Can the Center Hold?
Where people are getting their information and the lack of civics education in this country is a crisis in our democracy
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Partisanship has been a hallmark of American democracy since the Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians first squared off. But many political thought leaders have begun to worry that this period — with partisans gravitating toward distant poles and the energy of each party coming from their extreme wings — is different. Especially in Congress, where compromise has become a dirty word, the ability to govern on a basic level is in question. Yet a wide majority of Americans hold views that put them somewhere in a broad political center. How did we get here? What would it take to make our politics reflect us more accurately? Underwritten by the Walton Family Foundation.
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