A superior metaphor for politics is a tubing trip on a river. We lash our inner-tubes to the tubes of other members of our tribe, people who share our interests and our identity, people with whom we would happily share our beer. Which is why one of the tubes holds a trash-can cooler full of ice and beer, but no one really keeps track of who bought the beer and who bought the ice as everyone drinks according to their thirst. But "the communal beer" is only communally shared with the folks lashed into our raft.