I think poof31's idea of cross-party unity is less about the PARTIES and more about the POPULATION.
Meaning that the political parties do a pretty slick divide & conquer on highly polarizing topics that give half the population a reason to "hate" the other half despite the fact that both generally want the same thing.
Most people actually don't want regulatory capture since most people aren't in a position to benefit from it. But it happens because half the people "want" it on some topics because their party says "this is necessary for us not to get screwed!" and people generally go with the party line. And then on other topics the other party convinces its constituents that this other kind of regulation is necessary (which again has lots of regulatory capture built in) and their voters generally agree and support it.
If it wasn't for the few highly polarizing topics splitting the population pretty evenly some stuff could actually get done.
Worse is that the vast majority of people would actually support rewriting the tax code to greatly simplify it and close loopholes because most people aren't in a position to benefit from said loopholes. But this doesn't get any traction because the representatives from both parties know that they can't for the sake of campaign donations. This is literally in the interests of the people but it doesn't happen because it's not in the interests of the representatives.
Being able to realize that the people of the other party are good folks and that the representatives of both parties aren't so good would be a huge win to trying to solve a lot of the legalized corruption that makes Washington so dysfunctional.
Meaning that the political parties do a pretty slick divide & conquer on highly polarizing topics that give half the population a reason to "hate" the other half despite the fact that both generally want the same thing.
Most people actually don't want regulatory capture since most people aren't in a position to benefit from it. But it happens because half the people "want" it on some topics because their party says "this is necessary for us not to get screwed!" and people generally go with the party line. And then on other topics the other party convinces its constituents that this other kind of regulation is necessary (which again has lots of regulatory capture built in) and their voters generally agree and support it.
If it wasn't for the few highly polarizing topics splitting the population pretty evenly some stuff could actually get done.
Worse is that the vast majority of people would actually support rewriting the tax code to greatly simplify it and close loopholes because most people aren't in a position to benefit from said loopholes. But this doesn't get any traction because the representatives from both parties know that they can't for the sake of campaign donations. This is literally in the interests of the people but it doesn't happen because it's not in the interests of the representatives.
Being able to realize that the people of the other party are good folks and that the representatives of both parties aren't so good would be a huge win to trying to solve a lot of the legalized corruption that makes Washington so dysfunctional.