Congress, like any serious institution, functions by socializing its members to work together. By establishing rules and norms, avenues to recognition and status, and a commitment to the strength and purpose of the institution itself, it gives shape to a type of human being who can be called a member of Congress. For much of our history, newly elected members would be gradually formed into this distinct type over the course of their time in the institution—bringing their individual points of view, priorities, strengths, and weaknesses to the table but using them to fill out the job of the legislator, to pour themselves into it and take its shape.

Keith E. Whittington: Trump’s defiance is destroying Congress’s power

These norms had their downsides, frustrating efforts to reform Congress, and creating some distance between members and the public they represented. But they also yielded great benefits—forming legislators who would play their assigned role in our system and defend the legislature’s prerogatives.

But when those members look to the institution as a means of displaying themselves rather than letting it form their ambitions into agendas, they do not become socialized to work together. They act like outsiders commenting on Congress, rather than like insiders participating in it. Much of what they say and do, even in private discussions with colleagues, is intended not for their peers but for an outside audience that wants to see a dramatic enactment of culture-war animosities.

This has changed the character and the persona of some legislators. Queen Victoria once complained of William Gladstone that “he speaks to me as if I was a public meeting.” Time spent with many members of Congress today has this same feeling about it. Too many have just one mode—a performative mode intended to go viral. And in that mode, Congress cannot function.

Such members often don’t much care what other legislators think of them, because their standing and prospects don’t depend on their colleagues and because they are not engaged in common work but in a spectacle put on for others. This engenders a distorted set of virtues and abilities: a form of courage that involves being willing to anger other politicians in order to cater to a small group of devoted followers, and a form of professionalism that is about sticking to the livid cultural script rather than playing an accommodating constitutional role. Such members try to gain status and prominence by endlessly scorning the institution they worked so hard to enter.

This sort of attitude was particularly prominent among Republicans in the Obama years but has spread to the Democrats in the Trump years. It has been driven in part by a centralizing tendency in Congress that has put nearly all of the power to set the agenda and move legislation in the hands of a small group of leaders in each house, leaving most other members with little real legislative work to do much of the time. Meanwhile, changes in the cultural and media environments surrounding the political system have made dramatic outrage the coin of the realm. Members consequently use their positions to build personal brands and to excite fans and followers.