I think the GP was missing a comma or something - they probably meant that differences between the Republican and Democratic Parties (I should stress that this is about the parties, not thr voters), even those as embittered as abortion, gun rights, gay marriage etc, are small compared to the overwhelming amount of policy they agree on almost entirely (foreign policy, medical care, primacy of corporate interests, little will to battle climate change).

Sometimes the policies both parties agree on are in stark contrast to the will of the US electorate, such as the case of many recent wars, or Medicare for All.

Small in what sense? We have Obamacare and most people now support it, and there isn't that much support for program that's $3 trillion a year bigger. We supported foreign wars, and did a few, then we didn't, and so now we're not intervening in Ukraine. As you observe, we have little will to battle climate change. Everybody dislikes corporations in the abstract, but we vote with our wallets and keep voting for Amazon over the Mom & Pop. If you keep in mind that the median voter is like 45, I don't really see how the country doesn't closely reflect what most people want.

By contrast, our disagreements regarding what you teach my kids about the nature of marriage and our purpose on the earth, or the laws around terminating human life, or whether we should have a color blind society or not, seem pretty important by comparison. Whatever problems we perceive ourselves as having, we don’t trust others to fix them if we disagree about fundamental things like the socialization of children.

While Medicare for All itself is only polling at 55%, with most Republican voters (62%) opposing it, a public option is polling at a whopping 68% support, including 55% support among Republican voters [0]. And yet, neither party is willing to implement it (a public system would significantly reduce Healthcare costs for the entire economy - remember that the USA has by far the largest expenditure on health-care out of any country on Earth, while doing relatively bad among rich countries at outcomes).

For wars, the occupation of Afghanistan has been opposed by the public for at least 10 years before Biden withdrawing, with strong support from voters of both parties, as seen in both Obama, Trump and Biden winning with a platform of ending the war, but without any concrete action from the first two (if anything, Obama intensified the war, ordering even more illegal drone strikes on civilians than George Bush, and even publically admitting to assassinating an American citizen on "suspicion of terrorism").

Also, voting with your wallet doesn't work when Amazon undercuts the Mom&Pop, pumps billions into marketing, and outright buys what they can't compete with - as do all others.

[0] https://morningconsult.com/2021/03/24/medicare-for-all-publi...

> While Medicare for All itself is only polling at 55%, with most Republican voters (62%) opposing it, a public option is polling at a whopping 68% support, including 55% support among Republican voters [0].

Polling like that (do you want this free stuff?) is meaningless. Look at polls that ask how many people support taking action on climate change, versus ones that ask what people are willing to pay in higher utility bills for such action. People want change, but only if it costs less than $10/month: https://www.cato.org/blog/68-americans-wouldnt-pay-10-month-...

Even millenials, who skew liberal, generally would prefer smaller government if bigger government meant higher taxes: https://reason.com/2014/07/10/millennials-prefer-small-gover....

Americans support universal healthcare--right up until you propose to pay for it the same way everyone else pays for it, with payroll taxes on middle class people.

> And yet, neither party is willing to implement it (a public system would significantly reduce Healthcare costs for the entire economy - remember that the USA has by far the largest expenditure on health-care out of any country on Earth, while doing relatively bad among rich countries at outcomes).

And here is where the abstract choice rubber hits the political reality road. After the Obamacare experience, very few people believe that they'll get more from a government program while paying less. Also, people are broadly in disagreement about why healthcare costs more in the U.S. and what drives our outcomes.

> For wars, the occupation of Afghanistan has been opposed by the public for at least 10 years before Biden withdrawing, with strong support from voters of both parties, as seen in both Obama, Trump and Biden winning with a platform of ending the war, but without any concrete action from the first two

Obama won because he was willing to recognize the war as a mistake, but that isn't the same thing as believing we should pull out. Opposition to ending the war didn't reach a decisive majority until 2012: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/world/asia/support-for-af.... And by the end of Obama's term, we were down to 1/3 of what they had been at the start of Obama's term: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-41014263. Even then, the majority of Americans disapproved of the execution of Biden's pull out: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/americans-give-biden-low-ma...

> (if anything, Obama intensified the war, ordering even more illegal drone strikes on civilians than George Bush, and even publically admitting to assassinating an American citizen on "suspicion of terrorism").

Virtually nobody cares about that.