"Maybe the US Congress is actually a Mudcat thread on religion."

LOL!!! It IS, Ron, it IS! The entire USA 2-party system is a Mudcat thread on religion, guaranteed to produce division, scorn, hatred, despise, misunderstanding, and yet more irreconcilable division...because that's exactly what it is designed to do.

There is simply no possibility that the supporters of Democrats and the supporters of Republicans will ever unite in common cause...EXCEPT....and this is a big except....when there is a spectacularly violent attack of some kind on America that is perceived to have come from a foreign source. 911, for example. A Reichstag fire. The sinking of the Maine. The torpedoing of the Lusitania. Pearl Harbour. The fictional Gulf of Tonkin attack. Something along that line.

That type of evnet does briefly unite almost your entire public, Democrats and Republicans alike, in a frenzy of fear and rage, and they send off their young people to slaughter some foreigners on some distant piece of real estate. It works for awhile. But the complex reasons behind the event are always hidden and never really understood by the vast majority of the public that reacts to the event. It's a gambit that your ruling corporate/defense Oligarchy will resort to or take advantage of when all else fails.

Watch out for it. If it happens again, it will not be good at all, and you won't want to be standing anywhere near to where it happens.

In the meantime...YES...the American political scene and the American Congress are like a Mudcat thread on religion. Two irreconcilable points of view, and never the twain shall meet...and the anger and chauvinism generated by that divide will keep you all fighting each other forever instead of bringing down the corporate plutocrats who really rule your nation by the power of their money and by America's gigantic national debt.