more out of the deal.” (15)But disagreements between members ofopposing parties are not only over specific political questions. Mason cites aGallop poll following the 2016 Presidential election to show that Democrats andRepublicans even view objective questions, such as economic conditions differently,based simply on who is in power. As she points out, “in the week before the2016 election 16 percent of Republicans and 61 percent of Democrats believedthe U.S. economy was getting better. In the week after the election, 49 percentof Republicans and 46 percent of Democrats believed the economy was improving.”(Mason 3)But Mason’s book addresses a muchdeeper question than the natural “expected” disagreement you would find amongpeople with different political viewpoints. Mason, who holds a PhD in PoliticalPhycology, explores how political disagreementshave transformed into deep personal and sociological divides. Mason points outthat human beings are “hard-wired to cling to social groups.” It was basic tosurvival and it is how we understand our place in the world. As she says, “wederive an emotional connection and a sense of well-being from being groupmembers.” (Mason 9)She begins her book by discussing a1954 experiment by Social Phycologist Muzafer Sherif.  Muzafer recruited 22 fifth-grade boys fromOklahoma City and sent them to two adjacent summer camps – 11 boys in one camp,11 in the other. None of the boys had met before.  They were all white, Protestant, and middle-class;and were nearly identical to each other physically, socially, and emotionally. Inthe first week, the boys in each camp got to know each other and formed a senseof being part of a group. In the second week, they were told of the other camp;and without ever seeing or meeting each other, the boys in each camp began torefer to the other camp as “outsiders” and “intruders”. During that secondweek, the boys were brought together and the researchers organized a baseballtournament between the camps. By the second day of the tournament, the teamswere calling each other names and refusing to spend time with members of theother team. By the end of the second week, fist fights broke out betweenmembers of the different teams and both teams began to collect rocks to throwat each other. In just two weeks, “22 highly-similar boys who had met just twoweeks before formed two nearly warring tribes with only the gentle nudge ofisolation and competition to encourage them.” (Mason 2)The study showed that even if twogroups are basically identical, without any conceivable differences or reasonsfor animosity, group attachments can become so strong that each group, withoutreason, can develop a deep animosity and even hatred toward the other group. Again, this group behavior is“hard-wired”. Mason points to studies showing physiological reactions to peoplefrom “other” groups. She cites a study where subjects were shown videos ofhands being pricked by pins. Subjects would unconsciously twitch their own handwhen watching the video, except when the hand in the video belonged to adifferent racial group.  She points to another study thatshowed that people’s brains respond similarly when they are sad and when theyare observing a sad person who is a member of their “ingroup”; but when theyare observing a sad person from an “outgroup”, their brains responded byactivating areas of positive emotion.And she points to another study thatshowed you can actually find evidence of group identity in saliva. The studyfound that when people’s group identity is threatened, the secrete higherlevels of cortisol in their saliva, indicating stress. (Mason 12) Mason discusses the concept of“social sorting”. A person does not have just one social identity. A Democrator Republican can be a member of several social groups based on race, religion,sex, education level, even school or sports team. She points to a study by theSocial Psychologist Marilynn Brewer which examined how a person’s social groupsaffected how strongly they identified with a particular group. The study founda large difference in the attitudes of people who were “highly-aligned” with agroup, and those who were “un-aligned”. Those who were “highly-aligned” –people whose identities are more closely aligned with members of their group – wereless tolerant, more biased and angrier with people in their outgroups. Masongives the following example: “People who are Irish and Catholic (highly-alignednational and religious identities), are more likely to be intolerant ofnon-Irish people than people who are Irish and Jewish (relatively unalignednational and religious identities).” (Mason 61)Social sorting can be mitigated bywhat Mason refers to as “cross cutting”, which refers to a more “unaligned”person – a person who has more than one social identity. A person withcross-cutting religious or social groups (e.g., Irish-Jewish) is likely to bemore tolerant