Dan Rodricks: The only part of Congress that seems to work are the staffers who return your calls

Congress is broken. You’ve heard that before, but the condition is more acute than ever.

When they’re in power, Republicans stand for nothing but cutting taxes for the wealthy; when they’re not, they thwart everything that comes from Democrats, even if the initiatives would benefit Republican constituents in the transformative way Obamacare has. (See Harris, Andy, R-Md.)

Meanwhile, the Democrats have two senators, Coal Joe Manchin of West Virginia and the bizarre Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who are obviously determined to stifle their own party’s progressive agenda and keep the nation in its current state of meh.