One striking feature of our current political system is that there are few if any public venues where it is permissible for public servants and/or party representatives to admit to policy mistakes and/or any wisdom from the other side, for fear that they will be set upon like wolves by their opponents and the sound bite jockeys than gin up discord, ratings, and thereby sell ads for their media channels. It would be far better if there were safe contexts in which this could be done. Maybe they could be treated like courtrooms, where cameras are excluded and only print if any journalists were admitted.
I listened to a phenomenal podcast this last week with Anthony Gonzalez, a Republican, former-NFL player who sits on the House Financial Services committee. Incredibly smart, hard-working guy. I agreed with so much of what he had to say, though I'm sure if we talked long enough I'd find something to disagree with -- probably I would put the accents in different places in the regulation of crypto, though I hear where he's coming from and it was awesome that he cited Clinton's attitude towards regulating the early internet as his precedent. He is one of the 10 Republican members of the House to vote to impeach Trump the second time (though not the first -- I disagree with him there). At any rate, it's tragic that people like him are being forced out of public service by the oath of fealty to Trump which is the shibboleth for Republicans these days.
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