As a quick recap of parts 1 and 2, American politics have been steadily polarizing for several decades now. With less and less overlap between the parties there is little incentive for bipartisanship either for party leaders or rank and file elected officials. Cooperative politicians will be labelled collaborators in…

It can feel good to hate individual politicians, but for the most part they’re acting in sensible ways given the incentives presented to them. Politics is Darwinian after all; if the political environment selected for bipartisanship and collegiality those outcomes would dominate. With strong incentives to keep their seats (being…

A number of smart people seem to agree that Trump is “the symptom not the cause”, but few have worked upstream from that premise to identify the underlying disease. The conclusions of those that have attempted to identify an underlying cause vary widely, and have noticeable tendency to confirm the…