For new readers and those who request to be“好友 good friends”   please read my 公告栏 first.

Even to a casual observer of the US political scene, it seems obvious  that gridlock between the Democratic and the Republican parties is a  permanent state of affairs and nothing significant can be done legislatively.  How come? To explain this we need to start with a blog article I posted last  year : [转载]The MessyPolitical History of the US  http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-944777.html. It is a long article. Let me summarize it here for quick reading  of this back ground article.Up untilsome 30-40 years ago, the two parties of the US politics are  not ideologically pure. The Democratic party while progressive has a significant  portion of its power in the defeated civil war southern states where de  facto segregation and racial politics still dominated. On the other hand,  the Republican party of Lincoln has its East Coast moderates and the  conservative  MidWest and far West.Thus, either party in power are not ideologically pure. Each often has to cater to its important constituents and make compromises or form alliances with like-minded colleagues in the other party in order to get things done .Bipartisan  legislation are the rules of the day. But beginning with the civil rights movement in the 60s, the  Democratic party lost the South which was taken over by the Republican party.  At the same time the East coast liberal Republicans were purged out of the party. As a result both parties became ideologically pure. Each party finds impossible to compromise with the other nor was there any desire/need to cooperate. Since the American system is founded on the principle of “Checks-and-Balance”, unless one party controls both the Presidency and the Congress, gridlock happens. The American populace also believes in check-and-balance and do not like long term absolute power. For example in heavily Democratic state of Massachusetts, we often electRepublican governors and legislators just to make sure the Democratic party does not have absolute power for long. The current diametrically opposite  presidential candidates in the election is another example.  How will we resolve this gridlock dilemma is an important problem to resolve for  the future of the US.