American politics is so polarized....

[anvi]

"Political polarization" is now, in fact, to a large extent, about deciding whose pockets tax revenues go into.  In this, society is divided between different groups, large and small, each seeking their own interests.  The better funded and more influential the group is, the better chance it has to compel a party or a politician to secure its interests.  

"Checks and balances" were designed to prevent one branch of government from usurping the powers of the other, and not to prevent parties from dominating the political process.  That is why the founders, having established checks and balances, still worried about the rise of political parties in the United States.

Those who decry polarization (and I am one of them) assume that politicians can, if not often, at least sometimes when it's important, be statesmen and stateswomen and work out solutions that are the commonest good that is realistically attainable, and strive for the best of all of us and not just one or a few groups of us.  As nice as that ideal might sound, the assumption it is based on is unfortunately too often unaware of the world in which we're now living.  Politicians can only get elected and hold their offices to the degree that they represent some groups' interests against other groups' interests, and hoping that "the common good" can somehow magically arise out of this agonistic framework is turning out to be an evermore forlorn act of "faith."  If the game is merely one of representing distinct interests, then a commonly agreed-upon set of facts is no more to any of the players' use than is a solution that might trade some of one player's interests for those of another.  

But, in the end, this is not just a problem with politicians.  Individuals don't willingly surrender too many of their own interests to others either, not unless keeping a relationship with the other is more important that a limited interest of their own, or unless both are faced with an immanent threat.  If nothing more can be expected of individuals, expecting more of the politicians who represent them and the groups into which they coalesce will be in vain.  

We are not really one nation anymore; we are instead the 53% of these guys vs. the 47% of those guys, or the group with this amount of wealth vs. the group with that amount of wealth, or the group with this labor skill vs. the group with that labor skill, or the group in this industry vs. the group in that industry and so on.  A system, and a culture, founded on the conviction that self-interest is the most important human motivation and the only perspective from which decisions should be made in the face of every conceivable circumstance is, sooner or later, bound to end up like this.  What we now call "polarization" wouldn't be nearly as big a problem for our country if so many of us didn't like it so much, since it is the means by which we all continue to fight for what we want...for ourselves and our preferred groups.