RICHMOND, Va. — What’s the matter with Virginia?

The governor and his Legislature are dug in, engaged in ugly trench warfare. The most powerful member of its congressional delegation, an implacable foe of the president, was tossed out in a primary for being too wishy-washy. And a former governor and his wife go on trial on Monday on charges they used his office as an A.T.M., cashing in for goodies like a Rolex watch and designer clothes.

This state, which once took pride in the “Virginia Way,” a plain-vanilla politics of civility, consensus and relatively clean government, has become a setting of national political melodrama symbolized by the corruption trial of former Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen. They stand accused in federal court of accepting more than $165,000in cash and gifts from a businessman who sought to use the first couple to promote his company.

This is entirely separate from the investigation of State Senator Phillip P. Puckett, a Democrat, accused by critics of taking the equivalent of a bribe to give up his seat and give control of the Senate to Republicans.

A state government long known for a go-along, get-along culture is now a place where compromise is seen as collaborating with the enemy. Current and former elected officials, and longtime analysts, strained to put recent events into perspective. One reached back to 1861, when Virginia seceded from the Union, as the last time the state’s politics were so fraught. Another, twisting the state’s well-known tourism slogan, said, “Virginia is for haters now.”