I am a "systems" and "process" guy. Quite honestly, I do not know, as a citizen, whether conservative policies and principles bring about prosperity or doom, and I do not know whether progressive policies and principles bring about prosperity or doom.

This is primarily because it is difficult to establish an unquestioned cause and effect relationship, to any degree of certainty, between implementation of policies and their effect.

What can be said with some degree of assurance is that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, or in other words, things are serendipitous in nature. Whichever party is in power when things are going well will take credit therefore, and probably stay in power. The opposite result flows from when times are bad.

One reason that Republicans occasionally behave like Democrats and vice-versa is because no one really knows, with any degree of certainty, what works, just that X occurred while Y was in control. It also explains why politicians are constantly talking out of both sides of their mouths, and have revisionist memories when it comes to explaining things. There primary goal is to stay in office and not have to really work for a living. (Just kidding.)

We should also consider the fact that no party has things go their way during the entirety of its reign. If the causal relationship were so strong, we'd see more consistency.

Now that being said, I've often said, let's change our Constitution and laws so that we vote for a party and its policies and principles. Which ever party wins, their chosen leaders get to stay in for a longer period of time, let's say 20 years, and they also win Congress, in its entirety. Allow them to implement their policies and principles, and let us really see whether there is a true cause and effect relationship.

(Part of the reason we do not have much accountability these days is because it is all smoke and mirrors. No really seems to be able to tell us, with any clarity, what is going on. This name calling and finger pointing across the aisle is ridiculous. It tells me that no one really knows what’s going on.)

At the end of the 20 year period, if the party in control has not been successful according to some enumerated goals, established before taking control, the other party automatically takes over.

Under the current system, we will simply argue ad infinitum about what works, with no clear consensus. Although there is some value to consistency and low turn over, there is also some value to fresh new blood, new ideas, and the check presented by a challenging entity.

It's worth some discussion.

I strongly suspect that neither side really knows what they're doing. The problem is simply too large, complex, and interconnected with economies of other nations, over which the US has no control. To fix most things in the universe, you have to get it to sit still at least for a short period of time. This is a dynamic situation. If we as a society actually knew what worked, and could establish a cause and effect relationship with any certainty, we would have done it by now. Don’t you think?