"Whenever something big happens, we sprint immediately to the partisan barricades."

Photo credit.

Sifting through the social media bilge in search of shelter from the storm, I've come across three articles that stand out. Am I being partisan?

Probably. According to The Nation ...

The real reason we can’t have gun control is that "the paranoid right-wing fringe believes it needs guns to overthrow the government — and even so-called GOP moderates are pandering to them."

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship aren't mincing words.

The GOP on the Eve of Destruction, by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship (Moyers & Company)

... All of these sad examples are but symptoms of a deeper disease – the corruption and debasement of society, government and politics. It is a disease that eats away at the root and heart of what democracy is all about. Remember the opening phrase of the Preamble to the Constitution committing “We, the People” to the most remarkable compact of self-government ever – for the good of all? The Republicans are shredding that vision as they make a bonfire of the hopes that inspired it and, in the process, reduce the United States to a third-rate, sorry excuse for a nation.

Perhaps it's just exhaustion. From the City Journal.

MATTHEW HENNESSEY

American Exhaustion

We are having a political nervous breakdown.

... One thing is clear, however: politically, we are a paranoid-schizophrenic nation. Maybe it’s the fault of social media and cable news, or maybe we’re just wired to expect the worst from one another, but whenever something big happens, we sprint immediately to the partisan barricades. Unrelated events and phenomena seem part of a larger plot—launched and directed, of course, by the other guys. It feels—to borrow the title of Charles Murray’s 2012 book—as if we are coming apart at the political seams. Maybe not since Watergate has America been this mentally and emotionally exhausted.