Chances are you're right on this point to at least some degree; whenever some potential for cooperation between the parties is discussed the axiom of "if the country only had a singular outside threat to unite against stuff would get done" always makes an appearance, and the same principle surely applies to disparate factions within a single party. At the moment, while all of those factions on the right seem to define said "adversary" at least somewhat differently and employ different labels (the left, the elitists, the globalists, etc.), somehow that never seems to stop them from voting in near-lockstep for the same people in the end.Sengoku Strider wrote:But if they ever actually made all the sissy leftists disappear in their mythical Ten Days of Darkness, day 11 would be the party fracturing along its inherent fissures and turning upon itself
If I may take this opportunity to bang my usual drum, however, (what passes for) the American left is also a coalition of sometimes-conflicting interests, and absolutely has a "common threat" to unite against, namely a conservative movement which has outright rejected the democratic process and intends to exclude them from governance altogether by fiat; somehow, though, they can never seem to get it together when it matters like the right can. Part of this, I'd posit, are the inherent biases in favor of rural conservatives in particular which are baked into our current electoral system, but another major factor is that the American "center", when push comes to shove, bases its own vote on perceived grievance, just like the right, far, far more than it will ever admit; "sure, we wouldn't have a democracy anymore, but on the other hand we could really stick it to anyone who's ever used the term 'flyover country'". Nothing makes a right-wing candidate smile more broadly than hearing someone say he doesn't keep up with all that politics nonsense and just "goes with his gut" when he shows up at the polls.
Offer them all the social services and fiscal responsibility you want, none of the guys in diners the news networks rushed to interview in the aftermath of Election 2016 gave a rat's ass about any of that; again and again, they want to be heard, they want respect. Translation: a less in-your-face variant of yeeeahhhh fuck yooouuu yeeeahhh.