Norman Ornstein Joins Erich Prince: “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks”

“It’s harder to demonize somebody if your kids are playing on the soccer field together, and you’re out there on a weekend afternoon.”

Dr. Norman J. Ornstein has worked in Washington, D.C. for 50 years. In that time, he has studied the U.S. Congress, elections, and our political system. He is currently a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and a contributing editor for The Atlantic. Dr. Ornstein has co-authored several books about the U.S. Congress with Thomas E. Mann, including The New Congress, The Broken Branch: How Congress is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track and It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism. He joined Merion West editor Erich Prince to discuss his long career studying politics, why he and Thomas Mann decided to write It’s Even Worse Than It Looks, the role Newt Gingrich played in re-shaping Washington, and why he ultimately believes third party candidates are not a viable solution to fixing American democracy.

Dr. Ornstein, good afternoon. Getting started, you’ve written a lot—from Congress in Change: Evolution and Reform all the way back in the 1970’s to your book One Nation After Trump in 2017. To set the stage, can you talk about where you see It’s Even Worse Than It Looks (co-authored with Thomas E. Mann) in the context of your career writing about politics?

I got started directly when I came to Washington in 1969 as a congressional fellow to the American Political Science Association. I worked on the Hill for a year, and a lot of what I focused on was the beginning effort of major reform in both the House and the Senate. I’ve been engaged in those kinds of efforts ever since.