What can we do?

It would seem so. Consider:

Founders

Today's wranglers

After much wrangling and mutual ill-feeling, political rivals come together. It started out badly. John Adams in particular feared that all might be lost in 1776 when he commented on the proceedings of the Continental Congress when its discourse proceeded.. "by noise, not sense, by meanness, not greatness, by ignorance, not learning, by contracted hearts, not large souls." He went on to conclude, "There must be decency, respect and veneration introduced for persons of authority of every rank or we are undone. In a popular government, this is our only way."

Our once-great governance system is now virtually paralyzed. Attack ads and name calling have become the orders of the day. Our inherent trait for dominance has had so little restraint in recent years, on both the individual and national scales, that we already may be beyond the tipping point. With national bankruptcy now seeming possible, we still persist and maybe even prefer dangerous paralysis to moving forward. Indeed, over the last two decades, Congress now sees fit to threaten a shut down of government. Indeed in one case it did just that. Individuals put now themselves ahead of public welfare. And corporations not only arm their leaders with golden parachutes, but by becoming too big to fail, they have now built a new system for controlling politicians beholden to them--and for the 99% of us, we see fit to bail them out. Meanwhile the military-industrial complex drives on to making the American empire ever more complete. How can they get away with it? Propaganda. It won the day for Hitler. It could happen here. "What is in it for me?" and the short view now reign supreme in our late democracy which is now too much like a plutocracy to avoid that definition and label. Things will get worse before they get better, barring an autocratic takeover by the monied.

To be sure, there are lights of reason on both sides of the aisle. John Roberts, in his gutsy vote with the Supreme Court liberals in tossing Obamacare back into the laps of Congress, joins our first black president, whose gutsy daring rid the world of Osama bin Laden in a minority of lights-of-reason in a dark window.

We deeply admire two kinds of people: Those who can break from dogma and follow the light of reason for all people and those who can overcome the adversities of racism and bigotry.