What I see more than anything is that, when politicians are more interested in getting people involved in conflict, they become better at creating problems than solving them. On the national level, that's extremely common, and it's becoming more common on the local level. But I think that is /only/ because we are letting the conflict drive us into cynicism. I feel like, as long as the conflict machine (which is very clearly mostly driven by a reactionary right-wing set of fears) is in charge, it's going to get harder and harder and harder to solve even a single problem.