The extremes

You can really get depressed reading articles about the upcoming national election.  Pedagogues and extremists are in style and everyone is competing to outdo everyone else in how far that they can push the national dialogue to the extreme edges of reason and good taste.  The most disturbing part is how much the public is eating it up.

Maybe it’s due to a change in perspective over the years or maybe the political environment has changed over time but I don’t believe that I have ever seen the politics of the nation as sharply divided as they are now.

I don’t see any spirit of cooperation or a genuine desire to do what’s best for the nation instead of finding advantage or benefit for the party or even just for single politicians.

Like I said it’s depressing.

The funny thing is that on the whole we need to have extremists out on the edges of the party.  You’ll never find new and innovative political thought in the center. Or at least not much.  It’s out on the extremes where new solutions or new approaches or new tacks are to be found that will solve problems that come up.  Usually we can derive great benefit from people along the edges as long as they’re controlled and their energies are channeled for the greater good.

Lately however there has been a dearth of leadership at the top of the large political parties and these extremists have taken the opportunity to seize power and to alter the trajectory of the political parties.  In true political fashion they have also taken care to keep themselves in power and in control.

So the longer that these extremists stay in power, the harder it will be to remove them.

I don’t hold out much hope for 2016.  I said previously that no new solutions or ideas can be found in the center.  For the most part this is true but one old idea may come back in vogue.  The idea of mutual cooperation and bipartisanship.  A rather old and not at all glamorous idea but I think if the old party leaderships want to oust the extremists that they will have to turn to each other and support each others bid to wrest power back from the new leadership.

Otherwise we will find ourselves in a gloomy future ruled by those that can spend enough money to get their candidates into power and by those that can yell the loudest.