The sad truth is that people vote based upon Political Party & name recognition (and in Obama's case skin color (and I don't say this as a Racist statement)). How else can you explain that over 80% of the members of Congress were re-elected in 2012 despite having (what were at the time) the worse job approval ratings in History? One of the stated reasons for the current budget stalemate is that they all figure the "status quo" will remain unchanged no matter how damaging their actions are to the electorate. This goes for both parties.
Originally Posted by RochBob
You explain it easily by understanding that only the presidential election is a national popularity contest. Each congressman represents a very small "area", and it doesn't matter what the rest of the country thinks of them, because the rest of the country can't vote for them. Take the ever "controversial" Ted Cruz, maybe the most unpopular congressperson in the land, but he only has to be the most popular in his district to get re-elected.
That's pretty much where we are today, these people only care about who their constituents are going to vote for next and what they elected them to do. And yes, quit raising the debt ceiling is on top of a lot of their constituents goals regardless what the rest of the countries goals are.