Thank you for the compliment!
Ours is exceptional - and I mean that in the sense of actual American Exceptionalism, not the populist version. We've always been a melting pot of people from all over the world seeking freedom and opportunity. It's always been an uneasy coalition of puritans and refugees. And we all have different ideas of what the "good life" looks like. If any one group decides they know better, even if they can manage a majority vote in their favor, it becomes a problem. It's my contention that such a diverse mix works best with minimal government. That means we might not get socialized medicine or free college, but it also means we're not mired in political battles over what socialized medicine and free college should look like.
Of course that's not the only reason for the divide. Much of it is artificial. Baked into the election system we use, and amplified by media. It creates, and rewards, partisan extremism over consensus leadership. At best we get "compromise" - horse trading where Ds let Rs do crappy stuff that half the country hates, in exchange for Ds getting to do their crappy stuff that the other half of the country hates. Each side leaves, planning to undo what the other pushed through.
Consensus is different. It's more about what we don't do. In particular, we don't do crappy stuff that half the country hates. Consensus isn't majority rule either. Consensus means we're not going to do something that a significant minority finds intolerable. We're not going to walk away from every session of Congress or every election vowing revenge. Which is the way we roll now.
