Morality, Trust, Community, and the End of Attack Politics

Image Gallery image by Adam Niklewicz / www.illustratorusa.com

The following is part of a series of articles on reimagining politics beyond the pundits. For more, read Liberals Aren’t Un-American. Conservatives Aren’t Ignorant. , Not Everyone Is Out to Get You , and Daring to Accept Our Differences .

Remember the good old days? 

Our 44th president was sworn into office after a landslide victory triggered by disgust with the status quo and excitement for real change. A former community organizer and inspirational orator, he looked to have the stuff to heal a divided nation. Business as usual would no longer be an acceptable excuse for legislative gridlock. There would be no sacred cows, no ideas unworthy of consideration, no more of the tired bromides that have defined political discourse since Watergate.

Less than a year into his term, however, President Obama is being vilified on both sides of America’s media-saturated divide. Listen to the right’s verbal bomb throwers and you’d think the republic was on the verge of a top-down socialist revolution. Tune in to the left’s self-righteous blowbags and you’d get the sense Obama is already warming up for the third act of a Shakespearean tragedy, where absolute power can’t help but corrupt absolutely.

So is this the shelf life of hope? Eight months?