A divided government: The dark art of "filling the tree"

America is at a crucial point in its history, where every political action carries incredible weight. As stated in my earlier post with the political cartoon, it is crucial that our nation moves forward by working across the aisle rather than continuing to gridlock. This article provided a different perspective on the source of gridlock within the senate. In fact, it showed that this is not even a new occurrence, that gridlock has been occurring for years. It simply has been growing in magnitude. This article published in the NYT and written by Jonathan Wiseman, begins with an explanation on background of the issues plaguing the senate. The concept of "filling the tree" is introduced. This has been a strategy utilized by the majority of the senate(primarily the democrats) over the past few years. "Filling the tree" is matched with strong filibustering on the part of the republicans. This has left senate in a stalemate, where even the simplest legislation requires a supermajority to pass. Wiseman presents the information in a very unbiased manner remaining neutral. Both perspectives are presented equally, where many seem to have claimed the senate itself has always been incredibly gridlocked. Wiseman also pulled information from political science majors to explain the perspectives. Not only does this establish a sense of ethos and legitimacy, but it also provides a greater sense of persona and color to the text. The interviews assisted in my understanding of the topic. The use of a graphic also assisted in showing the drastic increase in the use of the dirty political tactics. The graphic is below:

The top line is a representation of the number filibustering practices and the bottom line represents the use of "filling the tree". Below the line graph is a representation of the majority and minority parties for each senate. This clearly shows the dramatic shift in use of dirty tactics and really struck a nerve in my mind. Hopefully in the future our nation is able to overcome the political pandering and to come together as one productive unit.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/us/politics/new-senates-first-task-will-likely-be-trying-to-fix-itself.html?pagewanted=1&hp&gwh