Were you by chance a teenager during the Gingrich years? It seems a common pattern to think the government goes off the rails as one begins to become more aware of politics.
Dysfunctional congress goes back long before that.
“The 88th Congress, before the [Kennedy] assassination, had sat longer than any peacetime Congress in memory while accomplishing practically nothing. It was feebly led, wedded to its own lethargy and impervious to criticism. It could not even pass routine appropriations bills. It was a scandal of drift and inefficiency.”
Dysfunctional congress goes back long before that.
1960s https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/01/50-year...
“The 88th Congress, before the [Kennedy] assassination, had sat longer than any peacetime Congress in memory while accomplishing practically nothing. It was feebly led, wedded to its own lethargy and impervious to criticism. It could not even pass routine appropriations bills. It was a scandal of drift and inefficiency.”
1856 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_of_Charles_Sumner was 'symbolic of the "breakdown of reasoned discourse" that led to the Civil War.'
Congress has been broken for a long, long time.