I'm going to explain this one more time, just in case anyone doesn't understand.
The real problem going on right now in this country is gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is the act of redistricting by political parties to effectively create voting strongholds. So the democrats and republicans carve up a state so that they will be unchallenged by the opposition in their respective districts. This has the consequence of of incumbents fearing challenges within their own party more than from the opposite party. So what happens is the incumbent, we'll say a republican, is more likely to move farther to the right in order to avoid being labeled liberal and not as "pure". If that republican takes a stance or votes on issues that are contrary to what the right wing of his party wants he becomes much more vulnerable. Since the goal is to stay in office, there is no incentive to work with the other side. So you effectively have dems and repubs moving farther to the right and left to appease their bases, which means political deadlock, because as we all know, we have a system of checks and balances.
Most people don't even know wtf gerrymandering is! I didn't know what it is until about two years ago. When you really start to think about it you realize just how big of a problem it really is.
In my opinion we have to reform this process, or more radically become a parliamentary government so shit can actually get done; politicians are too slick and partisan now to not abuse the system of checks and balances.
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