Why must it be 51-49?
That’s a two-party system designed to capture a number, not built on an ethos.
Our system didn’t just fail politically. It blew up because of greed and externally instigated division.
With better laws, smarter incentives, and more foresight, we might have avoided this. Remove financial gain from office with stricter rules and we might have made it. If someone had figured out, and convinced people, that you cannot endlessly move toward individualism, maybe we would have had a chance.
But the mentality of a pioneering country is individualism. That is inherently anti-state.
So we were on a collision course with this future from the moment the country was created.
Fourth Turning, indeed.