They can&#x27;t agree on anything because the national Republicans have been captured by the tea party, who has in turn now been captured by the Trumpists. Both events were based on newcomers to the political process claiming that the system is broken beyond repair, and that they were the needed &quot;Wrecking Ball&quot;.<p>The tea party managed to scuttle Obama&#x27;s &quot;Grand Bargain&quot; with Boehner, which consisted of TEN TRILLION DOLLARS of spending cuts in return for one trillion in new revenue (taxes). In my mind, this is when the national republicans ceased to be a rational force, in others&#x27; minds it could be the blowup over our debt ceiling or the government shutdowns, but regardless most rational observers with an understanding of the political process would agree that the right has lost its mind because of capture by revolutionaries. A Trump administration would bring far worse (just this week he suggested that he&#x27;d be open to partial default on US government debt). It&#x27;s basically a self-reinforcing cycle of crazy where bad outcomes from bad decisions cause irrational actors to make worse decisions in response.<p>So the reason the two parties can&#x27;t agree on anything is that there&#x27;s really only one party, and that&#x27;s the Democrats. This is problematic, because our political system is based on having two parties, either of which could be trusted to provide reasonably responsible governance.<p>The United States is, despite the apocalyptic rhetoric, a strong nation with a relatively stable government and an economy that is literally the envy of the world. We certainly do have problems, and that is what &quot;politics as usual&quot; is designed to fix. So I urge you to play the game rather than try to kick over the table.