Setting aside how our government would work in an ideal world, the reason that conciliatory language and efforts at bipartisanship are dangerous in our current political climate is that it creates the unwarranted assumption that the other side is offering a viable alternative. In other words, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if the other side got to call the shots for two or four years. If we’re not happy with how things are going, well…we have this other option…the Republicans.

Now, I know that they say the same things about us, and it sounds pretty damn extreme when they say it. But we have to be clear about something. We can go back nearly eighty years in this country and say that we’ve been doing things pretty much the same way all that time. Put us in charge and things won’t change all that much. Things that have been gained, like ending prohibition, phasing out Jim Crow, creating a social welfare state, participating in the United Nations, legalizing contraception and abortion, expanding workplace rights and environmental protection, extending civil rights to women and gays…these things won’t go away. The tax rate may go up or down, but the tax code won’t be altered in any fundamental way. The relationship between the federal government and the states won’t change.

Put the current crop of Republicans in charge for any sustained period of time, and almost all of those things are at risk. The modern conservative movement doesn’t share our assumptions about what America is. They want to go back to the roaring 20’s, or even the 1880’s. So, it would be nice to say that “my good friend, the honorable Sen. Corker from Tennessee, has been working very hard and has some excellent ideas for how to improve the Wall Street reform bill,” and have it actually be true. Such flattery greases the machinery of Congress…normally. But these aren’t normal times, and the other side isn’t playing by the same rules (or even the same game).

We’re like Captain Benjamin L. Willard on the Nung River, and we’ve crossed into Cambodia. And they’re “out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct. And still in the field commanding troops.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is an election year. And this month marks the beginning of campaign season, with many primaries coming up. I will be writing more about individual races and what’s at stake, even if such threads have trouble getting a good conversation going. I hope you participate and get involved.

We have to stand on the side of reason:

Because there’s a conflict in every human heart between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil. The good does not always triumph. Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. Every man has got a breaking point. You and I have. Walter Kurtz has reached his. And very obviously, he has gone insane.

There’s no time for friendly talk.

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