Politics in the US has already been that way for 20+ years.
And it's been something of a "negotiating exercise" (much like one would negotiate price at a car dealership) for much longer than that.
When you look back at the original framing of the country, that was kind of the original intent.
Some quotes from the founders:
“both sides must part with some of their demands in order that they may join in some accommodating proposition.”
"neither side should entirely yield to the other, and consequently that the struggle could be terminated only by compromise."
"compromise between the parties causes intrinsic merit"
In fact, one could make a well reasoned argument that the way our legislative branch is structured (See: Connecticut Compromise) is an example of two polar opposite sides ideological viewpoints making some concessions to meet in the middle. With one side wanting all of the legislature to be based on state population sizes (which the big states would've loved), and the other wanting all states to the have the same numbers regardless of if they had 1,000 residents or 100,000.
Starting the negotiation from a position of already conceding 80% of what you want is hardly an effective negotiation approach and our system of government would look very different if either of those two factions had conceded most of what they wanted prior to negotiating.
Let's say we were talking about minimum wage.
There are some on the GOP side that want to get rid of it entirely. There are some on the Democratic side that want it doubled from where it currently is. Would it make much sense for the Democrats to sit down at the negotiating table with $9/hour as a starting point? Or would it be better for them to go into it with a demand of $20, in hopes that after the haggling process, it's still somewhere much higher than the $7.25 its at today?
