At the heart of this thing (one is entitled to surmise) is too much government. Too-muchness rarely works in anything and certainly not in government, which has to make decisions pleasing to an immense number and variety of people. One reason we can't (thus far) do anything about Social Security is that past Congresses have heaped up this mountain of promises and debts. Everybody is affected. No remedial strategy can please all.
The same principle operates with regard to taxes, which are too high and too low at the same time, and with public education, which is either just fine or just awful. Government energy policy will either ruin the economy or destroy the planet. Etc., ad infin. We've got so much government policy, in short, that we'll rarely agree on solutions. Since government has taken on almost every conceivable problem, expectations for its success are limitless, as are political ambitions for getting the credit and the kudos.
Any going back? Any likelihood for the downsizing of government power, thus of voter expectations, and consequently of animosity among those who govern?
Anything's possible, some things more so than others. Among the least likely: 1) a bipartisan truce requiring Dean to stop trying to throw DeLay in jail and 2) a spirit of reconciliation as to judicial nominations, which, even more than Dean's mouth, symbolize what's amiss. If our politicians hadn't made outsized grants of power to federal judges, asking them to sort out questions like school prayer, education and, especially, human life, people could figure out these questions for themselves -- people outside the no-prisoners ambit of Dean. Meaning -- just possibly -- the vast bulk of us.