Grumet opens by contrasting the rancorous politics of the 1990s with the current era. Although the Clinton years included shutdowns, investigations, impeachment, and harsh public attacks, leaders such as Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and Bob Dole still negotiated seriously behind the scenes. This contrast frames the chapter’s central claim: conflict itself did not break American government; the loss of relationships and shared routines did.

The chapter’s main historical example is the Senate’s response to Y2K. Senator Bob Bennett recognized that government and private systems were unevenly prepared for the computer-date problem expected on January 1, 2000, so Senate leaders authorized a special committee led by Bennett and Democratic Senator Chris Dodd. Despite their ideological distance and the distraction of the Lewinsky scandal and Clinton impeachment, Bennett and Dodd held hearings, issued reports, pushed agencies and industry to prepare, and helped spur a broad preventive effort that succeeded quietly.

Grumet then explains that earlier Washington fostered collaboration through repeated personal contact. Senators, representatives, presidents, families, and staff often lived and socialized in the capital; leaders dined together, drank together, attended events, and maintained friendships even while fighting over major issues. Restaurants such as the Monocle, family life in Washington, shared housing, congressional dining rooms, and informal traditions gave rivals the familiarity needed to negotiate without treating every dispute as betrayal.

The chapter argues that this culture eroded as anti-Washington politics, cheaper air travel, changed congressional schedules, and the commuter-Congress took hold. After the 1994 election, figures such as Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich reinforced the political incentive to remain rooted at home and avoid appearing absorbed by Washington. Members increasingly spent fewer days in session, scheduled votes into compressed midweek windows, slept in offices, rushed to airports, and lost the casual interactions that once made Congress a community rather than a gathering of strangers.

Grumet contrasts the Y2K success with the failed 2012 cybersecurity bill led by Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins. Although cybersecurity posed a similarly serious and nonideological threat, a negotiated bill collapsed amid filibuster threats and leadership acrimony, showing how the same kind of technocratic problem became harder to solve after trust diminished. He also notes rare moments of connection, including a closed Senate meeting in 2013 and the Ryan-Murray budget deal, where personal rapport over fishing and football helped Patty Murray and Paul Ryan protect each other politically and reach agreement.

The chapter closes by comparing Washington’s former collaborative culture to Bell Labs, where Mervin Kelly designed a workplace to produce innovation through chance encounters. Grumet argues that Congress once benefited from similar casual intimacy in corridors, barbershops, restaurants, and family settings, but those routines have been replaced by fundraising, stacked votes, travel, and isolation. He suggests reforms such as longer workweeks and private bipartisan meetings, while stressing that the deeper challenge is not scheduling alone but restoring leaders’ desire to know and work with one another.