Character remains the issue that confronts us in almost every story about national politics today
Yes, many other forces and phenomena are in play: the crash of 2008; technologically driven changes to the economy; gerrymandering and sociological divisions between coast and heartland, urban and rural life; cultural clashes over the norms of marriage, drug use, and religious liberty; wars that have not gone well; the splintering of national media into vehement electronically bound communities of self-righteousness; the decay of the…