‘Answered prayers,” Saint Teresa of Avila is supposed to have said, “cause more tears than those that go unanswered.” Especially, I fear, the answered prayers of political scientists.
These days, you hear academics and pundits bemoaning the hyperpartisanship of our politics. It has never been worse, some say.
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This shows a certain ignorance about history. Go back and read the things that John Adams’s and Thomas Jefferson’s partisans were saying about each other in 1800.
Or reflect on the fact that Aaron Burr, Jefferson’s first vice president, and Andrew Jackson, the first president to call himself a Democrat, both killed men in duels.
And when you go back in history searching for that golden moment when politicians of both parties spoke warmly of each other you find only some glimmers here and there.
Some eminent political scientists today argue that we would have less virulent partisanship if we entrusted the drawing of congressional and legislative districts to nonpartisan commissions.
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