Centerfield

To follow Michael's analogy, would the centrists then be the gearshift? The gas and brakes may work just fine, but if the country, economy or whatever you want to refer to isn't in gear, we don't have any movement.

In fact, I got this sudden image of the brakes and gas being applied in equal measure... stasis!

Well, if you follow that argument to its logical extreme, people who lived in Germany in World War II were right to try and find at least some good in Hitler.

I do believe it is rare for all the good to be on one side. If by any chance almost all the good still seems on one side after you think very hard about it, yet the other side has a majority, it's important not to become shrill and insulting to everybody in that majority, but instead to think very hard why your side has failed to persuade people. We have all done something stupid at some time in our lives, perhaps because of peer pressure, so the idea that a majority is favoring something stupid out of groupthink is not automatically out of bounds - but talking loudly and angerly about how stupid they are is STILL stupid even if you have credible evidence they are behaving foolishly in this instance. And when everyone disagrees with you, you should look very hard for new ways to understand the arguments they keep repeating, just in case they're right.

" If the other party has no merit and causes nothing but trouble, everything would be solved if everyone became a Republican. Or a Democrat. Or whatever. And so democracy, from this point of view, is pointless and even dangerous."

No, this is silly. Parties have factions within fractions and competition for top spots. Democracy wouldn't be ponitless or dangerous. Aren't we currently in the midst of the perfect example of Totten's foolishness? Aren't the Democrats showing that even if there was only one party that democracy would still function perfectly well?

The reason to avoid the childish impulse to demonize your competitors is that they are your neighbors and after the election you have to live with them. You need them to function well in society for your own benefit as well as theirs. Even if there is segregation, a physical red/blue divide, you still have to trade with them and your daughter might elope with one of them. Some girls prefer bad boys.

What we should understand is that those who demonize their political oppponents are sociopaths, socially destructive individuals that need to spend a few months at charm school.

The dangers of excessive partisanship (to democracy) have been readily apparent for some time now. These are not especially new ideas.

What's interesting to look at is how, why, and where excessive partisanship is successfully manifesting itself, namely within popular culture, in many different increasingly sustainable subcultures. Combine a natural craving for simple undemanding solutions to complex problemswith a massive blurring of the distinction between news and entertainment. Then add the marketing discovery that the content generated by talking heads can be best sold when the audience is first made angry and then fed what they want to hear. Pop it in the oven and then remove when half-baked. Sean Hannity. Ralph Nader. Ann Coulter. Al Sharpton. Rush Limbaugh. Howard Dean.

The Pew Center recently reported that the numbers of people relying on network news is declining, and that concurrently people are choosing sources that provide an editorial slant that best matches their personal views. Who reads Fox _and_ CNN?

I like to get both sides of what's going on, and regularly read media from both sides (center-left newspaper and center-right blogs), as well as the Economist and business rags.

I also occasionally check out rags from further to the sides, though that can be annoying. It helps if one avoids articles even remotely related to leaders from the side opposite to what you're reading.

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