Vested Interests Take Over US Politics

“It’s important right now for the world to understand how dysfunctional Washington has become and to take this development seriously. At the same time, there have never been greater opportunities to influence Washington,” writes Frida Stranne, guest researcher in the U.S.

For a long time, the world has watched the political game in Washington and been amused by its premises and how the power struggle between the president and Congress, the influence of lobby groups and money, and the complex parrying of state autonomy with federal laws often leads to debacles and problems. But these days, it is no longer a laughing matter.

Now it is serious; the world needs to understand how dysfunctional Washington has become. We need to take action against the conditions that have come to be and that have strayed far from the ideas the American system was founded upon. It isn’t a political show for our entertainment anymore — it’s a farce that’s starting to become seriously dangerous for both the U.S. and the world around it.

Initiatives here are no longer about building long-term, sustainable and sound strategies that guarantee even America’s own security, détente interests and economic stability. Instead it’s about short-term, populist decisions that can lead to re-election (for the individual) and appease the extremes. Attempts at compromise and balanced dialogue on the complexity of reality are gone. Instead of discussing what, to voters, needs to be discussed in order to handle various challenges and help form opinions, they become hostages of radical elements with a lot of money.

What’s important to senators and members of Congress is no longer listening to the presented arguments at hand. Instead, with every chance they get, they turn their faces to the camera and compete for attention. They say something witty that can get uploaded to YouTube or aired on CNN, possibly earning them fast political points that offer further financial support.

The rest of the world has to take this seriously because today, we have a situation where America boasts an uncontested military capacity, is tangibly losing ground in the world political scene, and has a domestic political system that’s nearing a train wreck. That combination isn’t favorable for the development of U.S. domestic policies or, consequently, the future (conflict) dynamics of the world. The situation should therefore be noted with the seriousness that it demands and lead to friends and allies of the U.S. pressuring the superpower to rely on knowledge, sense and balance.

We should help the many forces that exist in Washington that are urgently trying to drive the matters at hand in a different direction than Congress is currently going with them, where they are affecting the presidential administration’s ability to run constructive policies.

In Washington, D.C. this is no hidden problem. The dysfunction up on Capitol Hill is now something that every single informed discussion here refers to and makes fun of. Every week I participate in a number of different events and virtually every policy institute seminar ends with comments on how disconcerting developments are. Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates also describes his frustration with Congress in his book, “Duty,” and at John Kerry’s latest hearing, I could witness up close the secretary of state’s look of despair over the total inability, shown by both his own party and his opposition, to remain relevant to and discuss the arguments at hand involving negotiations with Iran.

When you follow the discussions that go on in various policy institutes and listen to the experienced and balanced reasoning that goes into them compared to the various Congressional hearings, you can directly observe that the good, nuanced discussions on various questions “down in D.C.” have turned into superficial “out-of-the-blue” arguments that are often lacking any kind of sense. Out goes gathered knowledge from experts and in come vested interests with limited and short-sighted arguments that don’t serve the general interests of the people. There isn’t any solution in sight, either — if anything, it looks like it will only get worse.

And it isn’t the tea party movement’s advance that is causing this; it’s the political structure’s development and conditions. Most of all, it’s the law from 2010 (Citizens United) which allowed politicians to accept virtually unlimited money from individual donors (“super PACs”), disrupting a sound political process. The task of Congress is to balance the president’s power, but today it has become more important to undermine him (even for members of his own party who don’t like him). They delay decisions and routinely vote “against” him rather than work together toward long-term solutions.

The black-and-white attitudes that exist in Congress have also pressured the administration in another way that wasn’t necessarily intended or wanted. The whole tone of the situation is radicalized and superficial debates have become universal, spreading to the media and the citizens. According to several sources I spoke with, many officials are leaving their mandates today because they feel it is “impossible” to work in a constructive manner.

The world must realize that the dysfunction in Washington demands that we put pressure on the issues in D.C. because decisions that are made there can jeopardize our interests. But we also have to realize that, because America nowadays depends on cooperation from outside of its own Washington-defined terms, the opportunities to influence the superpower have never been greater. We need to support reasonable people — Congress needs to be pressured by the world to act on the long-term common interest. The fact is that this is questioned every day in D.C., where many are wondering where the political pressure from the rest of the world is and how long this will all be allowed to go on before people react.