Politically convergent perverse instability

[Epistemic status: just a guess / hypothesis.]

Suppose Alice is anti-immigration and has political power. She politically pushes for laws against immigration, government spending towards capacity to prevent immigration like walls and guards, policies to deport illegal immigrants, and so on. Alice also pushes against policies to cope with whatever the current de facto status quo is, e.g. to alleviate harms done by whatever is already going on, or at least doesn't push for such alleviation policies. Those policies would alleviate pressure to change, and Alice wants change; they'd make the status quo less bad, and Alice doesn't like the status quo. And, those policies being passed would constitute, relative to Alice's desired anti-immigration stance, a symbolic victory for the side opposing Alice; it would "say", in the language of politics, that "we are okay with the status quo, we're organizing to make something like the status quo work well". Plus, pushing policy through would take up some of Alice's attention and political capital, towards an end that doesn't benefit Alice's side more than the other side, and doesn't benefit Alice's reputation among her constituency.

Suppose Bob is pro-immigration and has political power. He politically pushes for laws permitting immigration, government programs to help immigrants transition to a new home, and so on. Bob also pushes against policies to cope with the current de facto status quo, or at least doesn't push for such policies. Those policies would alleviate pressure to change, and Bob wants change; they'd make the status quo less bad, and Bob doesn't like the status quo. And, those policies being passed would constitute, relative to Bob's desired pro-immigration stance, a symbolic victory for the side opposing Bob. And Bob doesn't want to spend resources on something that doesn't benefit him or his side.

Should the U.S. use more resources to treat illegal immigrant children at the U.S. border with more comfortable captivity? Alice says: If the answer is yes, are you saying it's okay that they're coming over illegally? Bob says: If the answer is yes, are you saying it's okay that we're stopping children from going free?

The opposing forces——Alice towards stopping immigration, Bob towards allowing it——cancel out, adding up to little effect. The forces pointing in the same direction——not fixing harms done by the status quo——reinforce each other, adding up to a perverse status quo. What's politically convergent, what's shared between the opposing sides, is that the status quo is bad and shouldn't be improved, but rather left for dead. The resulting local equilibrium of opposite political pulls has an air of instability about it, in that everyone dislikes it more and more, building up more and more pressure to do anything other than the status quo.

In theory, in some situations like this, it could even become an arbitrary and also almost irrelevant contingency in which direction the ball falls off the top of the hill; it just can't stay at the top of the hill, because that sucks the most. Though, giving in to an arbitrary choice would be capitulating to the threat that Alice and Bob collaborate on making against non-perversity.