Critical Analysis of Its Worse than It Looks by Mann and Ornstein - Book Report/Review Example

 Critical Review “It’s worse than it looks” By Mann and Ornstein This book is designed to get a shocked reaction from its readers; though it could either be a pleasant or unpleasant one depending on the reader’s sympathies with the subject matter and the author’s treatment of it. Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein started off their careers together as students of political science at the University of Michigan, gradually becoming notable names in the political journalism sector; well-known for their discussions pieces about the American politics and congress workings. The two authors have been well known in these circles for the past 30 years, having made a number of important political contacts (both Republican and Democratic representatives) that have allowed them access to the inner working of Washington. Their previous works have established the duo as being comparatively unbiased in their writings, unlike a lot of opinion mongers that we find today. Their work has been largely described as scholarly and neutral, with balanced reflections from the author’s who personally identify as liberal. “It is worse than it looks” is controversial not just for its content but also the unexpected change in the authors’ writing style. This book is very clearly favoring one side of the debate without the usual balance that long term reader’s had come to associate with their work. The book discusses the challenges and problems facing the American government and the political system overall in context of the recent economic, financial and politic events that have made headlines. Mann and Ornstein provide two distinct premises for the dysfunction of the current US government, the first one is the idea that the two main political parties of the country are no longer willing to work together in the cooperative manner that the constitution calls for. Instead their attitude has become adversarial enough that the meetings and negotiations now better resemble the parliamentary party system. The second, and the much more interesting premise is the role, or rather the fault of the Republican party in creating this sense of hostility. The authors claim that the republican party has become so extremist in their ideologies and policies that they are no longer thinking about the betterment of the whole country, rather they are only becoming concerned with upholding and protecting their own ideas. The book starts of the introduction of the idea with a description of the ‘Federal Debt Crisis’ of 2011 and the reactions of the people in power. When the Conrad-Gregg proposal was announced as a possible way to deal with the crisis in a timely manner, it received full support from the Republican leaders including co sponsors Mitch McConnell and John McCain. However, both the sponsors backed off from the proposal soon after it was given a vote of approval from the President Barack Obama. The author’s state “Never before have cosponsors of a major bill conspired to kill their own idea” (Mann, and Ornstein, 2012), proclaiming that this is just one of the many ways that Republican leaders have shown unwillingness to cooperate with their democrat counterparts in recent political scenarios. The extremism of the Republican Party members is causing the political system based on effective negotiations to falter. The author’s are not at all subtle about their views on the transformation of the party, at another part they say that the party has now become “an insurgent outlier—ideologically extreme, contemptuous of the inherited and social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise, unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition” (Mann, and Ornstein, 2012). Basically Mann and Ornstein are putting the majority of blame on the Republicans for the current state of the American political system. The book is divided into two parts, dealing with a synopsis of the problems and then discussing possible solutions. The first two chapters, The New Politics of Hostage Taking and The Seeds of Dysfunction tale the readers through a historic analysis of the political process to see step by step how the problems first began to appear. Their first stance, that of the emergence of parliamentary style of polarization between the two parties is analyzed from 1978 House mid-term campaign, where we first saw the development of the externally financed political campaign which often attacked the opposing party. It was also the year that Newt Gingrinch (Republican) was voted into Congress after 24 years of Congress control and who proceeded to subtly shift the mode of communication between politicians and their supporters. He started off the trend of putting party sentiments before congress needs and pandering directly to the most extreme supporters; Republicans increasingly became less concerned with the political growth and stability of the United States as their emphasis shifted towards gaining political victories. His ideas, unfortunately, also spread to the democrats who also used the same kind of dividing and attacking techniques in their later campaigns. The book makes the case that this was the start of the divide between the parties that would go on to negatively impact the overall nature of politics. The authors use anecdotes, political decisions and their independent reflections to support their arguments in the book. The 2011 debt limit crisis is used as a main discussion point, as are the increasingly common holds and filibusters which have become political weapons in the partisanship environment of the senate. Mann and Ornstein also take into account the role of the mass media and extremist journalism in exaggerating and distributing the divisive sentiments among the population. They say that biased media channels have provided unnecessary support to the inter politics warfare that is now going on, instead of providing intellectual and educative debates through their forums. FOX news is one of the networks heavily criticized in part 1 of the book. The second part of “It’s worse than it looks” discusses possible solutions for the political situation and what role can different play in bringing back stability. The authors give a lot of space to ideas for Reforming U.S. Political Institutions and Fixing the two Party system. They emphasize then need to reform either the constitutional system or the parliamentary style polarization to remove the mismatch in the political processes. If shifted to a well-designed parliamentary democracy, the two parties would still be able to co-exists peacefully as the majority party will have the right to govern unlike the current approach to government which focuses on a traditional “separation of powers”. The authors do admit that these discrepancies and inadequacies in the system are not entirely new. Partisan competitiveness and the influence of money and power have always existed in the sphere of politics, however, the authors indicate throughout the book that conditions have gotten much worse and it’s time to take drastic measures. Mann and Ornstein also discuss smaller tactics that can be applied to control the aggressive nature of the partisanship and extremism spreading. They suggest that the media, both traditional and digital, should concentrate on holding politicians to higher accountability bringing back the idea of ‘public shame’ to make them consider their actions. Mega companies like Google and facebook which have a significant clout over the young population should play their part in monitoring political activities, campaigns and radicalism. The deterioration of the American political culture can only be stopped if the public is properly educated about the reality of the “asymmetric polarization” taking place and also the extreme ideologies of Republicans which have to be controlled. The authors do hold out some hope for the sense of American patriotism and signify the need to get the youth involved in the system by advocating easier voting registration and digital awareness campaigns. “It’s Worse than it looks” is not exactly a scholarly work but it is an extensive analysis of the recent political events and it is bound to get people to think and talk about the Wahington situation. I did feel that the bias against republicans was very prominent (even though it was supported by evidence) and the situation in Washington could have been better probed from both perspectives. It could be that the actions of the republicans are simply in response to the changing demands of their supporter and the constituents who supported them; after all the American culture is also undergoing change at the moment and the people may be in favor of the extremist views. There is definitely a growing voters cynicism and apathy towards the whole political process with the youth uninterested in learning how their country is being run. But the authors don’t touch upon the larger cultural issues focusing only on the political arena for their investigation. It seems at times that the authors purposefully designed this book to shock and awe their readers in hope of creating heated debate and a controversy that would provide much better publicity for their cause (and their book); if this was the intention than the authors certainly succeeded in creating a volume that is informative while being inflammatory. References Mann, T. and Ornstein, N., (2012). It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism. Basic Books. Read More