I figured out why Congress has been so willing to do nothing | Opinion
Dace Potas, USA TODAY, 12-26-25
I often complain that Congress has abdicated its duty to legislate and serve as the engine of our federal government. But what I want to write today is why. Why has this Congress been so willing to do nothing?
I have blamed the existence of independent agencies, certain Supreme Court precedents and overzealous executives for this problem.
To be sure, these are contributing factors that ought to be examined. However, there is a much more straightforward thing to blame for Congress’ decline: The rise of social media and direct communication with voters have destroyed the incentives for Congress to assert itself.
Our elected leaders are clearly not concerned with the prestige of their office, given that they are uninterested in reclaiming their rightful war powers, power to tax and other powers from the executive.
Members of Congress don’t have an incentive to act anymore
In my opinion, the key difference between the Congress of the past and the current dysfunctional institution lies in how members of Congress communicate with their voters and how voters consume politics.
Once upon a time, members of Congress had to actually accomplish something, or be involved in something, in order to receive publicity. Space in newspapers and time on television were limited, meaning that some topics didn’t meet the threshold for discussion in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s.
The incentive was to be productive because that got you news coverage and gave you material to take back to your district when it was time to campaign for reelection. You can see that in the level of activity over the past few years and decades.
Americans now consume politics through social media, where algorithms are used to keep content relevant and prevent it from slipping into the background. The methods of communication have changed. There is no longer gatekeeping by established news sources that limits information about candidates to only the important issues.
Now, members of Congress seem more worried about being glorified partisan social media stars.
This is far from a new phenomenon. Barack Obama pioneered the use of social media in his 2008 presidential campaign, and the practice became ubiquitous by the time Donald Trump was first elected to office. However, the development of hypertuned algorithms has worsened this effect on ordinary people.
The result of this shift is that members of Congress are always campaigning and always focused on how they can receive more attention on social media ‒ rather than actually doing their jobs. It also has increased negative partisanship, as the content that gets the most attention is content that criticizes the opposing party.
Now, members of Congress can take to their social media accounts to serve as little more than glorified pundits. In many cases, this manifests as being partisan cheerleaders, rather than as individuals interested in actually accomplishing something.
In the case of Republicans, this has allowed their party to devolve into a cult of personality surrounding Trump. Members of Congress are less interested in accomplishing any real policy outcome than they are in coalescing behind and defending the president from his enemies. Their function has shifted from legislating to partisanship.
When it comes to strikes on Venezuelan drug boats, members of Congress have praised the president’s actions, but gloss over the fact that they need to be the ones to authorize the use of force against Venezuela. When it came to the tariff authority, members of Congress had no problem sitting back while Trump unilaterally changed the tariff rate against every country in the world, even though it was their power to do so. When it came to cuts by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, members of Congress praised the illusion of cutting government waste while taking little action to actually make a dent in the problem, despite being the best suited to do so.
But this isn’t purely a phenomenon of the Republican Party. When it came to President Joe Biden’s illegal promise to address student debt through cancellation, members of Congress could have pushed for student debt cancellation through legislation. Instead, they had no problem merely riding the coattails of Biden’s blatantly illegal plan to cancel student debt, and then subsequently watching as the courts rightly struck it down.
We Americans are to blame in part for being consumers of this devolved political landscape. The changes in incentives for members of Congress have been incredibly detrimental, but they are here to stay, and Americans will have to reckon with the new frontiers of social media in politics.
Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.