Cycle of Dysfunction

A failure to act

Before bed, my wife and I were watching Everybody Loves Raymond, a show about Ray and Deborah Barone, their three kids, and Ray’s parents and brother, who live across the street. In the episode entitled Baggage, Ray and Deborah return from a brief weekend getaway. They get home exhausted from travel, and the suitcase is left on the landing of the stairs. This sets off weeks of avoidance and passive-aggressive behavior.

Ray and Debroah experience a cycle of dysfunction similar to the cycle of dysfunction between Republicans and Democrats. To repair the dysfunction, Ray and Deborah must address the underlying problems of shared authority and balance of power, and Republicans and Democrats must address the underlying problems of representation, incentives, and balance of power.

Ray doesn’t notice the suitcase has been left for a couple of days, but when he does, he believes it is Deborah’s role as a homemaker to take care of it. He thinks that because he is out working all day, it falls to her because she is closer to the suitcase.

Deborah thinks Ray should take care of it since he left it on the stairs. She feels she has to do everything around the house. Ray is the man. If she has to wash the laundry, why doesn’t he carry the heavy thing up the stairs?

The easy thing to do here would have been to pick up the suitcase and take it upstairs. The hard thing to do would have been to talk about whose responsibility it is to take the suitcase upstairs. The wrong thing to do here is to ignore the problem and antagonize each other until frustrations boil over.

But that’s exactly what Ray and Debroah do. Deborah wears clothes from the suitcase in front of Ray, letting him know she knows it’s there and doesn’t plan on moving it. So Ray does the same. After three weeks, Ray has a business trip and needs the suitcase. But instead of taking it upstairs, he packs using a plastic bag, leading to a big fight. Before Ray leaves, he puts a piece of cheese in the suitcase, still on the stairs, leaving a stench.

The lack of communication between Ray and Deboraoh is not much different from the lack of communication between Republicans and Democrats. Many suitcases, like immigration and the national debt, are sitting on America's stairs. Instead of picking up the suitcase or having a conversation about what to do, Republicans and Democrats are caught in a cycle of avoidance and passive-aggressive behaviors that have led to frustrations boiling over.

In Chapter One of American Covenant: What is the Constitution? The second of Levin’s five constitutional frameworks is policymaking. Levin explains the Constitution is

A set of tools and authorities that enable a government to address practical problems by enacting statutes, implementing them, raising revenue, spending it, creating public programs, administering them, and taking policy action in response to needs and events.

The Constitution's legal framework (click here to learn more) imposes structure and limits on power, and its Policymaking framework empowers the government to act within those limits. However, the question often becomes who acts and how much action is allowed. This tension between the legal and policy framework requires debate to resolve. Like Ray and Deborah, Republicans and Democrats have avoided serious policy debate. Instead, they antagonize each other during election season, leading to a failure to act.

In American Covenant, Levin identifies some of our underlying government problems as issues with representation, incentives, and a balance of power. He advocates for congressional reforms, such as increasing the size of the House of Representatives.

In the episode, Ray flies back early so he can apologize. Deborah accepts his apology, and they head upstairs to make up (as parents do). As they pass the suitcase, Debraoh asks Ray to get it. Ray thinks that she should get it since he came home and apologized. They end up fighting again.

This happened because they still avoided the underlying issue of the suitcase. Ray and Deborah have different perspectives on their respective roles as Husband and Wife. The shared authority and balance of power in a marriage are not clearly defined. Couples must discuss these issues and find solutions to prevent future friction. Ray and Deborah are more concerned with winning the argument and coming out on top than solving the problem or having a difficult conversation.

This isn’t unlike the dysfunction between Republicans and Democrats. The suitcases of immigration and debt are left on the stairs while the underlying problems of representation, incentives, and balance of power are ignored. Both are more concerned with winning than they are with solving the problem.

For Republicans and Democrats to escape the cycle of avoidance and passive-aggressive behavior, they need to act. The easy thing for the parties to do would be to pick up the suitcase, write immigration reform, and start paying down the debt. The hard thing is to have a tough conversation about congressional reform and debate the issues of representation, incentives, and balance of power. The wrong thing to do is to ignore the problem to keep winning elections.

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