The entire American political aperatus, including everything bad about it, operates entirely on an assumption of good faith that is the ultimate problem with making any progress in the system as established. It was written into all the founding documents because the elites wanted to keep power, so

Riiiiight, I'll agree with "assumption of good faith", with is not something I generally associate with good will.

they commissioned a government that worked entirely for them, the white slave owning landholder males of a certain class and status, and to keep it that way an implied good faith was structured in. That's a weakness in and of itself but now that the GOP has abandoned it entirely, we're fucked, but