“When asked about our persistent partisanship, many political commentators blame politicians for lacking the ‘will’ or the ‘stomach’ for compromise. Getting into fights is more appealing to many of them than working to broker solutions. While there’s some truth to that analysis, it goes deeper than that. Our political system can’t solve our collective problems because we don’t have collective problems; instead, we have Democratic ones and Republican ones. And, these aren’t just minor differences of opinion. When it comes to ranking the most pressing problems in America, Democrats and Republicans are not just in different places, they are on different planets”

“Last month, a Pew poll asked respondents to select the issues that they see as ‘a very big problem in the country today.’ Coming in at first place with 56 percent was ‘affordability of health care.’ On its face, an issue that 56 percent of Americans deem important would qualify as a collective concern. But, it’s not. A significant percentage of Democrats (69 percent), put this on top of their list, but just 40 percent of Republicans feel the same way. Then look at immigration and border security. There you see that almost half the country (48 percent) see this as a big problem. But, again, that is driven mostly by the 72 percent of Republicans who pick this as a top priority. Only 29 percent of Dems feel similarly. For almost every one of these top issues – from the budget deficit to guns – the gap between how important Dems see it and how Republicans view it is enormous. The issue of ‘violent crime’ is only one where the two sides are in pretty close agreement – 52 percent of Republicans put it as a top problem, compared to 44 percent of Dems” – Cook Political Report.