As a conservative I find myself surprisingly in agreement with the following New York Times OpEd:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/opinion/the-governing-cancer-of-our-ti...
Here is my reaction posted on Facebook. It is not intended to be complete, just illustrative of the concerns I share with the author of the OpEd.
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Terrific OpEd in the New York Times, one I largely agree with, though as a liberal columnist he seems only to casually acknowledge that the problem he addresses is equally a phenomenon of the left and of the right.
As our society grows more polarized politically we seem to have forgotten that the only real alternative to political compromise is LITERALLY either civil war or dictatorship. Granted there are degrees of compromise and even degrees of civil war. But because the degree of polarization between left and right has grown so severe, people on both sides of the aisle have grown so disillusioned with compromise that they have begun to engage in a civil war that, for now, falls short of overt armed confilct, but seems logically and eventually to be headed in that direction.
On both sides we grow so weary of what to each side is the radicalization of the other side (and there is merit to this judgement on both sides), we grow so weary of getting what seems to be the opposite of what we want, that we demonize anyone who practices the necessary art of compromise as "just a politician."
But would we rather have to deal with generals instead of politicians?
There is no doubt that corruption is rampant in government. It has always been so, and always will be that people with power will abuse that power for themselves and their friends. (Read the history of any US period and with the exception of a few reform periods you will find that corruption was rampant.) The massive growth of big business and big government has significantly exacerbated that problem.
The current mood of the electorate in both parties is to "throw the bums out!" Of course, in each case it is the bums of the OTHER party that is primarily intended. The Democrats don't want to deal with the Republicans, and the Republicans don't want to deal with the Democrats. Each wants to vanquish the other rather than persuade.
And herein lies the problem. Each party represents fully a third of the country, and a third of the people are caught between. But the only ways to vanquish the other party are first to delegitimize them, portray them as evil or as fools, or to silence them either socially or legally, which many seem to advocate, or literally conquer them and kill them off to some degree. There seems to be an increasing few who prefer this latter course.
To the conservative, the constitutional, social and financial foundations of this country have become so threatened that should they lose the upcoming election they will become more militant. Equally on the verge of militancy are the liberals, who see the logical progress of the Enlightenment and the social revolutions of recent decades are being held up by neanderthals who refuse to change with the times. Each feels the fabric of society would (or has!) become unlivable with the other imposing it's way.
What the constituencies of both parties need to reckon with is that such an intractable divide has happened before in this country over the subject of slavery. People with only a vague familiarity with the Civil War would do well to read up on it, especially social and political leaders.
Because it very well may be that's where we are headed unless each party begins to recognize that compromises must be reached to avoid it. A mentality of "shove your agenda through without regard to the legitimate concerns of the minority party" held by the ruling party of each four or eight year presidential cycle, threatens to destroy the republican democracy. There are those who feel this might indeed be the actual goal of some.
The obvious solution is for each party to seek to advance its agenda by persuasion, but such a course is abandoned when each party feels the other's constituents simply will not listen.