A well-researched, provocative piece in The New Yorker this week explores the increasingly dysfunctional nature of the US Senate. In particular, the article draws attention to the unprecedented obstructionism of the current Republican minority:

Under [Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell, Republicans have consistently consumed as much of the Senate’s calendar as possible with legislative maneuvering. The strategy is not to extend deliberation of the Senate’s agenda but to prevent it. Tom Harkin [D-IA], who first proposed reform of the filibuster in 1995, called his Republican colleagues “nihilists,” who want to create chaos because it serves their ideology. “If there’s chaos, things will tend toward simple solutions,” Harkin said. “In chaos people don’t listen to reason.” McConnell did not respond to requests for an interview, but he has often argued that the Republican strategy reflects the views of a majority of Americans. In March, he told the Times, “To the extent that they”—the Democrats—“want to do things that we think are in the political center and would be helpful to the country, we’ll be helpful. To the extent they are trying to turn us into a Western European country, we are not going to be helpful.”

…The deepest source of [the Senate’s] problems is not rules and precedents but, rather, its human beings, who have created a culture where Tocqueville’s “lofty thoughts” and “generous impulses” have no place.

If Republican Senators were true statesmen, they would know that it is always “helpful” for the minority party to make an honest attempt to work through their differences with their opponents. Instead, Republicans have adopted a “just say no” legislative philosophy, making it impossible for the Senate to be the dignified and idea-oriented institution envisioned by the Founders.