Bipartisanship Is Just Two People In A Room Agreeing To Blame You For Everything
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a stunning display of unity that has absolutely no chance of improving your life, Congress has finally found something both parties can agree on: that you, specifically you, are the problem. In a historic bipartisan meeting held earlier this week, Democratic and Republican leaders emerged from a closed-door session to announce a joint resolution condemning the American people for “having the audacity to expect functional governance.”
“We’ve spent months fighting about the debt ceiling, border security, and whether or not we should ban TikTok because it’s run by China or because it lets Gen Z talk shit about us,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), speaking from a podium that was somehow held together by duct tape and hope. “But after a very productive, tear-filled session where we shared photos of our grandkids and admitted we all hate being asked to do our jobs, we realized something profound: we don’t need policy. We need a scapegoat.”
That scapegoat is you. The American voter. The guy who still thinks “net neutrality” is a thing you can buy at Whole Foods.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who looked like he just finished a three-day bender of Diet Coke and despair, nodded vigorously. “Bipartisanship isn’t about compromise. It’s about synergy. And the synergetic thing we can all agree on is that you people are exhausting. You want lower taxes but also roads that don’t look like a war crime. You want the government out of your life, unless your Social Security check is late, then suddenly we’re ‘essential workers.’ Pick a lane.”
The room erupted in applause from both sides of the aisle, a rare sound that usually only occurs when a bill to rename a post office passes unanimously.
The joint resolution, titled the “American People Are The Actual Problem Act of 2024,” is a non-binding document that nevertheless carries the moral weight of a dad who just found out you dinged his car. It lists 47 specific grievances against the electorate, including:
- “Failing to understand how the Electoral College works, yet still having an opinion about it.”
- “Demanding Congress fix inflation, but also refusing to stop buying $8 avocados.”
- “Complaining about ‘the swamp’ while simultaneously voting for the same people who’ve been in office since the Clinton administration.”
- “Expecting us to read 2,000-page bills, when we literally have an app for that and still don’t use it.”
- “Calling us ‘corrupt’ while simultaneously sending us campaign donations so we can buy ads that call the other guy corrupt.”
“Look, I get it,” said Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT), who was reportedly the only person in the room who actually read the resolution before voting on it. “Americans are frustrated. But have you considered that maybe, just maybe, the problem is that you’re all terminally online and think Twitter arguments count as activism? I’ve been in Congress for decades, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that the only thing we fear more than a primary challenge is you showing up to a town hall with a printed-out tweet.”
The article goes on to detail how both parties have already begun implementing the “blame the voter” strategy. House Democrats are planning a series of town halls titled “Your Silence Is Deafening (And Also The Reason We Can’t Pass Anything),” while House Republicans are launching a website called “YouBrokeIt.com” that simply displays a mirror.
“We’re cutting out the middleman,” explained Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who is already facing backlash from her own base for “agreeing with a Republican.” “Previously, we’d pass a bill, it would get stalled in the Senate, and then we’d blame Mitch McConnell. But that’s old news. Now, we just look at the polls, see that 70% of Americans think we’re all idiots, and say, ‘Yeah, well, you’re the ones who elected us.’ It’s a beautiful feedback loop.”
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was even more direct. “I’ve been saying for years that the deep state is real. And it turns out, the deep state is just you. You, sitting on your couch, scrolling through Reddit, thinking ‘both sides are the same.’ Well, guess what? They are. And we’re both sick of you. Enjoy your gas prices.”
The bipartisanship comes after months of polling showing that Americans have reached a rare consensus: that both parties suck, but in different, equally infuriating ways. For example, 87% of voters believe that Democrats are “out of touch coastal elites” while 83% believe Republicans are “out of touch rural fossils.” The remaining 30% are just confused because they thought “filibuster” was a type of sandwich.
Political analysts are already calling this a “masterclass” in misdirection. “By uniting against the voter, both parties have effectively deflected responsibility for every single failure of the last four decades,” said Dr. Karen P. Hacksley, a professor of political theater at Georgetown University. “The debt ceiling crisis? The voter’s fault for not paying attention. The student loan mess? The voter’s fault for getting a degree in ‘art history.’ The fact that the government shut down because of a border dispute that no one actually understands? The voter’s fault for not calling their representative, who, by the way, was in a fundraising meeting. It’s genius.”
Indeed, the new bipartisan strategy has already paid dividends. Approval ratings for Congress have actually ticked up by 2%, likely because Americans are so beaten down that they’ve started to sympathize with their captors. “You know what, they’re right,” said Kevin from Ohio, a 47-year-old HVAC technician who was interviewed while waiting in line at the DMV. “I did vote for that guy. And I did complain about the potholes. Maybe I am the problem. I should probably just
Final Thoughts
Bipartisanship, in my view, is too often romanticized as a golden age of handshakes and compromise, when in reality it has frequently been a mechanism for excluding the public and entrenching the status quo. The current gridlock is infuriating, but a return to "bipartisan deals" for their own sake would be a hollow victory; what we need is not civility for its own sake, but a functional government capable of making tough, honest choices that actually serve the people rather than the party machines. Ultimately, until voters demand accountability from both sides for their failures, bipartisanship will remain a polite fiction used to mask a deeper rot in our political culture.