Because there was a point where these people worked in the shadows of politics, only influencing political decisions when necessary. They didn't want to constantly influence political leanings just pulling the string as necessary. With the election of George W Bush and subsequently Obama (Who beat John McCain) they came into the open mainstream. 16 years of absolutely dismantling and taking over political offices, judge positions, etc. In 16 years we doubled our debt, lost all rights to privacy via the patriot act, forced a massive tax on everyone (obamacare), and forced our military to be preoccupied in the middle east for over a decade. The latter's significance being something that I don't think people truly understand. For those outside the loop, annually the president and secdef sit down and basically issue a national defense strategy document. There are two versions of this, the public version which anyone can google and read (if you aren't reading or at a minimum skimming this document yearly, you shouldn't be bitching about what goes on in the military at all) and a classified version that is very similar albeit with several key details. For the last decade, the NDS has essentially been "shift more and more resources into counterinsurgency & dismantling terrorist organizations". Meanwhile, the biggest struggle for the U.S. going into the future has long been identified as a near peer conflict. So for 16 years those near peer countries such as Russia and China have been developing capabilities going into what will likely be WW3, while the U.S. has been focusing on how best to clean rats out of third world countries, and when I say developing they are rapidly approaching some really critical thresholds.  To come back to your point, the reason you used to understand the parties better is because the parties were only controlled in critical moments, but generally their boundaries were defined as political parties normally are. Less or More government etc. After Bush/Obama they are now fully micromanaging these people so what you are seeing is no longer tied to Democrat vs Republican but rather the collapse of the U.S. into a globalist nation, as that is what the election of HRC was really about.