President Obama’s urgent call in his final State of the Union address to “fix our politics” posed a fundamental question: Who broke them in the first place?
The answer is that both sides did. A steady erosion underway for years has accelerated during Mr. Obama’s time in the White House and now shows itself in congressional dysfunction and campaign vitriol. The restoration project could take some time.
“I think there’s probably a lot of us to blame,” Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff, told reporters Wednesday. “It’s the structure of our campaigns, the structure of our districts, what’s happening in terms of news media — that is to say that you can select your news media the same way you select your neighborhood or your church.”
Republicans united in opposition to Mr. Obama to gain control of the House in 2010 and, ultimately, control of the Senate in 2014. Republicans are now so determined not to be seen as supportive of Mr. Obama that they sat silently Tuesday as he proclaimed the United States the most powerful nation on earth — usually a sure applause line.
Senators and representatives from both major political parties reacted to the president’s final State of the Union speech on Tuesday.
“It used to be a very positive thing for a member of Congress to say, ‘I can work with the president of the United States,’ ” said former Representative Vin Weber of Minnesota, a Republican strategist. “Now there’s no margin for that” for a lawmaker of the opposite party.
“Even if it were possible, the grass roots have become so polarized that it’s now seen as a negative, even dangerous,” Mr. Weber said.
Mr. Obama, after forcing through an aggressive economic and social agenda in his first two years in office, quickly grew frustrated with Republican resistance and engaged in a concerted campaign to go around lawmakers. His series of executive actions on health care, immigration and the environment drove Republicans into a frenzy of opposition. As divisions grew, Mr. Obama was increasingly defiant about his prerogative to act where Congress would not.
In the process, the two parties spent much of the Obama era trying to make the other responsible for the sorry state of political relations and gridlock. But both have contributed, as the permanent battle for congressional supremacy has at times led lawmakers to put political gain ahead of national interest and to oppose bills they actually support.
“To have the president of the United States talk about it in a State of the Union message illustrated that, without romanticizing the past, our politics is fundamentally changed from what it was, and in very disturbing ways,” Mr. Weber said. “We haven’t yet fully figured out, as the political class, what exactly is the source of this.”
As room for compromise disappeared, the public grew grimmer in its assessment as well.
In 2007, as the presidency of George W. Bush drew to a close, two-thirds of Americans thought the country was more politically divided than in the past, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center. With Mr. Obama’s election, that number dropped 20 percentage points, to 46 percent, but it has risen steadily throughout his tenure. The latest survey, conducted in the fall of 2015, found 79 percent saying the country was more polarized than it had been before.
Seeking a solution, Mr. Obama on Tuesday advocated a series of nuts-and-bolts changes along with his grander call for more civic engagement. But the steps he outlined — nonpartisan redistricting, campaign finance changes, rules to ease voting — are the kind that both sides talk about but rarely act on because of the political advantages one side or the other sees in maintaining the current system. Republicans, who control most state legislatures, like the current system of redistricting because it allows them to draw the lines. (Democrats enjoy the same advantage in states where they have the upper hand.)
The question is whether this time will be any different, though Mr. Obama pledged to press the case in his final year and when he is out of office.
At the same time, the president has no plans to pull back on his aggressive use of unilateral action to skirt Congress and accomplish his objectives, promising still more fodder for the cycle of division and blame he assailed in Tuesday’s speech.
Nor will Republicans shy from opposing such actions. Hours after Mr. Obama finished speaking on Tuesday, the House voted to nullify a set of water regulations Mr. Obama had issued, denouncing what they called another power grab. After that vote, they headed to Baltimore for a joint House-Senate retreat to plot an aggressive opposition agenda for 2016.
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