Can We Rebuild Trust in Congress?

After conducting dozens of interviews with senior staff in Congress from both parties, I recognized that I wasn’t simply studying polarization, but a series of deliberate, specific changes that transformed disagreement between colleagues into battles of good versus evil.

My new OpEd in The Hill traces how:

• Shortened work weeks eliminated the informal bonds that once made compromise possible

• Cameras in Congress turned persuasion into performance

• The 24-hour news cycle turned political disagreement into profit

• The center became not just marginalized, but politically dangerous

The recent rise in political violence isn’t an aberration, but the logical endpoint of trends building for decades.

The question isn’t whether we can return to some golden age of bipartisan cooperation, but whether we can rebuild the relationships and trust that make democratic governance possible.

Read the full piece: https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/5545432-gingrich-congress-polarization-tactics/