Jim Douglass Beyond Partisanship

Words: 532
Pages: 3

In Jim Douglas’s article “Beyond Partisanship” he discussed the increasing political polarization and decline in civil discourse plaguing American Congress. He not only discusses his opinions on the topic, but his ideas to fix it. He feels “the decline in civil discourse can be attributed in large part to the rise in political polarization” (104).
Douglas says compromise and cooperation has turned into procrastination and deadlock. Rather than finding solutions we focus on blaming the opposition. He says politicians used to work together, but now they simply refuse to work together. Douglas made the observation that politicians fight to see who is more “ideologically pure” (104). He feels this is all because the increased polarization, and