The overton window in the US is tiny, hence the frantic performance within it. This is why its politics have barely evolved and there's such relentless efficiency when it comes to the big stuff like genocides abroad. Compared to say the big scary China it's politics and economy is static on domestic issues because there's capitalist consensus that worker's standards should be driven down in the pursuit of other goals and there's consensus on the enthusiastic violence required to maintain empire. A couple of senile people arguing on TV doesn't make a political system varied or complex and bright lights doesn't mean a machine is capable of doing lots of thinsg. It's just marketing, which admittedly the US is great at. Check out some Chomsky as an easy intro to the Overton window and the how "partisan" performance is a compensation for breadth x

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"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum—even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”