The poet Yeats warns that, "Things fall apart. The center cannot hold. Anarchy is loosed upon the world."
As evidence, consider the following ominous ?developments:
The 2016 Presidential platforms for both parties are more extreme than in decades. The Presidential campaign already has descended to the level of mudwrestling.
Party-line voting in both houses of Congress is greater than in recent memory. The Senate can pass no measure without at least a 60-vote supermajority to forestall a minority partisan filibuster.
The minority party denounces as unfair the tactics of the majority. Then, when they become the majority, they adopt precisely the same tactics.
Congress can barely cobble together a budget. In our state we cannot even do that.
Reformers take note. Redistricting -- derided as "gerrymandering" -- has very little to do with our predicament.
More and more of us vote a straight party ballot. Ticket splitting is on the decline. By every index imaginable, we are increasingly deeply divided as a people.
Yeats? concludes by lamenting "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
I'm Bob Evans, and that's my perspective.
