From Ukraine to the mail, we're in a golden bipartisan era. Give thanks while it lasts.

I am not a Glad Girl like Pollyanna. I can write rants with the best of them. But this is a great moment to highlight the power of negotiation and cross-party support on a range of issues. At a time when good news is scarce, we are seeing an outbreak of bipartisanship and evidence that the art of the deal is alive.

Amid tragedy in Ukraine, President Joe Biden has managed to unite an increasingly broad swath of Americans and the world, from economic and information warfare to keeping Ukrainians supplied with what they need to keep fighting, and with no U.S. forces on the ground or in the sky.

There is extensive bipartisan support for the ban on Russian oil imports he announced Tuesday, as the House quickly demonstrated with a 414-17 vote to approve the ban, toughen a sanctions law and require a review of Russia's membership in the World Trade Organization.

Major impact on daily lives

In other bipartisan news, the Senate passed the Postal Service Reform Act on Tuesday on a lopsided 79-19 vote. In the works for 15 years, it sailed through the House last month and is headed to Biden's desk.

What does this mean for “we the people”? Guaranteed six-day-a-week mail delivery, for a start, and an online performance dashboard so the public can check local and national delivery times. The bill also takes long recommended steps to make sure that the Postal Service – "one of the most important institutions in American life," in Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's words – doesn't go broke.

War crimes?: Russia blew up a hospital maternity ward. Putin is a war criminal committing genocide.

Now there's what Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi call a historic bipartisan package to keep the government running through Sept. 30. It's so big it's hard to track what's in it, but they highlighted larger Pell grants for college, $13.6 billion in additional aid to Ukraine, new cybersecurity protections, renewing the expired Violence Against Women Act, and more money released under the infrastructure law Biden signed last fall.

Like the final version of the government funding bill the House passed Wednesday night, minus COVID-19 money that Pelosi had wanted to include, bipartisan progress requires compromise. And like infrastructure and Postal Service reform, many bipartisan achievements are not glamorous. But these deals are crucial to the nation.

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For instance: There's a major bipartisan achievement on the runway for when House and Senate negotiators reconcile their bills bolstering U.S. competitiveness with China, and ongoing bipartisan talks to fix the "rickety" Electoral Count Act that Donald Trump and his allies used to try to overturn the 2020 election.

Last week, Biden signed a bipartisan bill that makes major changes in the workplace. A response to abuses exposed by the Me Too movement, it gives sexual harassment and assault victims the right to go to court instead of being forced into arbitration. Another diverse group is trying to change how the military justice system handles sexual harassment and assaults.

Unique coalition to ban stock trades

A relatively new bipartisan cause is the push to ban members of Congress from owning and trading individual stocks. The unusual political bedfellows behind one bill range from conservative Sens. Steve Daines of Montana and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Their shared goals are accountability, instilling trust, and avoiding perceptions of corruption and conflicts of interest.

Columnist Jill Lawrence: Biden is getting Ukraine and Russia right after Obama fell short and Trump was a disaster

I can attest to finding simpatico these days in unexpected places, mostly inspired by Ukraine and Russia. I thought President George W. Bush made insightful remarks last week about Vladimir Putin's motives, what his invasion has revealed, and his pointed boast to Bush that his dog was bigger and stronger than Bush's dog. (Duh. Barney was a little Scottish terrier.)

And it was John Bolton, once President Donald Trump's national security adviser, whose theory of Russia's invasion timing made sense to me: Putin was hoping Trump would win reelection and, as he had promised, pull America out of NATO.

And yes, I know that Bush got us into Iraq, mishandled Afghanistan and once said he had seen Putin’s soul. I know that Bolton said nothing in 2019 about Trump’s “appalling” treatment of Ukraine and refused to testify in the impeachment that followed.

Grateful for common ground

The despair of those years makes me even more grateful that I can find common ground now – with Bush, Bolton, onetime Iraq war hawks, never-Trump former Republicans, and even hard-right conservatives who set me off maybe 80% of the time, but not 100%.

Columnist Jill Lawrence: Is this the beginning of the end for Trumpism or the Republican Party?

In what passes these days for a golden era of bipartisanship, there may even be hope for accommodation within the Democratic Party.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., the main obstacle to getting 50 Senate votes for the Biden agenda formerly known as Build Back Better, seems to be newly open to discussion. Manchin told Politico he wants to raise federal revenue through lower prescription drug costs and higher taxes on corporations and the rich, then use half the money to reduce the deficit and inflation and the other half for clean energy tax incentives and social programs.

Whatever shape it takes, that’s a deal Democrats should not refuse.

Jill Lawrence is a columnist for USA TODAY and author of "The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock." Follow her on Twitter: @JillDLawrence

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ukraine war reflects rise of unity and practical deals in Washington