Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Thursday, January 24, 2019

Partisanship And The Presidency

This is a really interesting piece on how polarization is tied to the closeness of our elections.  The most interesting comparison (again) is the Gilded Age.  Elections for Congress whipped back and forth between parties.  Ironically, there wasn't a huge amount of ideological or policy differences between the parties, but the high partisanship meant that small issues and personality became huge drivers in who controlled Congress.

The Senate will be a heavy lift for years, but if we can ever reach a stable Democratic majority - based on demographic change - we might actually be able to govern our own country for a change.

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