Divided Government and the Ideology of the Two-Party State

The new Washington Post-ABC News poll making the rounds in the political blogosphere today indicates that the "current political climate highly favors Republicans" in the run-up to the November elections. The poll shows, once again, that Americans are prepared to vote for candidates whose policies they do not in fact prefer. Ezra Klein sums up the poll's findings: "Americans prefer Democrats to Republicans, prefer voting for Republicans to voting for Democrats." I recently attempted to account for this paradox by considering the effects that the contradictory and reactionary ideology of lesser-evilism has on the American electorate. The new WaPo/ABC News poll provides another data point that reveals how the ideology of the two-party state and duopoly system of government leads individuals to favor candidates they do not in fact prefer. Effectively, it inquired whether respondents favor divided government, and found that they do, consistently:

Regardless of how you might vote in your own congressional district, do you think it's more important (to have the Democrats in charge of Congress, to help support Obama's policies), or (to have the Republicans in charge of Congress, to act as a check on Obama's policies)?

Dems in charge GOP in charge No opinion
9/2/10 39 55 6
7/11/10 43 51 6

Compare to:

Which statement comes closer to the way you think: Since the president is a Republican, we need (Republicans in charge of Congress to help support the president's agenda), or Since the president is a Republican, we need (Democrats in charge of Congress to act as a check on the president and his agenda).

Republicans Democrats No difference No
in charge in charge (vol) opinion
9/26/02 34 56 6 3
9/26/02 RV 36 55 6 3

I have argued before that divided government became more common in the United States as the Democratic and Republican parties auto-institutionalized the two-party state and duopoly system of government over the course of the twentieth century. From July 2009:

Over the course of the twentieth century, the voting public's preferences regarding the ideal party composition of government drastically changed. As I noted in 'unchecked, imbalanced,' in the first half of the twentieth century undivided government was the rule, interrupted by periods of divided government, which marked the exchange of undivided control between the major parties. In the second half of the twentieth century, divided government became much more common, increasing almost fourfold: between 1901 and 1951, there were four two-year periods of divided government, between 1951 and 2003 there were sixteen. (If this Wikipedia chart is to be trusted, that is.)

The twenty-first century has already witnessed, in quick succession, two periods of undivided party rule, first under the Bush administration and now the Obama administration. Accordingly, "divided government" has gone from being the rallying cry of Democrats to that of Republicans . . .

This development, and continued widespread support for divided government, demonstrates how the two-party state and duopoly system of government have eroded constitutional government in the United States. The constitutional separation of powers is no longer perceived as necessary and sufficient to check the imperial presidency that has been constructed by the cult of the executive in the Democratic and Republican parties. As we already know, however, government divided between the Democratic and Republican parties is also not sufficient to check the imperial presidency, the corporatist legislature, or the activist judiciary.