The Philadelphia Inquirer (I thought they had gone out of business) had the interesting article Another polarized ‘wave’ election Moderates fed up with both parties have led to rapid swings in control of Congress – much like the start of the 1900s. by Thomas Fitzgerald Inquirer Staff Writer.

In 1994, voters gave control of the House to the GOP for the first time in 40 years. But in 2006, Democrats got it back as the midterm elections became a referendum on the unpopular Iraq war and the presidency of George W. Bush. The party’s gains continued in 2008, when it picked up 21 seats as President Obama was elected.

Experts who study voting trends trace the phenomenon to accelerating polarization of the two parties, with Republicans growing more conservative and Democrats more liberal, leaving a large bloc of unattached moderates up for grabs. At least since 2000, this has led to close presidential elections and more frequent switches in control of Congress.

He concludes with  the following:

Some analysts wonder whether the political instability will continue, and ask how a polarized country can work out solutions to its long-deferred difficult problems, such as the national debt and the underfunding of the Social Security and Medicare programs.

In the days when the rest of the world was stumbling around as badly as we were, there was time to get our act together.  Now that there are rapidly rising countries that seem to be able stick to one direction for a while, we run the risk of losing our place in the race to the top.  We might even be vying for the race to the bottom.

Sort of reminds me of my brief stint at Sylvania semiconductor division.  It had a new CEO just about every year.  Do you hear about the great microprocessors now dominating the market from Sylvania?  Does Sylvania even do semiconductors anymore?  Even at the time, I thought that if they had to change CEO every year, maybe the problem was not with the CEO.