I'm unsure about Ezra Klein's argument that we shouldn't blame the Senate's dysfunctions on Mitch McConnell:
But if it wasn't McConnell launching the filibusters, it'd be someone else. They might be better on television or more collegial in front of the cameras, but they'd still be filing objections and wasting time and holding their members together. In part, that's because the various interest groups and grass-roots organizations that power the Republican Party do not want to see compromises on liberal agenda items. But the larger truth is that obstruction just makes sense: If you can only win the next campaign if the public considers the governing party a failure, and if it's in your power to make the governing party fail, well, you can finish the thought.
On the main, this is correct; Senate obstructionism has less to do with the personality of any given minority leader, and everything to do with the perverse incentive structure of the chamber. As Ezra writes, "The Senate isn't gridlocked and polarized because it's full of bad people. It's gridlocked and polarized because gridlock and polarization serve the interests of the minority."
That said, I'm wary about hewing to completely institutional explanations; that the Senate contains strong incentives for minority obstruction does not erase the fact that individual senators are morally autonomous persons with direct responsibility for their own actions. Nothing actually forced Jim Bunning to block unemployment benefits for millions of Americans; he did it just to prove a point. Likewise, nothing forced John McCain to embrace discrimination in our armed services, and it was the GOP's choice to demagogue immigrant kids looking for a chance to better themselves.
To use a different example, Barack Obama is undoubtedly following his incentives by endorsing Bush-era detention policies and asserting executive power. But that doesn't make him any less culpable for his choices. Everyone operates in institutions with varying levels of dysfunction and particular sets of incentives. It's understandable for a rational actor to follow those incentives -- and in that sense, I don't think Mitch McConnell is doing anything remarkable -- but we shouldn't let that fact cloud our moral vision. Nothing happens in a vacuum, but that doesn't make individuals any less responsible for their actions.
-- Jamelle Bouie
