Tuesdays with Claymore

I think you are spot on in recognizing the polarization that occurs in a two party system, because we engage in a winner take all system instead of a system where everyone is represented and coalitions have to form to build consensus there has been little impetus for the two parties to work together to move the system forward. The consequence of this is an ever increasingly destructive election cycle where one side tries to completely dominate the other so there is no need to acknowledge the other side as having a seat at the table. The democrats have pushed this in the Senate with the simple majority rule change on appointments, it will come back to haunt them in the very near future I suspect. The advantage of the greatest generation was that so many of them had a common experience in suffering through the depression and then uniting to fight the good fight in WW2. That experience taught them that even if you vehemently disagree with someone you often need to work with that person to get something accomplished. We don’t have to agree on everything, but if we both start from the premise that we both love the country and want to move it forward we can perhaps conceptualize those tangential arcs where our compromise can be built and we can both agree to push forward together instead of sabotaging each other. If we start from the premise the other guys are the enemy and all their ideas are designed to destroy the nation, we get the gridlock we have currently where the only things that pass are horrific one sided affairs that take down one party or the other. An interesting object lesson that isn’t much talked about is that the last 3 administrations lost mid-terms to their opponents….that means the American electorate gets disgusted with both parties and votes to replace the majority in the congress as a message. The problem is that neither side is learning the lesson, and both remain convinced that they hold the moral high ground unilaterally and compromise equates to… Read more »