extremism in defense of victory

Tom Mann and Norm Ornstein have been observing American politics and the Congress for four decades. In recent years they have published critiques of Congress that have been widely accepted and praised. Now they have a new one that goes a giant step farther than in the past.  While they find much to criticize across the political spectrum, they find greatest fault with the Republican Party as it is today.

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.
When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.

Read the whole piece. They note the disappearance of conservative but deal-making Republicans of the past and the capture of party control by an extremist fringe.

They offer few remedies, mainly a suggestion that the news media avoid even-handedness when that obscures the truth. But if the media do a better job, then maybe the voters will recognize it and vote for people who are willing to succeed at governing and not just campaigning.