Both are from Virginia, and both were voted out of their politically moderate districts. This is the tragedy of being a centrist.
Most Republicans aren't deeply racist and most Democrats aren't deeply socialist. Americans largely want a functional representative democracy, with minimal restrictions on free markets and free speech and some measure of opportunity for all. Obviously "minimal" is subject to interpretation, but this is tinkering, not an absolute rejection of free speech or free markets or social justice.
We take these important fundamental values for granted as we pour political energy into disagreement over which bathrooms trans people should go to.
Free speech? Free markets? Those are good examples of values, if a little vague.
But in reality, even with broad definitions of them, I doubt you could get a significantly different percentage to agree on those things than the idiotic bathroom debate.
Does free speech include aggressive panhandling in the road? Does include shouting epithets and racist vitriol at a woman trying to enter a Planned Parenthood clinic?
Do free markets imply that my mining operation can dump the waste products of my bitcoin mine in the creek behind your house?
FWIW I do think you are right that the US political system has over decades so entrenched the two parties that it makes it impossible to see even the scant common ground that would exist otherwise.
But I don't think there's a huge amount of that common ground.
Most Republicans aren't deeply racist and most Democrats aren't deeply socialist. Americans largely want a functional representative democracy, with minimal restrictions on free markets and free speech and some measure of opportunity for all. Obviously "minimal" is subject to interpretation, but this is tinkering, not an absolute rejection of free speech or free markets or social justice.
We take these important fundamental values for granted as we pour political energy into disagreement over which bathrooms trans people should go to.