President of One Party and Congress of Another?

Historically speaking, the least lasting harm done to the general populace of the U.S. is when the president and the Congress are in the control of different parties. It is difficult to explain why this is but my best guess is that it forces both parties to compromise to get anything done. And when both parties are forced to compromise more good is done for the average person in the U.S. than at any other time.

The most lasting damage done to the American people is when both the Presidency and the Congress are of the same party. But, to some degree in later administrations this all tends to balance itself out to some degree.

So, the two party system even though it isn't perfect tends to keep a balance of the rights of the people in general, as long as their is enough "honesty" to make governance pragmatic and as practical as possible.

But, oftentimes mitigating circumstances  upset the apple cart. For example, 9-11 was one of the things that upset the apple cart. When Bush was elected and 9-11 happened he went into Iraq in revenge for Saddam Hussein's death threats to his father Bush I. This was not necessarily a good idea because it bankrupted both the U.S. and Europe in the long run. You need only look at the long term consequences of this for the U.S and Europe now to understand this. Europe is mired in a Great Depression number 2 scenario (especially Spain and Greece with both over 20 percent unemployment). And the U.S is in the Great Recession and may never get it's unemployment below 7% ever again in this century the way things are going now.

If you look at the statistics of unemployment since World War II, bad unemployment during the 1950s was anything more than 3%. However, each recession the acceptable level of unemployment climbed to 4%, then 5% and now I think it might be up to 6% or so. However, it is also realistic to say that acceptable unemployment now might have to be 7% ongoing to be realistic in this era we are now in.