Whatever happened to bipartisanship?

Years ago, we frequently saw examples of bipartisanship in legislation and policy.  Our country had a bipartisan foreign policy that, at its core, continued from administration to administration with small changes and tweaks.
In recent years the opposite is true.   Each administration seems intent on erasing a predecessor administration's record.   Candidates bluster about all the stuff they will do on Day 1.  Especially amusing since Day 1 is Inauguration Day.   They mean Day 2, but Day 1 is more dramatic.

At an administrative level, this means that the US is more unpredictable for foreign policies.   We always had an element of unpredictability but now it may mean reversals as much as continuity.

In domestic policy, we have been seeing various phenomena resulting from the collapse of bipartisanship.   On the one hand, we see gridlock, the most dominant characteristic.   We also discover that our political parties, especially the current Republican Party, have such great differences within them that they have created a new kind of gridlock.    

The opposition party has increasingly become less a partner than an outsider.   The fact that a health bill could be legislated in the House of Representatives without consulting the Democrats is symptomatic.  

Everyone agrees that the Affordable Care Act can be improved, but the language of "repeal and replace' is the language of destroy and replace.    Not fix, but demolish, before rebuilding.   I have not read the bill passed by the House (neither have a lot of House members) but it has a lot of the Affordable Care Act in it despite the rhetoric.

The Senate, with its customary sense of being the "superior" chamber, despite co-equal status, has said it will create its own bill.

The drama will continue.   But it is a good example of the collapse of bipartisanship.

The other pending issue - tax reform - will doubtless demonstrate the same tendencies when its turn comes.

The collapse of bipartisanship affects all of us on a daily basis but what it does internationally to the image and status of the United States has not yet been fully assessed.