[DougN7]

My father-in-law always liked to see an exact number of democrats and republicans in congress, or congress held by one and the senate the other, for exactly this reason. With deadlock they can’t screw things up more. I’m not sure I disagree.

[cthalupa]

Congress has had one of the lowest approval ratings of anything in government for a long time now because it doesn't get things done. Most Americans are quite unhappy with Congressional deadlock being the norm.

It's also directly lead to the continued rise of the powers of the unitary executive - the EO that have become the norm in the 2000s are in large part because Congress has largely voided all responsibility for legislating.

[troad]

Congress passes tons of laws - just not on subjects on which the country is divided. Is that not a feature? Other systems require 50% + 1 to radically remake the entire country. Would that be better? Or worse? Imagine if <insert your most hated President> were Prime Minister instead, and had control of a truly sovereign Parliament with virtually no guardrails at all. Better or worse?

EOs are a problem, but SCOTUS is walking at least some of that back in subtle ways, such as the end of Chevron deference. (Not that you'd get any of this from the media, who desperately want SCOTUS to devolve into the media-friendly horse race they've imposed upon all of the rest of politics.)

Congress isn't supposed to decide on social questions. Society is. Congress is meant to represent it. A divided Congress is accurately representing a divided country.