chat

That isn't really how it works. The US political system is more of a controlled chaos where anyone with the money and desire to can go buy specific politicians to push their agenda. The party agendas overall tend to be a general support for capitalism and a constant reactionary mess. The forces of capital don't really care what the parties do or which one is in power. Because their entire purpose is to simply play into the most reactionary elements of society and keep the masses distracted and ineffectual at organizing for their own benefit.

If a capitalist needs the government to do something then regardless of their faction (industrialist, rentier, etc) they will just go to whichever politician is most convenient and pay them to push that issue for them.

There is also a general lack of capitalist rationality. That isn't just the same constant contradictions it has had since the beginning. Capitalists generally speaking used to understand their position. Industrialists understood that rentier capitalists had conflicting interests to themselves for example. Now though many of the capitalists themselves are entire caught up in their own narratives. While rational special interests do exist (do not mistake rational for morally good) they are more rare now.

For example a rational special interest group could be a group of importers who push for less tariffs. They have shared business interests and so lobby for that position as a group. This is simply capitalist class solidarity.

But then there are groups that are backed by capitalists that push for random culture war issues or other reactionary things. This is a mix of things. There is the element of the rational capitalists who push these specifically because they know it causes political chaos that makes proletarian organizing more difficult, but there is also the element of capitalists who have a whole hearted belief in these issues.

This is a result of the USA being so dominant and so uncontested in that dominance for decades. When capitalists have no need to have any rationality in order to remain profitable/powerful they lose the ability to act rationally quite fast. It is why the US economy seems so disconnected from physical reality. (ex: Stock market going up while the world is in chaos)

This can only last for so long though and it will inevitably lead to catastrophic economic collapse. As the very institutions that capitalists built to maintain their own control over the society and to keep the status quo stable are now being dismantled by this new generation of capitalist.

To circle back to your question generally the 2 parties serve as a way to deflect blame. Say 30% of voters always vote D and 30% always vote R with 40% being "swing" voters. The capitalists will simply have the D and R use conflicting rhetoric on social issues while doing the same actual overall policies (as they both answer to the same special interests). That way as the 40% get mad at R they swing to D and vice versa. But nothing ever actually changes outside of Rhetoric. Democrats pretend to not want to do genocide in Gaza while doing it anyway. Republicans do it while cheering. Republicans openly brutalize immigrants while Democrats to so quietly. This is how every issue works. They are functionally the same if you look at the actual data but have wildly varying rhetoric.

Edit: the best way to see this clearly is looking at donations. regardless of if they are currently rhetorically or publically in support of one party most special interests will donate to both.