of those from an outside group, than someone with multipleidentities “playing for the same team” (e.g., Irish-Catholic). For example, intoday’s political climate, a Republican who is white, rural, southern, andconservative would be much less tolerant toward Democrats. A Democrat who isAfrican-American, urban, northern and liberal would be much less toleranttoward Republicans. But, as Mason points out, there ismuch less “cross cutting” in American today. People in America today aregrowing increasingly isolated from one another. Mason cites the book, “BowlingAlone” by Political Scientist Robert Putnam, which shows that the Americanpublic is growing increasingly disconnected from one another. In his book, Putnam shows that Americans belong to fewerorganizations, know our neighbors less, meet with friends less frequently, andeven socialize with families less often. (16) Americans have divided themselvesinto ideological silos.  According to thePew Research Study “Political Polarization in the American Public,” “peoplewith down-the-line ideological positions – especially conservatives – are morelikely than others to say that most of their close friends share theirpolitical views. Liberals and conservatives disagree over where they want tolive, the kind of people they want to live around and even whom they wouldwelcome into their families.” (14) As mentioned earlier, polarization inCongress is, of course, linked to polarization of the electorate. If, as Mayhewsays, members of Congress are primarily interested in re-election, they willtap into the polarization in the electorate and use it to their electoraladvantage. Mason points out that in 1994, Newt Gingrich sent a memo to membersof the Republican Party entitled “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” whichwas a guideline for words to use when describing their opponents. The list ofwords included “betray”, “decay”, “destroy”, “greed”, “lie”, “radical”, and“traitor”. (Mason 132) The list has grown considerably and the electorate isinundated with them every day on cable news and the Twitter feed of PresidentTrump. It is a never-ending cycle of increasingly hyperbolic rhetoric andresponse from Congress to the electorate and the electorate to Congress. So what is the solution? Caninstitutional changes in Congress reduce Congressional polarization? Is theanswer to decrease polarization in the electorate, thereby brining about areduction in polarization in Congress? If so, how would that be accomplished?Somesuggest that changing how the House Speaker and Senate Majority Leader arechosen would be one way to reduce partisanship in Congress. The Speaker of theHouse and the Senate Majority Leader are chosen by members of their party. Requiringthat both leaders have bi-partisan support to be elected would mean that theywould be responsible to the institution and not their party. Anothersuggestion would be to restore “regular order” so legislation can move throughcommittees with hearings, amendments, and opportunities for floor amendmentswould give more members a stake in the legislation and lead to more cooperationamong members. As part of this, Congress could establish a 72-hour rule toensure time for members to read legislation.” (17) But these rules were set up and areenforced by legislative leaders to not only ensure their re-election, but there-election of their party members. The rules are used to ensure the support oftheir voters. As long as the electorate remains polarized, and these rules andprocedures are used to ensure their support, it seems unrealistic to expectCongress to change these rules.Is there a way to reduce polarization inthe electorate? Lilliana Mason explores several possibilities to reducepolarization in the electorate. She suggests that politicians could turn downthe rhetoric. However, she points out that this is unlikely to happen,especially in the near term, and especially in the Republican Party, wherePresident Trump “repeatedly encourages bias and intolerance.”  In fact, he owes his election to his abilityto use identity anger and pit groups against each other. She talks about “Superordinate Goals”,where a common goal can bring together people of different groups. She mentionsthe brief détente between the parties after September 11th, but eventhis was short lived and led to arguments between the parties about how best torespond to the attacks. (Mason 133) Mason examines poor, white voters whohave felt “left behind”, pointing to social psychology theory indicating thatthese voters have suffered damage to their self-esteem. People in these groupstend to become very polarized and intolerant of those from the “out group”. Sheoffers that an economic upturn could help reduce these feelings, but that is atall order. In fact, even with an economic upturn, Mason points out thatcontinuing demographic changes in America will only make it more