Congress and National Cohesion

“Having a national, geographically representative legislature often feels inevitable, but in historical fact, it is an arrangement that arose in response to particular conditions. Digging into the emergence of England’s parliamentary traditions can teach us how the assemblage of representatives from across a country can forge a sense of national identity in a way the acts of a singular head of state cannot. That lesson, in turn, can help us appreciate that our Congress’s dysfunction does not just make us miss easy policy opportunities or push power into the hands of unchecked presidents and unelected bureaucrats. Without a healthy legislature, our sense of the country as a polity will unravel — and is unraveling already — because the national assembly and the liberal nation-state evolved together. The two are thus dependent on one another for survival….” (Read more)