Actually, other than during times of war (up through the Korean War), bipartisanship has been rare, almost nonexistent, in American politics.
It's no big deal, partisanship.
Just as with the free enterprise system, "competition" in politics keeps us a free people.
One of the most interesting comments I ever heard--and from someone who knew nothing about American politics other than the superficial socialist stuff he had learned in school--was from a Ukrainian who commented he liked the principle of "party strife" in America, because "it keeps the rulers fighting themselves, rather than fighting the people."
For whatever that's worth.
It's all changed now, but Theodore White in The Making of the President 1960 commented that Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, and California had the "cleanest" politics of the 50 states, while Massachusetts, Maryland, Georgia, and Louisiana had the dirtiest, foulest, tawdriest politics.
The author said it was because the first four states had highly competitive two-party systems, while the second four states were one-party states. But like I said, that was 1960, and it's all changed now.
