🌈 spinning wait cursor on MacOS contacts SLOW

For years and two major updates the contacts app does not work well on MacOS. I avoid using the MacOS contacts app as it is slow and struggling to access the iCloud data. If I create a new contact on the web version of icloud.com/contacts, I can create it in under 30 seconds. When I use the MacOS native contacts app it can take over 2 minutes for one contact while I suffer through many long spinning wait cursors.

What is up with the syncing between MacOS contacts app and iCloud/contacts?