On one side we're doomed unless we go back to pre-industrial revolution life. And on the other we can do whatever we want and it makes no impact whatsoever. There's a lot of space in between the two extremes, but to borrow MAS' term, the political religionists lurch to the extremes and these are the folks most likely to go to primaries and thus we're most likely to get fringe candidates (especially in the house) and all this leads to gridlock and no meaningful legislative action except when one party has all 3. And even then they completely fuck it up because they are beholden to lobbyists and special interests.