The Uniparty Trap: Why Bipartisanship Is the Enemy of Liberty

Every election cycle, we hear the same siren song from pundits and politicians: We need more bipartisanship. It is treated as the holy grail of governance, a sign that grown-ups are in charge, putting country over party, reaching across the aisle to get things done. I call baloney.

Bipartisanship in today's Washington is not a virtue. It is a malpractice. It is the mechanism by which the two major parties collude to expand federal power, evade accountability, and bypass the constitutional limits that were designed precisely to prevent easy consensus. When both parties agree, when the uniparty forms, there is literally no check left. The branches are supposed to check each other. But bipartisanship turns Congress into a single lever, and the executive and judiciary into eager accomplices.

The Founders built friction for a reason. James Madison warned us in Federalist No. 10 that the great danger of republican government is the tyranny of a majority faction. But what about the tyranny of a unanimous faction? The Founders did not build a system that was supposed to run smoothly. They built one with friction, separation of powers, bicameralism, federalism, and a Bill of Rights, all intended to make it hard for government to act so that liberty could breathe. John Adams called for a government of laws, and not of men. Those laws were deliberately designed to slow things down, require supermajorities for major changes, and disperse power across multiple centers.

When bipartisanship becomes a goal in itself, it short-circuits that entire design. It signals that the political class agrees on one thing: that the federal government should act quickly, unanimously, and at will. That is the mindset of a pure democracy, not a constitutional republic. And it is precisely the mindset that the Founders feared most. As Madison wrote, in framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place oblige it to control itself. Bipartisanship, as practiced, removes the second obligation. It says, we all agree, so we must be right. But history says otherwise.

The Uniparty in Action: Three Case Studies

Consider the PATRIOT Act of 2001. After September 11, Republicans controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress. But the PATRIOT Act was not a partisan bill, it passed the Senate 98 to 1 and the House 357 to 66. Bipartisan? Absolutely. Constitutionally sound? Hardly. The result was a massive expansion of surveillance powers, a gutting of Fourth Amendment protections, and a permanent state of emergency that we still have not unwound. The act allowed warrantless wiretapping, bulk data collection on American citizens, and secret FISA courts that rarely said no. Both parties cheered. Both parties voted yes. And both parties abandoned the limited-government principles they claim to hold.

The long-run consequences are staggering. The PATRIOT Act set a precedent that national security emergencies justify indefinite expansions of executive power. That precedent was later used to justify warrantless drone strikes on American citizens abroad, the NSA metadata program exposed by Edward Snowden, and the Section 702 surveillance authority that continues to this day. Bipartisanship bought us a permanent surveillance state, and almost no one on either side of the aisle takes responsibility for it. The seen was the feeling of safety after 9/11. The unseen was the steady erosion of every American's privacy and the normalization of government spying.

Look at Medicare Part D in 2003. When President George W. Bush pushed through the Medicare prescription drug benefit, it was the largest expansion of an entitlement program since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. The House voted 220 to 215, largely along party lines, but the bill had bipartisan support in the Senate, 54 to 44, with 11 Democrats voting yes. What did this bipartisanship produce? A massive, unfunded liability that added trillions to the national debt. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the ten-year cost at 395 billion dollars; the actual cost has been well over 800 billion. And the program was written with a specific ban on Medicare negotiating drug prices, a gift to the pharmaceutical industry that both parties quietly accepted. The uniparty got a new entitlement to brag about to seniors. The taxpayers got the bill. And the Constitution? Nowhere in Article I is there an enumerated power to create a prescription drug program. But who cared? Both sides were shaking hands.

The CARES Act and the Inflation Hangover

In March 2020, with the pandemic in full swing, Congress passed the largest single spending bill in American history, 2.2 trillion dollars, in a matter of days. The Senate passed it 96 to 0. The House passed it by voice vote. Bipartisanship at its finest. What did it actually do? It sent 1200 dollar checks to nearly every American, expanded unemployment benefits, bailed out corporations, and gave hundreds of billions to state and local governments with almost no oversight. The short-run effect was a sugar high. The long-run effect was massive inflation, a 31 trillion dollar national debt, and a permanently expanded welfare state.

The expanded unemployment benefits, combined with stimulus checks, created a disincentive to work. Millions of Americans stayed home, and when they tried to return, they found the economy had changed. Small businesses that did not get PPP loans shuttered. Those that did often used the money for things other than payroll, with minimal enforcement. Henry Hazlitt's one lesson, judge a policy by its effects on all groups over the long run, not just the visible short-run benefit, was completely ignored. The seen was the stimulus money landing in bank accounts. The unseen was the inflation that eroded purchasing power for years, the debt burden on future generations, and the millions of jobs that disappeared because the economy was flooded with artificial demand.

Now we are living with the consequences. Prices are still elevated. The Federal Reserve had to raise interest rates aggressively, making mortgages and car loans unaffordable for millions. The national debt continues to climb. And yet, when another crisis hits, the same politicians will call for the same bipartisanship, and the same uniparty will deliver the same expansion of government power. The pattern is predictable because it is baked into the incentives of Washington.

Why Bipartisanship Feels Good but Destroys Liberty

The appeal of bipartisanship is obvious. It signals unity, maturity, and action. But Friedrich Hayek warned us that the road to serfdom is paved with precisely these kinds of good intentions. When both parties agree to suspend constitutional limits in the name of emergency or consensus, the result is a steady accumulation of federal power that is never returned. Each bipartisan victory becomes a precedent for the next one.

Thomas Sowell taught us to judge policies by their long-run consequences on all groups, not by the momentary glow of cooperation. The long-run consequence of routine bipartisanship is the steady erosion of the Founders' design. The uniparty expands government, grows the debt, and centralizes power, all while congratulating itself for getting things done.

Consider also the phenomenon of bipartisan consensus on foreign policy. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan both began with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress. The Authorization for Use of Military Force passed with near unanimity in 2001 and 2002. Two decades later, we have spent trillions of dollars, lost thousands of American lives, and achieved ambiguous results at best. The same politicians who voted for those wars rarely admit error. Bipartisanship gave them cover. If both parties agree, no one is held accountable.

The Alternative: Principled Gridlock

I am not arguing that there is no place for cooperation. Of course there is, on matters where both sides genuinely agree on principle and on constitutional limits. But real bipartisanship should be rare, specific, and limited in scope. The Founders expected gridlock. They designed a system that would produce it. That gridlock is not a bug; it is the feature that protects your liberty.

When one party blocks an overreach from the other, that is the system working. When the House and Senate disagree, that is the system working. When a president vetoes a bill that exceeds constitutional authority, that is the system working. We have been conditioned to see these moments as failures of governance, but they are actually successes of constitutional design.

The next time you hear a politician brag about a bipartisan bill, ask what liberty you lost while they were shaking hands. Ask how much debt was added. Ask whether the Constitution authorizes the action. Ask whether the long-run consequences were even considered. The answer, more often than not, will be that you lost a little bit more of the republic the Founders gave us.

Bipartisanship is a Washington drug, and it is killing the Republic. The cure is not more cooperation. It is more friction, more constitutional limits, and more Americans who know the difference between a consensus that serves liberty and a consensus that buries it. We need fewer politicians who celebrate reaching across the aisle and more who understand that the aisle is there for a reason. It separates competing visions of government, and that separation is what keeps power from concentrating in a uniparty that answers to no one.

The Founders gave us a republic to protect us from transient majorities and from transient unanimities. The uniparty is the ultimate unanimous faction, and it is the most dangerous of all because it comes wrapped in the rhetoric of unity and good intentions. Do not be fooled. Principled judgment, not bipartisanship, is what preserves liberty.