At this point in our history, I'll never understand how anyone still believes this shit:
Doesn’t compromise mean setting aside one’s principles? It can, but it need not. The core responsibility of every representative is to support only those initiatives that he or she conscientiously believes will promote the good of the country. During times of deep division, compromise is especially hard: it will require each individual to endorse a package that includes elements that he or she regards as bad public policy. A compromise becomes possible when all parties conclude that despite its defects, it represents an improvement over the status quo and helps solve a pressing problem.That is the core of the change of new attitude we need among committed partisans of all stripes: it is not unprincipled, but on the contrary honorable, to accept a hard compromise that promotes the national interest and the common good.
If you can tell me how you can compromise with people who believe that a zygote is the same thing as a baby, that the planet is less than 10,000 years old, that global warming is a liberal hoax, that rapists are incapable of impregnating their victims, that Barney Frank and poor black people caused the housing bubble crisis, that public schools are socialist indoctrination camps, that single-payer health care promotes euthanasia, that the solution to mass shootings is to hand every American an AR-15 at birth, and that the President of the United States is a closet Muslim who is conspiring with the United Nations to confiscate all of their guns so he can impose a North Korean-style dictatorship upon them, well, fine, just tell me how it's done and we'll try to cut a deal. There's just one caveat: our current President has been trying to do exactly that for the last two years. It hasn't gone over well.
Honestly, I don't know what it is with these American Unity Theater 3000 types---why they can't bring themselves to acknowledge that one of our major political parties in Washington has gone collectively insane over the last four decades and can never be bargained with rationally as it is currently constituted because it is not being run by rational-thinking people. There is an alternative, of course, and that is for the non-crazy people to ignore the crazy people altogether when formulating policy. No, it would not be "bipartisan"---if bipartisanship means consulting crazy people for bad advice---but it would promote smarter policy. And isn't that what serious persons like Bill Galston want?
---Baron V
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