difficult toreduce polarization in these groups.She also points to the growingpolarization within the Republican Party, beginning with the rise of the TeaParty up to the election of Donald Trump. Just as the Democratic Party saw amajor realignment when Southern Democrats fled the party in the 1960s, theRepublican Party could see a realignment pitting the old institutionalRepublican Party against the more conservative Trump wing of the party. It is difficult to see an end to thepartisanship. As Mason points out, there are “multiple points of agreementacross party lines”, even on polarizing topics like abortion and gun control,but polarization is so deep that people “will change their positions ratherthan agree with the other side.” (Mason 140) The extreme polarization we see inthe electorate, fed by the extreme polarization we see on cable news andpartisan websites, makes it difficult to foresee some kind of spontaneous endto voter polarization.I think to road to resolving the problem lies with theRepublican Party. I would agree with Mann and Ornstein, “the Republicans arethe problem.” Donald Trump is the logical end to years of Republican electoraltactics. And while they may disagree with his extreme and polarizing behavior,they will continue to support him and his policies as long as they haveelectoral success. The solution to polarization may actually be Donald Trump.His rhetoric and policies may prove to be so extreme that he not only mobilizesDemocratic voters, but turns off formerly supportive Republicans. If thishappens, and Republicans suffer large defeats in the next several electioncycles, we may see a return to “normalcy” in the Republican Party. CitationsStolberg, Sheryl Gay. “Kavanaugh Is Sworn InAfter Close Confirmation Vote in Senate.” The New York Times,The New York Times, 6 Oct. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/10/06/us/politics/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court.html.Flegenheimer, Matt. “Senate Republicans Deploy‘Nuclear Option’ to Clear Path for Gorsuch.” The New York Times,The New York Times, 6 Apr. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/us/politics/neil-gorsuch-supreme-court-senate.html.“Supreme Court Nominations:Present-1789.” U.S. Senate: ContactingThe Senate > Search,6 Oct. 2018, www.senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/nominations/Nominations.htm.Christopher Hare, Keith T. Poole, and HowardRosenthal. “Polarization in Congress Has Risen Sharply. Where Is It Goingnext?” The Washington Post, WP Company, 13 Feb. 2014, www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/02/13/polarization-in-congress-has-risen-sharply-where-is-it-going-next/?utm_term=.c00f6188897e.Shepsle, Kenneth A. “The Changing Textbook Congress”.DeSilver, Drew. “The Polarized Congress ofToday Has Its Roots in the 1970s.” Pew Research Center,Pew Research Center, 12 June 2014, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/12/polarized-politics-in-congress-began-in-the-1970s-and-has-been-getting-worse-ever-since/.“Congress Is Broken. But Don’t BlamePolarization.” RealClearPolicy, www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2018/06/08/congress_is_broken_but_dont_blame_polarization_110662.html.“PartyDivisions of the House of Representatives* | USHouse of Representatives: History, Art & Archives.” US House of Representatives: History, Art& Archives,https://history.house.gov/Institution/Party-Divisions/Party-Divisions/“Party Division.” U.S. Senate: Contacting The Senate > Search, 19 Jan. 2017, www.senate.gov/history/partydiv.htm.Steve Brodner, “Scorched Earth Politics”, The Los AngelesTimes, 25 Nov. 2018Mayhew, David R. Congress: The Electoral Connection. Yale University Press,2004.Capehart, Jonathan. “Speaker Boehner Leaves theHouse in Disorder.” The WashingtonPost, WP Company, 25 Sept. 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/09/25/speaker-boehner-leaves-the-house-in-disorder/?utm_term=.2fb6f498cb30.“Congress Has a Job – but Has Largely StoppedDoing It.” The Washington Post, WP Company, www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/politics/laws-and-disorder/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f29ca2afc06c.Suh, Michael. “Political Polarization in theAmerican Public.” Pew ResearchCenter for the People and the Press, Pew Research Center for the People and thePress, 11 Oct. 2016, www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/.Mason, Lilliana. Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity. The University of Chicago Press, 2018.“About the Book.” Bowling Alone,bowlingalone.com/Shapiro, Rick, and Brian Baird. “How to FixCongress? Change the Rules.” TheHill, The Hill, 24 July 2018, https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/398426-how-to-fix-congress-change-the-rulesGet Help With Your EssayIf you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help!Find out more