Observing american politics from outside it (I'm Canadian), I have to say, honestly, that the whole country seems to have gone a bit ... insane. I'm sure as hell no political scientist or expert, but it seems to me that a lot of the problems stem from the same source: that america has become a two party system. Without smaller parties to spread the power out a bit between the two big players, it's become a game of extremes. The republicans seem to care much less about actually doing the job of politics to benefit the country, and instead it's all about politics for the sake of politics itself. They'd rather bring the whole nation to a screaming halt and ruin, and appeal to their most hardcore base, than make any compromises that would actually be good for the whole country. It's become a policy of scorched earth, where they'll oppose anything, regardless of it's reason or importance, for no reason other than because it was put forth by liberals.

And again, from an outside perspective, it really does look like america has nothing but deranged radical lunatics in it! They're the only ones who get news coverage, so they're the only ones the rest of the world sees. Intellectually, I know there must be a huge moderate majority in the middle, people just trying to get by and caught between extremes that don't reflect their desires and interests anymore... but you never see them, and I fear that until they're pushed to the point where they really rise up and demand sanity from their politicians, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.