I generally come down 100% on the side of the liberals here, but I don’t really subscribe to the theory that All Republicans Always Sucked. One need only look at a state like Pennsylvania, where institutions like the State Game Lands and the public university system were faithfully protected by Democratic and Republican administrations alike.

Now the state is being run by an absolutely corrupt Republican governor who has gutted the DEP and the environmental oversight committees, passed a Voter ID bill and slashed the education budget with the aid of a pliant and newly gerrymandered State Legislature.

I think, there used to be a kind of humble Conservatism that looked at the world realistically - an admission that human beings screw up in all sorts of ways - but things could effectively be improved. I’m saying that as a romantic liberal… the reality did not meet the rhetoric but the sentiment was there. This is the phantom that people like Andrew Sullivan search for in this era of partisanship.

My grandfather was a Republican WWII veteran who believed in the United Nations, and he had faith that one day there could be a real, global peace. He was not alone.

God, what the hell happened.