I'm saying it was always messy, and it wasn't better before. It worked great in the US in the 30s and beyond because there was a large consensus around the New Deal, the government created a middle class that favored moderate policies because they had a stake in the system, and the Democratic party largely controlled the legislature for 60 years, which restrained the policies that could be enacted by the executive, and again...consensus around pro-social policies that contributed to widespread economic prosperity.

The shift to populist politics just mirrors pre-WWI politics.