Lacking the power to shift public opinion, presidents hold scant leverage over members of Congress not already inclined to support them, Mr. Edwards said in an interview. Moreover, they now have fewer means of persuasion.
When President Lyndon Johnson pursued the Great Society, he could woo moderate Republicans on the basis of ideology and conservative Democrats in the name of partisan unity. In today’s polarized system, lawmakers have grown increasingly uniform in opposition to a president from the other major party. And levers that had been used to broker compromise, like pending earmarks for pet projects, have mostly been eliminated.
From the outset of Mr. Obama’s presidency, Mr. Edwards argued, aspirations for a post-partisan transformation in Washington were unattainable. But he says Mr. Obama’s advancement of key domestic and foreign policy goals “makes him a consequential president” — for good or ill.
Given partisan and ideological divisions, roughly half the country would almost invariably choose “ill.” The last president to muffle the trend toward increasing polarization was George Bush. Not coincidentally, he failed to win re-election.
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