Politics

A pox upon both houses. Both sides are hypocritical as hell. And both sides fucking suck.

I find it hard to look at the behavior of both American political parties and see them as equally objectionable. Our Overton window has shifted wildly in the last decade. By international standards, Democrats are conservative left and Republicans have become dangerously radical right. American Republicans have abandoned the rule of law. They oppose democracy and attempted a coup when they didn't like the results. They openly lie and gaslight. They scapegoat vulnerable minorities. They force women to give birth against their will. They induce violence via stochastic terrorism. I can't look at this situation and muster comparable ire for both sides.

Congress has like a 18% approval rating, but a 80+% re-election rate.

That's congress as a whole, most Americans have a positive view of their own representatives.

rather than set those wedge issues aside and recognize that there's FAR more important things at stake, we keep squabbling over bullshit rather than actually making progress.

In a 2-party system there's little incentive to. I posit that voters are motivated to vote more by fear of the other party than enthusiasm about their own. This is a consequence of Duverger's Law. If we want to fix the system and encourage cooperation, the best way is ranked choice voting, which encourages candidates to reach out to all voters even on the other side because they might be their 2nd or 3rd choice. When they implemented it in SF, some candidates running against each other started campaigning together, cooperating for mutual advantage.