Apparently, our federal government now believes the highest form of patriotism is refusing to work with anyone who disagrees with you. Don’t believe me? Just look at Congress. They haven’t been to work in forever, mainly because our elected officials have the obstinate stubbornness of mules. So don’t worry, while Lindsey Graham is with his nieces and nephews at Disneyland, bills pile up, deadlines pass, and lawmakers go on television to explain why the other side is literally destroying America. Then they ask for your campaign donations.

At this point, the U.S. government functions less like a legislature and more like a never-ending reality show where nobody is allowed to solve anything because then the main plot would end and what in the world would we get to watch next season?And so American politics spirals further into disarray while our two opposing political parties throw wine at each other’s faces like it’s an episode of the Real Housewives.

There are two major groups responsible for this disaster.

First are the corporate politicians. These are the people who somehow enter public office with “modest means” and leave as millionaires after years of accepting campaign donations from industries they are supposedly regulating. What a coincidence. Congress debates lowering prescription drug prices while pharmaceutical companies spend millions lobbying against it. Shockingly, reform keeps getting watered down or delayed. Americans overwhelmingly support cheaper medication, but apparently the real victims are drug company profit margins. And don’t bother pleading your case to party leadership. There’s a reason why there is an app that solely tracks Nancy Pelosi’s investments on Wall Street. 

Then there are the ideological purists from both parties. These are the politicians who think compromise is worse than failure. To them, cooperating with the other side is treated like joining the enemy in wartime. If a bill is 90% of what they want but includes one concession, they would rather kill it completely and post an angry statement online about “standing firm” and not giving an inch to “radical Democrats” or “ extremist Republicans.” 

Immigration is the perfect example. Most Americans support some combination of stronger border security and a pathway for certain undocumented immigrants who have lived here for years. In other words: compromise. But compromise would require politicians to admit the other side might have one decent point, and apparently that is unacceptable. So instead, both parties recycle the exact same arguments every election while accomplishing almost nothing.

Gun policy is another example. Large majorities support expanded background checks. And while this might be a hard pill for my virtuous liberal friends to swallow, that number includes over 80% of Republicans. Yet Congress somehow manages to turn even modest proposals into a five-alarm ideological war. One side screams that every regulation is tyranny (while stuffing their pockets full of donations from the NRA), while the other sometimes acts like banning three accessories will end all violence forever (obviously none of them have visited downtown Baltimore as of late). Meanwhile, nothing substantial changes, everyone gets angrier, and politicians continue fundraising off the outrage. More American kids may die every day because some mentally ill human was allowed to purchase a gun, but on the bright side, your local congressman will be able to pay for his retirement and second vacation house out of the donations you give him to get reelected and continue to do nothing. 

And then there is infrastructure, one of the few issues where nearly everyone agrees that we probably shouldn’t allow roads, bridges, airports, and power grids to collapse. Yet even that became a dramatic partisan battle because modern politics requires turning basic government maintenance into a moral crusade. Every president tries to improve the countries infrastructure. And every president fails because somebody always digs deep into a bill’s “pork” (another one of the many corrupt ways that politicians buy other members of their party into signing off on legislation they wouldn’t have touched with a 10-foot-pole otherwise) find some new thing that they disagree with, and derail progress to make a moral grandstand on an issue that a vast majority of Americans could not bring themselves to care about if they tried.

This is the only way to explain how policies with support around 70% or 80% repeatedly fail. The system is full of people who benefit more from conflict than solutions. Corporate politicians protect donors, while ideological purists protect their personal brand as fearless warriors against the evil opposition. Governing comes second to whatever your senator’s latest schtick is.

Compromise is not weakness. It is literally the job. And it’s what most Americans want their elected officials to do. Be grown-ups. Move the country forward. Don’t make us depressed when we turn on the news and see you babbling like a bunch of idiots on MS Now or Fox News. 

Nobody in a country this large and divided is going to get everything they want. That is how democracy works. The Founders designed the system assuming people would negotiate. They did not expect elected officials to treat every disagreement like the final battle between good and evil while cable news networks add dramatic background music. Poor George Washington. In his farewell address, he warned our country against the dangers of a two party political system. That would divide us and conquer. If you could see us now he’d have to fight the urge to start another revolution.

Of course, some issues deserve firm moral lines. But not every tax bill, spending package, or infrastructure proposal is a sacred ideological battlefield. Sometimes the responsible thing to do is accept 70% of what you want, improve people’s lives a little, and come back later to argue about the rest. Instead, too many politicians would rather accomplish nothing than risk being called a traitor by their own side.

If lawmakers are unwilling to compromise at all, they should stop pretending they want to govern. They clearly just want an audience and an ever-expanding bank account.