Partisanship as the Dissolver of Institutional Solidarity

Republicans, including Republicans in Congress, are mad that President Barack Obama has requested Congressional authorization for a military strike against Syria. They claim to wish he had just gone ahead and done it himself, unilaterally. This is weird, in a way. They're in Congress. It's their permission he's asking! People don't usually mind it when you ask their permission for things! You are literally giving them power over you while at the same time suggesting that you value their advice. Maybe you don't like being forced to take a stand over an issue and would prefer that someone else did your job for you, but actually coming out and saying "I think it shows weakness that he asked me for permission" is weird. Among other things it feels like it implies that you just accept your own incompetence, or something. Like, "Obama wants to ask the Congress of which I am a member for permission to attack Syria? He might as well ask the cat!"

But in another sense, of course, it's not weird at all. These are Republicans we're talking about. And I don't specifically mean that they're ideologically in favor of unilateral executive war-making power, although they are, because not a one of them would ever have criticized a Republican President who asked for authorization from Congress before conducting a military strike. The point is that Obama's a Democrat, and in particular one that they all hate with an abiding passion, so literally anything he wants Congress to do they will refuse to do. Literally anything. Including things they like. Like going to war. (Seriously, they love going to war.) Or cutting taxes. (Remember that time when Obama was proposing a tax cut and Republicans wouldn't pass it?)

Now, I'm not even really making a point here about how deranged Republicans are now. They are, but that goes without saying. The point is that in this case, a partisan motive is overriding an institutional motive. This happens a lot, and always in the same direction: Congress declines to forcefully assert its constitutional authority because approximately half of its members see themselves first and foremost as members of the President's political coalition rather than as members of the body charged with checking his power. If everyone in Congress signed on to a "let's maximize Congressional power all the time" platform, they could pretty much reduce the President to the equivalent of a ceremonial head of state. They could override every veto, choose every judge and executive appointment by themselves (by refusing to confirm anyone else's nomination), etc. In the end that would make Congress, and therefore being a member of Congress, much more important. But they don't do that, because at any given moment it goes against the partisan agenda of half or nearly half its members. The simple fact of partisanship, therefore, has an enormous transformational effect on the practical constitutional structure of our government.