GOP knows they're gonna lose the election. They want to hand the dems the worst economy possible.
Then, 4 years down the road, they can start campaigning against "do-nothing-dems" and point to the horrible economy they had to start fixing.
At the same time, we can't have this, "the world ends", at the end of every GOP administration either. So we really do need to fix this.
The alternative is we get some different parties, and I've seen little to no indication of that happening. The other parties have neither shown an ability to evoke a response large enough to get elected. Nor have they shown an ability to govern even in the extremely unlikely event that they were elected.
For the foreseeable future, we are stuck with the dem-rep dichotomy. Which can work. We just need for the reps to stop running the nation into the ground when it's their turn. Other nations have shown us that reasonable and effective responses to the pandemic were possible. Why are we here? What is the set of missteps or issues that got us here? We have to identify those issues, and fix them.
I just moved to California so I don't have too much of a personal opinion yet but that sounds like a bold claim. From what I've seen, people over the age of 30 seem split on whether or not it's an improvement. You look at mismanaged cities like SF where there's insane homeless budgets but very little action and results and wonder if the monopoly on political power has made politicians here complacent.
Then there's the whole NIMBY thing. There's a whole lot of Democrats (arguably DINO's) that are very anti-building. They run under the Democrat banner so they'll probably keep getting re-elected. Obviously a solution here is people getting involved in local party politics to primary these candidates out, but that sounds like a miracle that'll happen as soon as we get nuclear fusion power plants.
The whole thing makes me wish 3rd party candidates were more viable in the US. This flip-flopping really sucks and creates a lot of chaos but political monopolies, from what I've seen, are able to hide mismanagement and bad policies really well. (Texas is probably a similar example from the other spectrum.)
Rent control, nimbyism, etc all backed by the current government have made the housing market a hellscape. Nothing has been done to address the education system and huge pension liabilities either.
The issue with Democrats in charge without any meaningful opposition is that none of the Democratic radioactive stuff gets touched (excessive regulation, entitlements, etc).
If you think that is what the Republicans are doing each time it's their turn, not sure there is much hope in changing that pattern.
After all, they clearly think they are not running the nation into the ground when it's their turn.
Or another party will rise to power, and one of the current powerhouses will fade away.