President Obama used his State of the Union address to reiterate his quest for a bipartisan approach in Washington. Since then, he has made several overtures, including meeting with the Republican caucus, and calling a meeting of leaders of congressional Democrats and Republicans to reach consensus on a final healthcare bill. But, judging by the persistent mood of Republicans in Washington, it must be asked if any meaningful bipartisanship approach in arriving at legislation, especially during the Obama administration, is realistic. Republicans are bent on blocking the legislative initiatives of the president and Democrats in Congress.

Although agreeing to attend the planned February 25 meeting on healthcare reform, where the president wants the parties to examine each others’ proposals and come to an agreement, the Republican leadership has stated that what it wants is for all the draft legislation to be erased and start the process over again. What then, is the point of the bipartisan meeting?

Again, despite the national crisis with unemployment, and the president’s urgent appeal for a jobs bill to be approved by the Senate, there is doubt if such a bill will be submitted soon. Republican senators (and some Democratic senators) have already signaled their opposition to aspects of the bill.

It is apparent that what will prevail in Washington, as long as Obama is president, is for Republicans to give weak lip-service to bipartisanship, oppose the president’s agenda, criticize when the Democrats draft and pass legislation without their input, while the president continues to push for bipartisanship and criticize Republicans for their reluctance to cooperate. This entire scenario has all the makings of a grand charade.

From a populist viewpoint, most of the nation would be gratified to see members of the two major parties sitting down to compromise on various pieces of legislation, rather than participate in perpetual battle. But such compromise, interestingly, is not the characteristic of Democracy, or the constitutional model that has been adapted by the United States, or most European and Caribbean governments.

The constitution of these countries provides for a government comprised of members of the ruling party and losing party, and an opposition to keep it on its toes, so to speak. The objective of the opposition party is not to collaborate with the governing party, but to convince voters that they have stronger polices, alternatives to the government’s, and persuade those voters to elect them to replace the ruling party. It is not unusual that when populist policies are proposed by the government and are strongly opposed by the opposition party, that the voters will prefer bi-partisan collaboration so that the relevant policies can be passed into law.  There may be the odd times when the governing and opposition parties agree on legislation, but this will never be the norm in multi-party democracies.

On the other hand, voters in electing a party or a leader to govern, elect individuals they trust to effectively use the power of government to pass and implement legislation for their benefit. They voted for decisive action, not for action through political compromise, which, unfortunately, can be construed as weakness in governance.

In Washington, Democrats have congressional majority, and the president in the White House, so voters, and Americans in general, expect laws to be passed and implemented without the help of Republicans. Although those opposed to the Obama administration support Republicans in their efforts to frustrate his administration, this is natural in the game of democratic politics.

This is not to say the president should not make efforts to seek compromise on certain legislation, if this approach is realistic. But, there are no signs that the Republicans genuinely want to comprise, definitely not in this election year when they need to regain majorities in both chambers of Congress. It is unlikely that the Democrats’ majority in Congress will prevail after the November elections, so if the president wants legislation like healthcare reform and the jobs bill passed he must exert strong influence on the Democrats to pass these legislations soon, and not frustrate himself and the nation in seeking elusive bipartisanship.

Historically, partisanship shaped America; through the civil war, the dark days of slavery, the quest for civil rights, and ironically, the process in electing the nation’s first Black president. All the way there was partisanship. The message here is that great things can be accomplished without the idealistic bi-partisanship approach.