Well, let me literally reproduce my other comment in this thread, which was a reply to another person. It is not that easy to find, so, for your convenience, I'm reposting it below. While it talks about "checks and balances" point, I think that exactly the same argument can be made about "common ground". I hope that it makes sense to you.

As for your argument on checks and balances - yes, generally, it is definitely a very good thing. However, when one side uses their position of chamber majority not to collaborate and compromise, but to throw a wrench into "wheels of democracy" and gridlock the Congress (especially, considering the voting record of the current majority in the Senate and essentially zero breaking ranks history), which might be extremely unproductive and even damaging to the lives of the American people, that IMO does not represent the "checks and balances" that you're talking about.

But again, this is only stopping progress from your point of view. From the other, it’s stopping damage. You are implying that your side is right and must have 100% to implement it. Anything short of that is damaging. It’s still one sided.

> From the other, it’s stopping damage.

By taking total control. That's not an exaggeration.

You accuse the Democrats of doing this?

Tell it to Mitch McConnell. Hundreds of bills that passed the House will sit on his desk and never get voted on.

Not exactly. That is why I have mentioned above words "collaborate" and "compromise".

And then go on to say you need total control. You can’t collaborate and compromise if the one party controls the entire gov. Nobody will believe the lie that democrats will work with republicans.

The control is needed at this particular time, because the history clearly shows that the current Republican majority and their leader are not only unwilling to collaborate with Democrats, but are simply stonewalling the process (see comment above by @thomastjeffery). When we will have a non-obstructionist Republican fraction in the Senate, the total control will not be needed.

I don't see how this can be made any more obvious. What you call stonewalling one side calls preventing damage. It's from your point of view that it's progress. The stonewalling actually serves a purpose. If both sides can't agree, nothing happens. The gov is essentially frozen. You want control to force through policies that the other side doesn't want. You claim the right doesn't want to work together, but this is opinion. There's clearly evidence of them working together. Your complaint is you don't have full control, therefore bad. "But we should work together."

Just admit it, the dems don't want to work together or compromise at all. Nanci Pelosi made this very clear recently.

> the dems don't want to work together or compromise at all

This is such a ridiculous statement that I even won't bother replying to it beyond this comment.

> If both sides can't agree, nothing happens. The gov is essentially frozen.

Well, if you see a stalemate as a positive thing and think that there is no way out, then why don't we just close Senate for the time being, furlough senators and save quite a bit of taxpayers' money?

You didn’t read any of my reply. The stalemate serves a purpose. If you would invert the parties right now you’d easily understand.