> then it’s either our culture and normal way of life

That's the one - from an outside PoV the two US parties are two sides of the same coin, barely a perineum twixt them, both ceding the votes of many people to the cash of a very few.

It's baked into the US zeitgeist that it's better to sit back and watch "the government" go tits up and then wade in with guns hoping for a better outcome than it is to properly manage communal resources and common ground.