But in a well-ordered democratic system, those who fight on behalf of competing parties, interests and ideas can usually find some room for mutual esteem and even occasionally try to profit intellectually from each other. It’s when politics becomes unhinged that we squander the gift of social learning through reasoned argument.
The last several days underscore why not only political progressives but genuine moderates are at wit’s end with the Republican Party and what passes for contemporary American conservatism.
If conservatism in the United States has claimed to stand for anything, it is the idea that government authority should be limited.