There was a time when politics was called the art of the possible. Now it is the heart of the implausible, where each side insists theirs is the only right and possible way, and therefore the other side must yield.
Politic has become polemic, aided by news media unwilling or unable to wrack their own boat with questions that may offend their viewers and cost them rating points and thus advertising revenue dollars. Or they play to their audience demographic, echoing the perceived wisdom of the mass and thereby accelerating the move to a radical core of those who take the received message as reinforcement or background for their views, even as it is really just an echo.
Meanwhile, the workers in the journalistic vineyards who seek only the ripe fruit of truth are assailed for their efforts by those who want only their own grapes of wrath to be distilled into the toxic wine of radicalism.
Note to reporters and editors: When you are criticized by both sides, you know you've done your job.
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