To my conservative friends...

Yeah. I hope for healing, as well.

It's not going to be easy. John Glenn declined to run for his Senate seat in 1998. In his autobiography, he says that one large reason was the rancor in the US political arena.

He said when he started in the Senate in 1975, the modus operendi was for members to argue vociferously and, sometimes, extremely heatedly across the aisle, and then retire to a local lounge/bar/social setting and shoot the breeze with one another. It was in this later, bi-partisan, low-key interaction that business was really done. Real friendships existed across the aisle.

By the time he left, there simply was no cross-aisle discourse of any kind, anywhere. He said that word from on high had come down to the Republican members that they were not to deal with the opposing party. Period. Party solidity and discipline was paramount. The rules changed, and the arguments on the floor turned into rancor 24/7.

It wasn't the way he wanted to do politics or live his life.

My point - this problem has been around for a while, and has been ingrained in the Congressional political process. Regardless of where it started, both parties are now unified only in their unwillingness to deal with one another. Or at least, so it seems to little demoralized me.

But I have hope ...