Comment by zackmorris

Hey fair enough. For what it's worth, I agree with much of what you're saying as well.

Having grown up in a red state and having conservative leanings around self-reliance, even though at a national level I prefer some liberal bureaucracy to keep the system running, because that's beyond me. If the system worked as the founding fathers intended, we'd be able to rely on republican representation to take care of business for us so that we wouldn't have to be as personally involved democratically. The loss of that basic trust and civil discourse really irks me. Especially in recent years, as you said.

I don't have kids, but I have watched my more political friends on social media cool their jets a little since January 6, I think due to family pressure. It seems to be slowly dawning on them that the problems we're facing transcend politics. None of us want to leave future generations saddled with unplayable debts and environmental collapse. But sadly there's not much we can do about that in the short term. So we'll probably have to work through these wedge issues one by one and put it all on the table to reach some sort of consensus or compromise through political horse trading. And that's not a bad thing.

I keep writing and deleting this paragraph, so I think I'll just leave it at that. Thank you as well for responding in depth. I wish I could leave you with the last word, but didn't want to leave you hanging!