The other day, in response to a Washington Post article about the Myth of the Middle, I wrote that without the moderates, our hyper-partisan political environment was going to kill the country.
We’ve hit gridlock, which is fine, except there are a number of issues that require action, and if nothing is done about them, the country’s in big trouble.
Obviously, I’m not the only person who sees this problem, as David Broder demonstrates in today’s WaPo:
It was not nostalgia or a desire for companionship that brought four former Senate leaders together in a meeting room on Capitol Hill on Tuesday morning, but rather a sense of alarm at the breakdown in civility and at the fierce partisanship that has infected Congress and blocked action on national priorities.
Politely but firmly, not wanting to criticize their successors in what styles itself a great deliberative body, the two Republicans and two Democrats who once tried to run the place warned that something has gone awry.
[snip]
Tom Daschle of South Dakota said, “Our goal is not to find common ground among the four of us on every single issue but to find those areas on which common ground can be found, and then see if we can become the catalyst for bringing that common ground to Congress.”
I wish them luck.
Unfortunately, Broder’s article has garnered very little attention — probably because those who stand to benefit most from this type of thinking haven’t the slightest interest in engaging in it. They’re all too busy slinging mud and getting even.