I agree that it was a painfully slow fashion - it wasn't until the hearings this week, months after the election, that the Board was able to hear testimony. Why it took that long is beyond me - they refused to certify the election because of these concerns in November, so why are they finally getting around to making a decision in February?
I also agree about the two-party system we are stuck with right now, although the NC Board's decision to toss the election was bipartisan. If you look back to the 1990s and the rise of Newt Gingrich, you can see the real start of the severe tribalism we are dealing with today, where it's us vs. them and party before country.
Steve Kornacki, MSNBC's numbers geek, wrote an excellent book - "The Red and the Blue: The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism" - which details how all of this happened. It's one of the better political books I've read recently because it doesn't take a side - it's basically just "Here's what happened."
I look at the tribalism we have today and think it's only going to get worse. Both sides think that they have to win, no matter what the cost is to the country and our political system. For me, the tipping point was when Mitch McConnell absolutely refused to allow the Senate to even consider Merrick Garland for a seat on the SCOTUS - not because of his qualifications, but simply because he didn't want Obama to appoint a justice. That's what tribalism is - party before country, and Mitch McConnell is the poster boy for it. |
