A recent CNN survey showed that only 10% of Americans polled approved of our current Congress. 10%: the lowest rating in the history of CNN’s polling of the public’s approval rating of Congress. This poll is the culmination of more than two years of turmoil, dysfunction, and despair in both houses of Congress. The group most responsible for this mess in the United States Congress is the extremist sect of the Republican party.

The biggest problem with US Congress is the extreme faction of Republicans in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Politicians like Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota, 6th District) are all Tea Party members, and not surprisingly, because of their Tea Party affiliations, are some of the most extreme far-right politicians in this Congress. Senator Cruz is arguably the most public in his condemnation of President Obama and his administration, and is a prime example of how Republican extremism is hurting the American people.

Back in February of 2013, during current Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s nomination hearing to become Secretary of Defense, Senator Cruz evoked McCarthyism by accusing the former Senator Hagel (R-Nebraska), who is a Vietnam War veteran and a Republican, of accepting money from nations who are sternly opposed to American interests. He said, “It is at a minimum relevant to know if that $200,000 that (Senator Hagel) deposited in his bank account came directly from Saudi Arabia, came directly from North Korea.” Senator Cruz make this heinous statement without any supporting facts or information, which brings Senator Joseph McCarthy to mind as they both tried to ruin their political opponents’ careers by making completely untruthful statements about their political or personal associations. If Cruz was not a US Senator, no one would have cared about whether or not he believes Senator Hagel was paid $200,000 by the most evil regime on the planet (North Korea), but the fact that a U.S. Senator made such a misleading and deceitful statement is a very serious concern, and it is, quite frankly, scary that someone like this has power in the Senate.

In addition to wasting time and trying to destroy anyone who President Obama supports, Senator Cruz played a prominent role in September’s debates leading to government shutdown, especially in the area of defunding Obamacare. Senator Cruz has taken such a hard-line stance against Obamacare that he has gained opposition not only from the administration, but also from moderate and even fairly extreme Republicans.

For example, Senator John McCain (R-Arizona), who is now a moderate compared to the new extreme far-right senators, criticized Senator Cruz’s 21-hour anti-Obamacare speech by suggesting that the American people chose Obamacare by re-electing the President in 2012, when he beat Governor Romney (R-Massachusetts) even though a main component of Governor Romney’s campaign was repealing Obamacare. Senator McCain said, “[Obama’s reelection] does mean elections have consequences, and those elections were clear, in a significant majority, that the majority of the American people supported the president of the U.S. and renewed his stewardship of this country.” Senator Cruz was not serving the American public by using the government shutdown as a weapon against President Obama’s administration if it did not completely defund Obamacare, the landmark bill of President Obama’s first term that helps to insure 30 million Americans.

This kind of stunt is just another piece of evidence that describes the bigger picture with the U.S. Congress, in which this extreme sect of Republicans, primarily associated with the Tea Party, polarizes even their own party, and thus creates bigger problems in Congress in regards to getting legislation passed and negotiating across the aisle.

This kind of extremism takes place not only in the halls of Senate, but also, less publicized, in the chamber of the House of Representatives.  Weak leadership from Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio, 8th District) has become a massive problem in the House because the Republicans are not united on passing bills or negotiating with Democrats and President Obama. The House GOP freshmen and 2nd term congressmen, who were mostly elected as a reaction to Obamacare in the 2010 and 2012 elections and who are also mostly involved with the Tea Party, have increasing extreme far-right political ideologies.  They are unwilling to negotiate with either the President or Speaker Boehner, but their 35 votes holds a lot of clout in deciding whether or not bills are passed. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-Virginia, 7th District) supporter of the Tea Party, in which he believes that, “the characterization by the media has been mis-portraying, if you will, so many of those individuals — those moms and grandmoms and dads — who were part of that (Tea Party) effort in 2009,” and defense of the Tea Partiers from the derogatory nickname Sen. McCain gave them recently, “wackobirds,” is indicative of his political ambitions to usurp Speaker Boehner and become Speaker of the House in 2014.  Similar to the attempted deposition of Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1997 by Republican House leaders due to poor performance, Rep. Cantor is trying to get support from a coalition of Tea Partiers and very far-right House Republicans so he can attempt to take over as Speaker of the House in the next election cycle.  This is just another example of Republican, and most especially the Tea Party’s, dysfunction in Congress and its negative effect on the American people.

By now you’re probably wondering if or how we can fix this. Well, first of all, the American people need to understand what is going on in Congress and why. Before the 2012 elections, the Congressional approval rating was 21%, only eleven percentage points higher than the current 10% approval rating. Although the Tea Party Republican politicians were to blame for the debacle regarding the “Fiscal Cliff” last year, voters actually ended up voting only eight Republicans out of office in the House of Representatives, preserving the Republicans’ majority even though they caused the Congress to be such a mess. The voters need to follow up on their concerns voiced in approval ratings and actually vote the people who are causing the mess out of office. In addition to this, the politicians in Washington need to start working together. Enough of the rhetoric; they need to negotiate across the aisle to construct legislation that is acceptable to both Democrats and Republicans. If these two things happen, America and Congress will be back on track to a forward direction.