Updated: March 21, 2013 at 1:56 p.m.
This post was written by Hatchet reporter Asha Omelian.
Blogger and reporter Ezra Klein – known as a political brainiac armed with graphs and stats – tried to answer a lofty question Wednesday on campus: What is wrong with American politics?
Klein, a Washington Post columnist who leads the paper’s Wonkblog, spoke to students at 1957 E St. in an event sponsored by the faculty in residence program, the provost’s office and the Center for Student Engagement.
He began his talk by ensuring that the fundamental mindset of the students in attendance was: “You don’t like Congress.”
His first graph showed the lack of popularity Congress held in a recent Gallup poll. The IRS, the airline industry, lawyers, Nixon during the Watergate scandal and Paris Hilton were all considered more popular than Congress.
In another graph, titled “Why Congress Sucks,” Klein showed the audience the striking polarization between the two parties. And he fought back against the idea that the stalemate was a product of the times. He said in the past, there was a “period where parties weren’t far apart, but America was falling apart due to assassinating leaders and the Vietnam War.”
“We live in a town where the primary belief about American politics is that it would be good if we had a time machine,” he said.
He also cited a “West Wing-like” obsession with the president as a problem.
“The fundamental problem is not the White House or the executive branch. The president is not meant to be a dictator. He or she cannot save you. But here in Washington we live in the dream of the president,” he said. “We need to get over it.”
There could be some bright spots, Klein admitted. He said he approved of immigration reform, which seems to be heading in the right direction.
Klein also addressed developments in media, especially as numbers-based journalism and blogging takes hold.
“I think there’s a move toward a more empirically rigorous form of journalism. I think blogs created a more competitive market. There’s still a lot of blind spots and emerging critique on us,” he said.
