This is a really good question, and I don’t exactly know how to answer it; definitely not in a tweet format.

If we look at DW-Nominate scores (https://legacy.voteview.com/political_polarization_2014.htm) for the US Congress, the period of least distance starts with 1932 election of FDR and runs clear to the 1966 elections. What happened here to narrow that distance, in effect increasing one way to measure “bipartisanship”? Well, the great depression, the second world war, red scares, and the arms race. Oh, and Jim Crow Segregation.

If the price of bipartisanship is a shared understanding among elected officials for a segrationist status quo; no thank you. I don’t want that bipartisanship.

But that begs a question, which is, how do we define bipartisanship in the first place? Which, like obscenity, is really difficult to define. Perhaps a better way is by example, and the finest example is the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Democrats want to help the working poor, Republicans want the working poor off of welfare and to generally cut taxes, and the EITC does both; it is a truly bipartisan solution to put more cash in the working poor’s pockets, without establishing a new government bureaucracy. I’d say that’s good bipartisanship: it’s addressing a problem with the cooperation and input of both parties. Anytime a legislature solves an actual problem - like this law https://house.mo.gov/LegislationSPMobile.aspx?year=2018&code=R%20&category=reports&ID=&report=billsearch&Q=2280 - you can bet that real, honest to goodness bipartisanship took place. Its usually “small bore” issues, but these are really important and become the grist for the legislative mill on real change. Work with me on this now and I’ll work with you on that later.

What it isn’t is mere compromise, which I contend is altogether different. Compromise is essential to bipartisanship, but it isn’t the nature of bipartisanship. I’d say the haggling over ‘how much’ is compromise. The issue at stake has to be bipartisan in order for the compromise itself to be bipartisan. Simply cutting deals is not the same. That’s triangulation.

It also isn’t non-partisan work of governing. There’s 6000 or so Senate confirmed positions in the federal government, and mostly those appointees, while politically connected aren’t explicitly political while serving. It’s very important that they get seated promptly, and that agencies aren’t bogged down in politically motivated drive by oversight. Committees have statutory duty to oversee agencies and its one insidious way partisanship rots public trust in Congress - by turning subcommittee into courtroom. I think most Americans would agree with me that we want our committee work done in the open and limited to helping agencies provide the services our tax dollars are paying for, not in the service of making some back benchers’ career.

Does bipartisanship require collegiality? Yes. Which, it’s difficult to understand how much that’s degraded over the last 25 years. Certainly, ideological purity tests do not help.

Americans love action; we want an energetic executive who will corral our lawmakers into working together to solve our every day problems. Often, the solutions to those problems don’t represent some think tank white paper or accord to some ridiculous interest group pledge. As designers like to say, the best designs fall in love with the problem, not your solution to the problem.

And not every issue requires bipartisanship. I don’t care that the ACA passed with no Republican votes. I care that it became law. Political courage is voting in a way that is going to cost you - your next election, your job prospects after office, your local media coverage. No cost, no courage. There’s a time and a place for both in political life.