# Out of balance political power: Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 1, 2021, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/out-of-balance-political-power-joe-manchin-and-kyrsten-sinema/953643 "2021-11-01T18:49:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 38
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/out-of-balance-political-power-joe-manchin-and-kyrsten-sinema/953643/38 "2022-01-19T02:48:23Z")
> [@DeadTreasSecretaries](#): > > Ezra Klein’s _Why We’re Polarized_ . Basically the premise is that political scientists think that US-style systems with divided governments and complex legislative procedures usually eventually break down into an ungovernable partisan mess, and the real question for the US was why it _wasn’t_ polarized for such a long period Ys, that’s the thesis of Juan Linz, a professor of polisci at Harvard (no longer with us). His article “[The Perils of Presidentialism](https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/levitsky/files/1.1linz.pdf)” is a good, relatively short read on the topic. His thesis is that divided government, where both the executive and the legislative branches can legitimately claim to have a popular mandate, inevitably lead to partisan gridlock. His studies of presidential/congressional systems, other than the US, was that they all failed, often through coups or strongmen, or simply a breakdown in the constitutional consensus. The US was the outlier. Worringly, the factors which he identified as contributing to the breakdown in all those other countries now sound familiar in the US: extreme partisanship, refusal to recognise the validity of the other side, refusal to work together. I started a thread on this issue some time ago, and asked “After the US, what is the longest-lived presidential/congressional system?” The consensus answer was “Costa Rica! Coup-free since 1948!” (With some uncertainty about how to county Mexico, with its perpetual revolutionary party.) > [@What is the second-oldest presidential/congressional republic?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357): > > The United States is the oldest presidential/congressional republic in the world, dating to 1788, when the Constitution was ratified. (Not necessarily the oldest republic; San Marino claims that title, and Switzerland is also in the running). So what is the second-oldest presidential/congressional republic in the world? I’m interested in a presidential/congressional republic, similar in constitutional structure to the US, which has had an uninterrupted run to the present day since its const… --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/out-of-balance-political-power-joe-manchin-and-kyrsten-sinema/953643)._