Polls this past week demonstrate how a majority of Americans are totally disgusted with the stalemate and gridlock in the federal government, which has become a norm of American politics.
Sixty percent in a poll would want to replace every member of Congress, and only eleven percent have a positive view of Congress, an all time low.
The Republican Party brand has suffered heavily, although the Democrats are not exactly looked upon as a paragon of virtue either by the American people.
Of course, there is no way that all members of Congress could be defeated due to the fact that the US Senate has only one third of its seats up for election every two years.
Additionally, while the House of Representatives faces election of all of its members every two years, the reality of gerrymandering makes replacement of incumbents highly unlikely, with maybe ten percent of the seats truly competitive, if that much.
And of course, were it possible to defeat all members, it would be unwise, because that would leave us with new members with total lack of experience and expertise, and this is the the problem with the Tea Party Republicans, who mostly come into government without any knowledge or understanding of what is possible in government, and the role of compromise in making a political system work.
All that a new Congress would accomplish is the growing power of unelected staff, which would be the only continuity in American government, and that would not be a good situation.
What can be done is to have higher turnout for midterm elections, with the hope that it might lead to the party of whoever is President having a real mandate to accomplish the goals that any President has been elected on two years earlier. The tradition has been that the party in the White House loses seats, with a lower turnout by party faithful.
Of course, if somehow, gerrymandering could be overcome, and the filibuster in the Senate modified, real progress and continuity and compromise would be more likely, but that is, at this time, a utopian dream, sad to say!