Episode 215: "Bipartisanship" as High-Minded Rhetorical Cover for Pushing Rightwing Policies

Citations Needed

"Clinton seeks common ground with Republicans," reported the Associated Press in 1994. "Obama hosts dinner, urges bipartisanship," announced the AP again, in 2009. "Resist Trump? On Immigration, Top Democrats See Room for Compromise," stated The New York Times in late 2024.

For decades, we’ve heard Democratic policymakers extol the virtues of working with Republicans. Through a series of stock terms, e.g. bipartisanship, finding common ground, reaching across the aisle, compromising, they tout their willingness to set aside their political differences with Republicans in order to stop quibbling, quit stalling, work pragmatically, and––the holiest of the holies––Get Things Done.

This all might sound well and good; surely an active government is better than an idle, incapacitated one. But which things, exactly, are getting done? Why is it that the act of making decisions or passing legislation is deemed more important to elected officials than the actual content of those decisions and legislation? And how does an incurious, largely compliant media contribute to the harms of a Democratic party that, in its embrace of Republican ideology under the seeming noble banner of "bipartisanship" continues to move further to the right on key issues?

On this episode, we dissect the popular appeal for bipartisanship, examine how folksy calls for “Washington” to “work together” more often than not serve to promote war, austerity, anti-LBGTQ policies and crackdown on vulnerable migrants, and show how this seemingly high minded formulation serves to push Republicans further right and launder the Democrats’ increasingly conservative political agenda.

Our guest is journalist and author Malaika Jabali.