Hegelian dialectic can explain why the U.S. is stuck in a rut

U.S. politics has seemed stuck at the same impasses for the longest time. The different approaches have tended to go back and forth like a pendulum depending on the latest election. Each side is generally convinced that the reason their solution hasn't worked yet is because it keeps getting reversed every time the other side is in charge. 

Maybe. But maybe the country generally goes back and forth between the major parties because each solution, by itself, is incomplete. Consider this possibility: What if Hegel was correct about the development of ideas: First there's an idea or "thesis"; then there's the counter-argument, rebuttal, the other side of the pros-and-cons list, however you want to view that: "antithesis." In politics, the opposing sides seem to be in that kind of relationship. That tension between thesis and antithesis remains stuck until the two sets of ideas interact, their proponents talk to each other, listen to each other, understand each other, and find ways that they can rebuild their views to combine into a new solution: "synthesis." 

If that diagnosis is correct, then going back and forth between two parties that try to dominate each other will never reach a better solution. And either solution by itself -- each ignoring its antithesis -- will never become that next-level solution. It will fossilize in its opposition to the ideas that could have improved it, declaring enmity toward the thing it would most benefit from understanding. But both sides are avoiding that next step -- synthesis -- because that's the step where each side has to treat the other views with serious and respectful consideration. Both sides' views have to become part of the new solution, both sets of ideas are a necessary part of the solution as they come together -- and lose the identity that has, at least in U.S. politics, consisted of devaluing the other side. 

If Hegel was right, then we're stuck in solving our problems until we treat each other with respect, and at least consider the possibility that the other side has an important missing piece of our own puzzle.