I do agree that the board could use some livening up, for sure... some will wonder if a political slugfest is the best way to do so, but I guess at least it's some kind of activity and better than none?

However, I do agree that the Republican choirs, while being traditionally heavy on dogma and light on pragmatism, seem to miss some important evolutions that really should be dealt with (of course, when some on the left do what they can to maintain the frenzy on the right because the extreme partisanship is ultimately in their favour, or at least for their amusement, as well, then they hardly have much credibility in complaining about it).

One important one would be what is described in this article, especially this sentence: "Measures of social mobility between generations, already lower than in much of Europe, have stagnated."

When the American dream is slowly but surely fading away and both sides are too busy with bickering over pet peeves and drawing lines in the sand to notice, then that's certainly a tragedy for America. (And for those who doubt the "already lower than in much of Europe", you may want to note that in Belgium, not normally a country you associate with boundless opportunities, we have a real "American dream" prime minister, who worked up his way up from a dirt poor Italian immigrant single-parent-household childhood, and is gay to boot...)