For the longest time, it worked in the US because we had overlapping political parties. For reasons (mostly having to do with race) you had conservative and lib

For the longest time, it worked in the US because we had overlapping political parties. For reasons (mostly having to do with race) you had conservative and liberal Democrats and Republicans, and they overlapped a lot ideologically, so bills would pass mostly in a bipartisan way (even something like the creation of Medicare and Medicaid got about half the minority party to support it- https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/h35 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/h35 and https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/s151 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/s151). Over the past 30 years that has gone away and parties are strictly sorted ideologically. My personal theory for that is the decline of local news. With Facebook and Craigslist killing the local advertising business all that's left is national news sources, and so all people know about their local Rep or Senator is the letter after their name, and their opinion on the President, there is no room for looking at someone as an individual. And so the people who could be an individual have largely left, and replaced by a great mass of indistinguishable nonentities.