This even happens at a local level. I witnessed a Republican county councilor who was beginning to work with a local community on a serious issue they were having with their ferry. She got replaced with someone who wants to obstruct and cut in all cases, which serves as an object lesson for anyone else on the council with an at-risk seat.
For some reason the people who keep saying government doesn't work are working very hard to make government not work.
> For some reason
Fairly obvious what that reason is.
It's the same reason Putin supports Trump -- if you yourself are threatened by something (democracy) then you need to go make that thing a joke.