Those gears started turning to dust at least as late as the '90s. All they can do to hold on to power is cheat their way to prevail in elections. That's the gear they keep in motion and they're damned good at it.

Republicans perform well when they are the opposition party; but they are ineffective when they are the governing party.

Democrats perform very well when they are the governing party; but they suck as the opposition party in most situations.

Currently, we're in a situation where both parties are performing the weaker of the two possible tasks. Hopefully the country doesn't collapse before we are able to reverse those roles.

It doesn't matter to the Republicans if it is a good outcome or not. They just want some sort of outcome to demonstrate that they can do something more than obstruct. It's not looking good, though. They're going to have an internal deadlock on both raising the debt ceiling and tax code reform.

The far right "freedom caucus" will demand that the debt ceiling not be raised and tax reform should be limited to simply whacking away at taxe rates and eliminating programs of all kinds, except, of course the military.

The rest of the Republicans will want something that is more or less feasible, so there will be deadlock. Nobody in the GOP wants to work with Democrats on any issue, so we'll just keep having deadlocks.

The Republicans cannot govern. They can only disrupt governance. That's the reality.