On some matters, like "whether our rulers should obey the law", there isn't room to negotiate.

One side wants to burn everything down; the other side doesn't want to burn anything. Burning half of everything down isn't a good compromise.

In America, the result of this series of compromises is a society that has moved radically to the right. When I was young, one parent with just a high school education working in a factory could support a stay-at-home partner, buy a nice house and car, send their kids to university, and retire on a comfortable pension and out of debt.

Now two working parents can't manage to achieve that. All of this has been compromised away.