Democrats have long believed that there must be a Republican that can be compromised with in service of the nation. Republicans believe Democrats are suckers.

     We often hear Reinhold Niebuhr, the great theologian and philosopher quoted in support of democracy. In that quote he states that democracy is a proximate solution for insoluble problems. It should be noted here that Niebuhr was a "political realist". There once was a space for political realism in American politics, though I'm at a loss to define it. Politics today is highly polarized; split between the people who believe that there MUST be room for compromise and those who believe there is a "tyranny of relativism". The relativism that many of them fear is moral relativism, but they are solidly linked with groups who have little tolerance with political relativism.

     Isn't that political relativism the very description of Niebuhr's quote?

And while we're at it, isn't tyranny the result of absolutism, be it religious or political? What is it about these people that they cannot see through that dissonance? This tolerance of intolerance is a result of four decades of attacks by one party on the science of etymology, the usage of words. That is not the only science Republicans disregard but it is the science we are examining here. The hyperbole is often embarrassing when viewed by some of us. Tyranny of relativism is not the worst example of such hyperbole. Barack Obama was accused, on nearly the same day of being a "tyrant" for his use of  executive priveledge to sign into law Daca, and "feckless" for his attempts to find accomodation with some of our foreign antagonists. The latter policy openly practiced by President Trump (oh how I hate that combination of words) as he denigrates our longtime allies.Three-plus years into his presidency, Republicans have made no mention of tyranny in reference to Trump. There has been scant use of tyranny by Democrats in reference to Trump, though an argument could be made that we are not yet in the realm of tyranny,  many of us believe we have never been so close. This use of words in a nuanced way has been trained out of the Republican officeholder. If a Republican with political ambitions takes a conciliatory stance on any issue they will find themselves opposed in the primary by a candidate less inclined to accommodate. The Republican voter is most prevalent in states where education struggles for funding, or where educators are forced to teach "intelligent design" in the place of evolution. Where is the intelligence if you stop with your first design? Where is the design? It would seem to me that designing is an evolutionary concept, you don't just stop with your first design, and that requires a degree of intelligence to analyze your results. But what do I know of design, what do I know of God?

     Political realism is no longer possible when the concept of "real" can be so distorted.