Unfortunately, we have one party that wants the government to get some stuff done but doesn't really care about how much it costs, and another party that cares about costs but doesn't really want the government to get stuff done. So we end up either getting things done for an exorbitant price, or not getting anything done.

> Unfortunately, we have one party that wants the government to get some stuff done

From what I’ve seen in university, Western governments don’t really care about getting anything done. But I don’t know who is responsible exactly. As I see it, all parties since there hasn’t been much done to align incentives again in academia in the last decades (even while papers such as Why most published research findings are false by Ioannidis is getting thousands of citations).

The problem is that voters don't seem to actually reward parties for getting stuff done, or for basic good governance in general. Trump accomplished relatively little of his agenda in his first term, and tried to overthrow the government at the end, and people decided to reelect him four years later anyway.

> and people decided to reelect him four years later anyway.

Underlying to your sentence seems to be the idea that “people” are dumb, which is also a widespread belief in some political circles. I think this idea is very unhelpful. Maybe some civilians are making bad decisions. Yes that’s probably true. But it’s still better than having some select few decide what is best for us. Politicians have to listen to and respect the people. And not push opinions of certain groups away just because they are “uneducated” or “uninformed”. That’s not politics. Or at least it’s how you get people to vote for the other side.

> Maybe some civilians are making bad decisions. Yes that’s probably true. But it’s still better than having some select few decide what is best for us.

So then what do you call it when people make bad decisions that are specifically about putting the charismatic "select few" in charge to decide what's best for us? Cuz that's kinda what the 2024 Republican platform basically is...

Democracy is better than the alternatives, but that doesn't mean people aren't collectively pretty stupid. Your average American probably couldn't even find North Korea or Iran on a map, but that won't stop them from having opinions on those countries.

I think this “I’m smart, they are dumb” mindset is very unhelpful.

My experience when growing up on a farm is that farmers typically aren’t highly educated. But I can tell you they are typically damn smart. I would probably even go as far as saying that it’s in general harder to fool a farmer than a programmer. Because a farmer that is easy to fool is not a farmer anymore. The farm will have gone bankrupt already. And it’s similar to self-employed painters I guess. Maybe they are not academically smart, but they are certainly not dumb either.

So that’s my main problem with this “I’m smart they are dumb” mindset which is the default in academia. It diminishes large parts of society and for no good reason. I think it would be way more fun if society can respect all the players in the system.

> and another party that cares about costs

This is nowhere present in that party's behavior over the last 50 years. No, not even DOGE, assuming the rule of law doesn't collapse completely they're going to cost us money because they've done things so obviously-poorly and illegally.

The Republicans care to claim about costs, but DOGE actions like mass firing inspectors general make it obvious that's a lie. The actual function of the party at this this point is to funnel money to the rich and/or do whatever Trump got into his head is important this week even if it means setting the economy on fire.

They sort of care about costs, but basically in the sense of, "getting a fat guy to lose weight by chopping his arm off".