Governmental Gridlock Quotes

There is nothing I dread so much as a division of the Republic into two great political parties, each arranged under its leader and converting measures in opposition to each other.

Assuming either the Left Wing or the Right Wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles.

Donald Trump has taken a battering ram to longstanding political norms - the unwritten conventions that make governance possible. But even before he decided to run for president, those norms were under assault.

The Democrats complain; I choose to compete.

I believe politics is a team sport. That, for awful and unfortunate reasons beyond any of our control, the American system only allows, effectively, for two teams.

A president just can't make much showing against congress. They lay awake nights, thinking up things to be against the president on.

Potential to alter permanently the political relationship between the President and Congress is enormous.... [It would] outmode contemporary informal negotiation processes between the political branches.

The Founding Fathers did not foresee the party system as it has developed, and what they knew about its early beginnings the disliked intensely.

The great value of the two party system is that after the progressive party has taken a step forward in the face of agonized yells, the conservatives come in and—true to their platform—change nothing at all. Such is the way dangerous innovations turn into glorious traditions.

People have to recognize that it’s going to take some time for trust to be built not only between Democrats and Republicans, between Congress and the White House, between the House and the Senate. You know, we’ve had a dysfunctional political system for a while now.

Politics in this country [USA] is always tough. It's always contentious, because this is a big country and a diverse country, and people have strong points of view, and we've got a great diversity of interests.

When a president decides he's going to do something, a vast array of forces contrary to his purpose begin to organize to thwart him.

At the start of his second term, one wonders less about Obama's fitness than his willingness: Why doesn't he do more to build and maintain the relationships required to govern in era of polarization?

I've got the best job in the world being a senator from the United States, a senator from South Carolina in the United States Senate, representing South Carolina in the United States Senate is a dream job for me, but the world is literally falling apart. And we can't get anything done here at home. So that drives my thinking more than anything else.

The American system is so constituted that it produces a conflict between the Executive and Congress every time the Executive tries to be positive and strong.

Never be easy for any president to deal with any Congress. But republicans got to work together. We got to get things done.

American politics is not, as is that of Europe, "a prelude to civil war"; it cannot become either entirely irresponsible or entirely dogmatic; and it must not try to be logical. It is a rocking sea of checks and balances in which uncompromising absolutes must drown.