Stinky backroom deals were and often are questionable. But they let Democrats and Republicans trade policy crap they don't like out of sight for things that people agree on. With a camera on everything, the internet of forever, forgiveness being passe, and the stupidest active voters winnowing everything through primaries - zealots too dumb for the strength of bending wield outsized capacity to do harm.
This makes me think about something else. As contemporaneous example...
Mitt Romney's lurker Twitter handle... "Pierre Delecto" was just outed by Slate reporter Ashley Feinberg. He was using it to share his more candid (honest) opinions about Trump... So oopsie-poopsie, I guess that's the end of that.
Since we are now in an era where you can't do as much privately because everything is recorded, everything is public, the old era of being able to free-wheel at backroom deals (compromises) is over. The era of being able to maintain a squeaky clean, idealized public image, and be a... dare I say role-model, or moral leader... yeah that's done. But what's missing, or at least where voters/the public is lagging behind, is that we are still applying that idealized standard of what politicians are supposed to live up to... as if we haven't learned yet that its a farce and always was. All our most beloved politicians and leaders through history were just as much of degenerate scumbags as the ones we have now...
we just didn't know about it.
What needs to happen... and what I think will eventually happen, and maybe already is happening... is that voters will start realizing that you've just got to let some stuff slide, because otherwise no one is going to be fit for office... except the kind of lifelong ambitious souless ruthless ladder-climbers whose every move and statement and phot since birth is carefully controlled and crafted by a team of folks (including their parents), to make sure they are "fit" for office, with no blemishes whatsoever in their past. Is that who we want for elected office? People who have been groomed to be empty suits from birth? A veritable ruler-caste? I don't think so. Part of why folks rejected Hillary was exactly this complaint about her. So the alternative, is that we have to desensitize to dirt in a politician's past. Because we're going to hear about it... all of it... and you have to be prepared to handwave generously if you don't want to be constantly let down when the imperfections are exposed.
So... just thinking out loud again... but maybe Trump's supporters are actually
ahead of the curve, in the sense that they have the brass cojones to just mentally muscle through all the negative media their guy gets, recognizing that in this day and age, every single lie, cheat, steal, kill... every nasty thing you say and do is going to be exposed, so at some point you just have to acknowledge that nobody's perfect, and most people are scum in one way or another, so pick your side, stick to your guns and ignore the bad.
